fathausen by proxy?

[Jugjug]

I’ll preface by saying I don’t judge people with overweight children in the street because I don’t know their story or if the child has health conditions or has to take medication which causes weight gain.
I also don’t judge people who give their kids the occasional treat obviously.
I also don’t judge people with overweight older children/teenagers because I remember being that age and inhaling sweets my friends brought to school.

Now thats been said I know a few parents with visibly morbidly obese toddlers and the parents make no effort to sort it out and hand them family size bags of sweets as a snack!
Surely there must be something psychologically deeper going on here munchausens maybe? I just don’t get it

When I was 4, I was morbidly obese. My mum had had a couple of bad miscarriages after having me and was using sweets to keep me quiet, I think.

Also, my dad had starved during the war and kept feeding me up.

Years later, I found out that a female orthopaedic specialist had been aghast when she saw me for the first time. She basically tore my mum a new arsehole...

Mum told me that she'd burst into tears and had said "But I thought it was just puppy fat?"

"There's no such thing as puppy fat!"

I was put on a diet - nothing strict...just had to cut out sweets, etc, and natural growth took care of the rest, at least while I was at school. However, I've struggled with my weight all my life.

I'm now 65. I was 16st 4lbs. (5ft 9.) It's taken me two years of exercise, etc to lose 30 pounds. I'm now out of the obese BMI category and into the NHS 'overweight' category (just 'obese' under a kinder name, I'd say).

I'm aiming to lose the same again to get into the normal range for my height.

We were at a family jousting display and the family next to us dug down into the shopping trolley they had brought and gave the 3 kids large family bags of Doritos each!

These were followed by cakes and large bottles of Coke. My grandchildren were aghast ( and envious). I felt sorry for the children as what a poor start in life they have.

I remember that documentary too! The child was walking home from school quite happily and the mum would ask him if he wanted the wheelchair. She could see there was a problem but didn't associate it with her actions which, as far as she was concerned, were acts of love.

However, I also think parents DON'T usually see the problem. They are under-estimating their child's size. I think, when you look at your child every day you are actually less likely to notice how much they're growing. They're only a tiny bit bigger than yesterday, after all.

Children who are overfed get taller faster so the parent thinks the child is taller and therefore heavier, not that they are growing taller because they're overweight (so actually, a lack of education plays a part)
You hear it all the time when the Reception year health check rolls around. "I got a letter saying my child is obese! They're not! They eat really well and I only serve healthy food. They're just so tall!"
Obviously, there are the few children who are really sporty and more muscly than their peers but usually parents can't (or won't) see the problem which is not usually what the child is eating (everything in moderation and all that) but rather how much.

From my own experience, I think my gran couldn't cope with me. I was too much work for her with her job, looking after the home etc, so she used to give me access to whatever sweets and chocolate I wanted. Just for a quiet life. I don't judge her one but, although it had a bad effect on me for many years. So I think it can be for a number of reasons.

Some of it is lack of exercise - I live near a primary school and watch obese parents dropping off obese kids. Walking is alien to them.

Plus too much junk food. 🤷‍♀️

There was a tv show on a few years ago about obese children and a consultant made the comment that your rarely see obese children with skinny parents and in my experience this is true

Ah, more fat hatred dressed up as a concern troll with a good side of ableism.

Hatred where? Why would I hate an innocent 3 year old? Not their fault their parents over feed them to the point of obesity.

do you feel personally attacked or something

Our old neighbours had DC the same age as ours (at the time 2 and 5) and both were 100% morbidly obese, the little 2 year old girl could hardly walk she was so big. The parents were also both huge and there was non stop take away being delivered.

One of my DC’s friends younger siblings (around 18 months at the time) was given a massive share bag of chocolate buttons whenever he had to wait on the older sibling to do his Karate class. This was 7pm at night and he would sit quietly and munch through them, all family members were on the larger side.

Well, I've told my own story upthread. I certainly don't feel attacked.

The doctor who gave my mum short shrift probably spared me from significant health problems. (BTW, my parents were slim.)

It’s become one of those issues you can’t talk about without people getting offended.
Theres clearly been a big shift since I was at primary in the early 80s and we won’t tackle it without discussion.

I see this daily as primary children walk to school. They’re having this crap for bloody breakfast!

It's child abuse.

Behind nearly every overweight primary school child is a fat parent.

There is a morbidly obese mum at the local primary school and both her kids (Y1 and age 3) are very overweight. On the short walk home from school every day she hands them a full size mars bar to eat or similar!!! It's shocking.

It might also be helpful to think about the numbers of children living in poverty and the price of shit UPFs compared to fresh produce. And the prevalence of multi pack deals on junk food rather than on healthy items. And convenience when households have two working parents (working multiple
jobs) rather one at home cooking and baking all day. There are so many factors at play. It’s not just a case of hand them a bag of carrots instead.

Granted, but for two large bags of Doritos and two bottles of Coke every day for breakfast, bought at the corner shop, you could get change from a loaf, a spready topper, milk, cereal and a bunch of bananas.

That’s fair enough but the people I know, I know they can afford to buy normal food. In fact all the sweets cookies and cakes are just snacks alongside the meals, dropping the entire share bag of sweets or even just letting them have half would probably go a long way.

Theres got to be more going on these toddlers are absolutely massive you’d have to be blind not to see it and they continue to hand them family share bag size packs of haribos

So basically, you’re ok with people with fat children as long as they follow some moral code you’ve set down, because you don’t know their story, but you judge people with fat children if they don’t follow your code, even though you don’t know their story either?

Maybe the answer to your question is that you should just stop judging people.

I work in a shop and I know a few morbidly obese toddlers. The get pushed in a pram, and their parents give them cans of fizzy drink and family size bags of sweets and crisps. They Buy them pizza, fishfingers and so on for their tea and proudly announce isn’t it great to see a child with such a healthy appetite.
There are also parents on tik tok who feed their autistic over weight child whatever they want saying I’m just glad he’s eating something.

Massive misconception.

By far the cheapest is cooking basic meals from scratch. Way cheaper than UPFs. Bolognaise. Tomato based pasta sauce. You can cook a fab meal for about £3 that will feed 6 to 8 portions.

It's people too lazy to cook or don't know how to cook.

Had to pre face before the thread got over run by “what ifs” which would be fair enough because there are certain medications that cause weight gain. And i am talking about toddlers because I get you can’t micromanage an older kids diet.

but yeah the people I personally know (even lived with one) with obese toddlers who I know over feed them sweets and chocolates, I will continue to judge and judge hard tbh. These kids can’t even play with other kids because they get out of breath so quick.

I really hate it when this is trotted out to justify the rising obesity in children. We went on holiday abroad in the summer, lots of the British children around the pool were huge, as were the parents. If you can afford a holiday costing thousands you can buy some fruit.

You are saying fat people shouldn't exist. So yeah, I feel personally attacked.

I don't think they're saying that. They're pointing out that obesity is life threatening and shouldn't be foisted on children.

Those of us who have become fat as adults have made our own choice.

I remember that too. I wonder what happened the child.

I find this interesting because I genuinely can't get my toddler to eat. She LOVES chocolate and I can get her to have some - but even that she'll gorge a chocolate and then leave the rest.

There must be something different about these obese toddlers because I couldn't make my toddler overweight even if I really really wanted to.