Childhood obesity

[Unopenedpackofmenssocks]

New report lists 9 areas of England where the majority of children will be overweight or obese by 2035.

It’s got me thinking about what causes childhood obesity. I have an 8 year-old who doesn’t like football, can’t ride a bike, never took to his scooter. spends a lot of time on a screen at home. Has does run about at school playtime and PE lessons and he likes climbing so goes to a class once a week for an hour.

He has an incredibly sweet tooth. I don’t allow unlimited desserts/sweets but I know for a fact we are much more liberal than many of his friends’ parents. The only things we are strict on are no fizzy drinks, Haribo type sweets maybe once a week, and no sugary cereal.

But he has something chocolate after every dinner and also when he gets in from school. Breakfast is a toasted fruit tea cake dripping in butter. He steals honey and Nutella from the cupboard when he thinks we aren’t looking.

We drive to school. We don’t go on family walks and our favourite joint family activity is watching Saturday night TV together. Our garden only has a small patch of lawn 2mx 4m and he has no siblings so doesn’t naturally run about playing at home.

He eats limited vegetables and his favourite foods are nuggets and pizza. He eats pasta with tomato sauce and cheese every single day at school lunch, won’t touch anything else. He has never eaten large portions though. We have no issue with McDonalds/fast food in general but he’s not a huge fan, maybe eat it once a month. Subway usually.

He is very slim and his teeth have no decay (was last at dentist 2 weeks ago).

My husband and I are both overweight BMI, on the brink of obese, but we were both naturally slim as kids too. I imagine it will catch up with our son when he is an adult, or maybe even sooner. (We all need to make changes and will work on that).

What we most definitely are is financially and socially privileged.

My question is this - these areas where obesity is running rampant are low-income and socially deprived. So what are the other factors caused by social/economic deprivation that mean these kids are obese but mine is not? Or are we literally just a very lucky exception?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/23/majority-children-overweight-obese-nine-areas-england-by-2035-study?CMP=ShareiOSAppOther

It'll be the amount eaten and also genetics.
Being slim doesn't mean being healthy.

I know this isn’t the point of your post, but two obese kids I knew both turned out to have ADHD. They lack impulse control apparently.

Childhood obesity is usually blamed on the poor people due to lack of education and money to buy “proper food” not all poor people are uneducated. Plenty of middle class people who are obese. I also disagree that healthy food is expensive. Fruit and veg is cheap and you can get meat such as chicken and beef which isn’t going to cost you loads. Plenty of poor people coped before our generation, made homemade hearty meals and weren’t fat. I agree that it’s lack of exercise and movement that is also causing issues. Driving ten mins for the school run or shop is lazy. Not many people are active these days. UPF and fast food are another issue. We have become to reliant on them. Yes we can treats but that means once a week not after every meal.

It’s not just about the size of someone, poor diet and/or lack of exercise will be doing mountains of damage, cancers, other illnesses and diseases far more likely- are you happy with that for your own child? You seem to be, with how you talk about it op. So much value on his education which will help him in absolutely no way at all if his body and brain doesn’t or can’t work properly due to poor fuelling.
he’s not any healthier than a fat kid, and you’re to blame.

But he has something chocolate after every dinner and also when he gets in from school.

That's ridiculous.

I’m a single parent, was morbidly obese, have since lost a lot of weight on Mounjaro, but I have struggled with weight & eating disorders my entire life. I have always tried very hard not to categorise food as good or bad because of this - my DS is naturally slim like father. And he eats so much food both good and bad! He’s 15, now starting to fill out / broaden a wee bit with puberty but still very slim.

For context, my family has become quite sporty, we eat well, and we all have a healthy BMI.

I think we've allowed modern infrastructure to ruin our health.

The best exercise for your health is incidental (ie walking / riding to school / work ) but we've made that almost impossible.

We allow food companies to spend billions of dollars on poorly regulated advertising (in order to increase purchases) but expect individuals to make good choices.

We have allowed housing to become unaffordable, and then wonder why people are too busy working to have time to exercise or cook.

People have a real uphill battle these days.

You're failing your son here. You need to make changes as he could have a lifetime of damaged due to this.

My dc have ADHD and are underweight. Pediatricians gave up on it because it became obvious they just don't want to hang around to eat. They'll eat two mouthfuls and want to leave the table. We have some success if they are allowed to stand at the table. I can't understand it as I love food!

A huge problem is that people think children can only eat rubbish. People routinely feed children nuggets, waffles, fish fingers abd pizza. They assume children won't eat salmon, spaghetti, stir fry etc.

Children don't get exposed to enough tastes and texture early on so become fussy.

Pub menus are awful. Its the "and chips" menu for children.

Screens are hugely overused.

A lot of adults are inactive, so they bring their children up inactive. They think the only way to exercise is to enroll them in football or something rather than walking, gardening etc.

Maybe try and find him a hobby such as a club? My boy was getting the same way so last September we got him in to Karate. He really likes it and its helping with his weight. Its a good way for them to meet other kids too.

To answer your question, OP, you say The only things we are strict on are no fizzy drinks,
I think this might be why your child is slim. I think in areas of deprivation kids consume a lot of fizzy drinks and sweetened drinks and from a very early age.

I think lots of people have lost sight of what is a reasonable amount of food. I work in a school and many children now have a lunchbox full of ‘healthy’ snacks for break time (I.e. cheese strings, sugary Frubes, a biscuit, fruit, pretzels) and they sit and graze on it all break, barely moving. They then have lunch an hour and a half later (and the provided school dinners at my school would make Jamie Oliver weep), followed by a parent waiting with a snack at the gates at home time. Some parents seem scared to let their child get hungry.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve noticed that children definitely seem more obsessed with snacks and extra food than they were when I started teaching 15 years ago. They talk a lot about the treat and snack foods they’re having/had at the weekend, with almost an obsession. I’m always slightly surprised by what the children say they’ve had (I.e. We had a movie night on Friday and as a treat we had popcorn and Pringles and Malteasers AND Ben and Jerry’s).

This. It really isn't hard to feed your child a decent diet. I'm a single mum on a budget. Told by hosp to aim to eat 30 fruit & veg a week.

My ds has wholemeal toast with butter, and fruit for breakfast. Tangerines, apples, pineapple, plums, nectarines are all inexpensive at the moment. A different fruit each morning.

School lunch. Supper last night was peppers stuffed with sausage meat, wholemeal garlic bread and peas. DS had three chocolate digestives and a nectarine for afters.

Total food prep time, about 15 minutes. Cost for DS' day's food, about £3.10 plus school lunch.

Fruit & veg in a day - pineapple, whole wheat, peppers, peas, nectarine plus whatever he had at school.

You can drain the fat from the 20% beef.

The problem with most of these obese kids is they're having utter junk and too much if it, take away pizzas, kebabs, UPF in excess. Etc

Why does he gets chocolate after school and after dinner? Tell him to choose, one or the other.

You need to look at portion sizes and amount of food consumed. Yes genetics can play a part, but the majority of people (adults and kids) who are over weight are so because they eat too much food. You can still get fat from over eating healthy food. You could make a lot of simple changes for your child, less screen time for a start would benefit him in more ways than one. Look at some activities the whole family can do together. He doesn’t need 2 chocolate items every day. Eating habits are formed in childhood.

And also, why are you letting him.on screen "a lot of the time". No wonder he doesn't do much activity. Screens are addictive and replace creativity and physical activity..

You should be limiting the screen time...an taking him out on walks, to the playground, to the woods, sprinkler parks, rivers, race tracks, skate parks, swimming etc he clearly can and does run around at school, so I'm sure you can find something he likes.

We have a small garden too, DD has a small trampoline in there which she uses.

You're just very lucky that he isnt yet fat, its probably just by virtue of his biology/make up, all the things you list are usually akin to people in lower socio economic groups, the dietary intake, the lack of movement, the isolation, so you're living that life anyway. And just like lots of people in those groups, their children are not yet fat but are likely to be over time.

Ticking time bomb (as my own doctor did say)

It is broadly speaking, high consumption of ultra processed food. It’s addictive, calorie dense and nutritionally poor. I personally think this is the crux of the issue. We’ve dropped most UPF from our household - make healthy bread and eat oats or low processed cereal, and avoid more processed versions of the foods the kids prefer. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still (to my frustration but kids are fussy) a sausages and chicken nuggets household but we’re able to buy organic versions without additives. It’s not cheap though.

Activity helps too. We walk to school and back, walk at weekends at the park, in the countryside and to the local high street and we encourage physical play. We do weekly activities such as swimming and dance, and the kids will likely pick up a sport as they get older - netball or rugby - we tried them both with football but neither were keen. Summer holiday they do sports camps.

Genes also play a part. My husband is super slim and all his family are.My DD is his build. My parents are both obese in their late 60s/early 70s. I had quite a few obese relatives growing up (working class poor) so I’m very focused on a healthy lifestyle as I am convinced that almost all their health niggles would be gone if they just lost weight.

My son struggles with food, he is Autistic and has some learning needs, he does not seem to have an off switch when it comes to food and struggles to recognise when he’s full, it can be very difficult to manage and you do have to keep a close eye.

He doesn’t like a lot of activities either, we’ve tried football, athletics, basketball, even just going the park! But he still struggles. Probably because of the social aspect.

I’ve bought him scooters and bikes just for them to not be touched.

it can be incredibly difficult and complex. All too often people are quick to judge though.

It's hard to eat healthily on a budget

Aaaaaah !! No it isn't.

Supper tonight in our house is boned chicken legs, pan fried with garlic and lemon. brown rice and broccoli. Less than £1 a serving.

Then baked apples with crème fraiche, another 30p

This! It’s the fizzy drinks along with a mostly UPF diet that really add up.

Not sure what the Op thinks is different about her son compared to other kids. All DC have ‘a sweet tooth’, would eat chocolate before and after meals, and would choose nuggets and pizza over vegetables if you let them. But you’re the adult. He’s not the one doing the shopping or cooking.

Deprived areas are less likely to have nice outdoor spaces, more likely to have parents working long hours in physically demanding jobs and thus reliant on convenience foods, more likely to have poorly educated people who don't understand nutrition properly or how to cook healthy filling meals. Deprived children are less likely to take part in sports and activities, to have expensive sports equipment and families who are interested and motivated to do sports.

You're setting your son up. Your refusal to do things like go for walks is sowing the seed for your kid. You're bordering on obese because of your lifestyle and the choices you're making, and you're passing that same lifestyle on to your son.