Obese children

[Scarfitwere]

I notice so many obese (primary age) children around these days, it was very apparent at my childrens' sports day and these poor kids could barely do the races. One sat on the side as they were too large to participate at all. I understand overweight adults and it's hard to lose weight etc, but these are young children, their parents control their food intake. Why are so many parents letting their kids get like this? Its setting them up for bullying, not being able to join in sports etc, and health problems. I just don't get it AIBU?

It's true in my case.

My mum can't swim
I can't swim
My son can't swim

Though with my son, he is physically disabled. It may be possible for him to learn how to swim eventually, he currently does hydrotherapy and of course, swimming lessons for disabled children tends to be even more expensive but we should be able to manage with his DLA if we get to that point.

I used to be smug about this, before my youngest piled on weight and became obese, with no apparent reason. My 3 other children are slim, we eat home cooked, healthy food and are an active family. But my youngest is obese. It’s fucking awful. Desperately trying to get him to shift some weight without giving him food issues. We’re now going down the medical route to see if there’s a medical reason as to why he’s overweight because nothing we do seems to make any difference.

Tesco 15% 500g beef mince is £4.35 (I'd prefer 5% at 4.99)
pepper 69p
onion 21p
courgette 44p
carrot 11p
mushrooms 60p
passata/pasta sauce 50-70p
spaghetti 28p

7.38 for a bog standard cheap sauce and spaghetti spag bol. possibly a bit cheaper if you get 20% fat beef mince.

Always the same crap rolled out, big boned, stocky, sturdy, has my genes, puppy fat, solid, muscly, heavy set.... parents are blind, in denial and deluded. Kids are not meant to be fat unless there is a medical reason.

Yes agree on the generalisation

I can't swim either but that was due to ear issues as a child and then had to stop adult lessons due to covid. Now living rurally and nothing in a 30 mile radius has adult lessons on my none working days. However both of my kids are in lessons at 6 & 4 it was none negotiable for us.

Unpopular opinion but I think letting your (young) child get obese purely by what the parents are feeding them etc is child abuse / neglect.

purposly setting them up for health issues, a shorter life and being bullied. Even if the parents are fat themselves and no genetics or conditions are the cause. If it's solely on diet alone I think it's lazy and neglectful.

You said it was hard to hear he was overweight and you were sure he wasn't, but you also said the letter actually stated he was in the healthy weight range? I'm struggling to understand what's so upsetting about this. They were simply warning you that the was at the top of the healthy range and shouldn't go any higher, which it sounds like he didn't. Better than waiting until there's a real problem, surely.

Very different situation, but this reminded me of my DC's stance upon our DC.
DC are KS2 age and tall, with thin/slender builds. They are very active/sporty and have mainly quite decent home cooked meals.
My ex is always commenting on their weight to me and saying they need 'feeding up'. So, when they're with him, he gives them heaped plates and a lot of snacks (junk).
I think it's hard for him to accept - because he doesn't see them on a daily basis - that they're not half-starved, but very hyperactive girls (both have ADHD), who don't stop moving. 😅

I hate thatcher. I’m just saying, bitching about children is a bit shite

No overweight or obese kids in my daughters class. Apparently this county has a low obesity level. It's a fairly middle class area.

I would like to see more sport on the curriculum and not just team sports, any kind of fitness activity would help. I think kids sit for too long in class. They are designed to move, why don't we help them to do so in school?

More focus on healthy eating too. I'd like proper cookery lessons from primary age, not just cakes, biscuits etc.. one can dream 😏

I see a lot of obese children in our area, I’m talking about huge bellies and they are panting when they try to run. The ones that I know eat a lot of processed food. Every day afterschool they get a soda, crisps and sweets as an afterschool snack and usually chicken nuggets and chips for dinner. It’s sad and it makes me angry at the parents.

Because most are sat on their arses watching iPads and eating crap.

I noticed it when my children were in school.
I looked back to over 40 years ago when I was in school and the 'fat kid' was nowhere near the size of what is considered normal these days.

It's consumerism, cheap food...

Without sounding like a dinosaur - we had 3 meals a day. A breakfast covered in sugar or containing sugar... It didn't matter because that's all that was fuelling you until school lunch time. A packed lunch of primula spread sandwiches, cheap crisps, cheap bar of chocolate and squash in a refillable bottle (more shit). Dinner - home cooked chips in the chip pan, sliced white bread and butter, probably some awful processed meat and processed peas.

UPF heaven.

Nobody was overweight. Pudding was fruit. It was an unwritten rule that if you took any crisps or chocolate that were destined for packed lunch then there'd be hell. If you were hungry, it was toast and marg, or an apple.

I don't think people let themselves get hungry these days.
My stomach would be growling from 10am, but I had to wait until 12. Again growling but had to wait until 5pm. I do remember thinking a while back that it doesn't happen any more because there's always a snack.

We didn't have a microwave either so chip pan or not it was real peeled potatoes etc...

I don't know where I'm going with this...

Oh yeah, so the obese kid at school was probably half the size of normal now.

I struggle to see how it’s even possible to make a child fat based on the amount mine puts away as there’s nothing on him! But he is v active (two hours in the park after school today and does a lot of football etc) so I think that is probably key

Well, in my case my daughter has autism, which causes us two issues. 1) she never feels full, autism can affect the same part of the brain that registers saity. 2) she engages in sensory-seeking behaviour through food. She is constantly trying to help herself to food from the fridge or cupboards. If anyone else in the family leaves any dinner, we have to clear the plates away immediately or she's eating leftovers. She is constantly looking for opportunities to eat. It's exhausting and very hard to police. She's 10. And she's very overweight. I have another DD who is 3 years younger and hasn't got an ounce of fat on her. I know that when we're out people like you are judging me, OP. But, honestly, I don't give a shit what you think of me or my child. I just wish I was able to challenge people like you in person.

Fat parents create fat children. If everyone around you is fat you can't see it anymore.

I have 4 children. 3 a very normal weight, 1 obese. He’s disabled. It’s horrible feeling judged.

Some people have an odd idea about portion sizes with kids. One of my friends is very strict about treat food. Her kids aren’t allowed sweets at all, even haribo given in party bags is confiscated. Despite this, they are getting chubby and her 6 year old is probably technically overweight now. It doesn’t surprise me - they are given adult portions of food every meal and have to finish all of it. Yet they are not allowed a tiny bag of haribo!

And denial is definitely a thing. There is a popular mum influencer who made a reel on instagram recently all about body positivity, how she doesn’t want them to be influenced into being skinny like she was, which would be lovely if her primary aged daughters were not clearly very overweight and wearing clothes that are simply too small for them.

I said this on another thread recently but I really think families with overweight children should be overseen medically. Firstly to make sure there is nothing odd going on (as people have mentioned on this thread, there can be valid medical issues) but otherwise referrals to dieticians whilst the children are still in primary school.

For the first time in my 21 year career as a paediatric nurse. We had to have a bariatric bed for a paediatric patient. He was over the weight limit for the chairs and commode. It was actually quite sad. I think mum had absolutely no control over him, and he’d get takeaways/ just eat crap.

In my primary school 50 years ago with 90 pupils per school year there was one or none obese DC per year.

I completely agree.

You are a good parent, really good. Parenting is hard but you’re doing everything you can for your child. Your kid will be ok. You’re a really good parent.

This is what I am seeing as well, especially among very young kids. I know three cases of children who are overweight and not even 5, and all of them have at least 1 parent who is obese and another one is overweight. Kids do some sports so they are not totally sedentary, but whole family's diet is just horrendous. What makes it worse is that all of them have well educated parents (I am talking about Oxford post grad degrees) who work in jobs requiring high numeracy and analytical skills, so lack of education is not a explanation here.

@Bundleflower it very much depends. I don't think they are obese by any means but we have some very clearly overweight children throughout DC's school. Some of them are siblings where both parents are very overweight obese.

I see plenty of obese/very overweight children when I go back to the northern city where I am from.

Yes @Epli I think there is such a lack of knowledge around calorie intake and a lack of paying attention to labels on food. It is so so easy to very innocuously be way, way over your your TDE Expenditure if you eat out / get a take away even a 'high quality' one a couple of times a week and don't make your own lunch. Even if you do food manufacturers put so much unnecessary oil and sugar in a lot of what are probably classed as staple foods that again it is so easy to be in a calorie excess.