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

It's certainly the case that by the time I retired from teaching (secondary) I saw more and more obviously obese teenagers in classes.

Of course, sizing has changed as well. I still have a UK size 14 dress in my wardrobe, purchased in 1977. Nowadays, it would be deemed a size 12, I think.

I recall having my waist measured for a school skirt. 26 inches, and that was a size 14 in 1974.

Now that I'm retired, I go to the gym most weekdays and I am seeing bigger teenage boys going there to work out. (Also some bigger women and men.) I'd say that there's a great deal of positivity at the gym - all body types are working on fitness goals. Most of us oldies are there in an attempt to stay mobile.

Loving the judgrment on this thread. Any excuse to call a parent a shit parent.

Why do you think there are more overweight kids?

I think I might have seen the same programme. What struck me was that the mum genuinely couldn’t understand how her child could be obese if he was eating ‘healthy’ food. She was giving him Weetabix and strawberries and not junk food so she could not make the link at all.

This is why I struggle with the body positivity movement. Human beings are more than their body and women in particular are judged on their looks from birth pretty much. But, overweight children - obese children- are an issue in the UK and it does no one any favours to pretend it’s ok.

What a nasty fucking thread. Have fun

In what way is it nasty? Explain.

I think a lot of people are incredibly sedentary. Children need, and are capable of doing, a vast amount of exercise.

It’s always people in a very privileged blinkered position who do the tilty headed ‘it’s actually cheaper to eat healthy food’ when they’ve never had to be in the position to keep everyone fed with some oven chips or keep everyone full for ten minutes with a bag of apples

So, I can see where this is a problem. Parents feed their kids shit food cos it's easier. But the fact that there are so many obese people in the UK must be a worry. They are feeding them shit food all the time, not just now and again.

That's certainly part of the problem. Children don't seem to be as active nowadays.

I'd say that it's always been a bit harder for girls. I recall at secondary school (in the '70s) we had a girls' playground we couldn't use because the boys had taken it over for football. We complained to staff, to no avail.

Cost of living.

There may be someone out there doing it on purpose but I doubt many. It is laziness and neglect in the situations you refer to as far as I am concerned.

Not sure about that. Wouldn't it be cheaper to make 2 or 3 meals a day with limited snacks rather than snacks all day?

I don’t think parents actually feed their children smacks all day. Huge over dramatisation

I was just thinking this... cant think of a single one at DCs nursery and dont recall noticing it in any under 4s we tend to see at various places

Well if it's not that they are feeding their kids too much, what is it?

Cost of living. As I said.

Do you honestly think there are no shit parents?

I’m sorry but if you have an obese child (with no medical conditions) then yes you’re a shit parent. There’s no need. Do something about it, you’re literally shortening their life.

I don't understand. How can col mean that your kids overeat?

This argument doesn’t work. Oven chips are not going to cause obesity nor is eating pizza and chicken nuggets. It’s OVEREATING that’s is causing obesity. Calories are calories whether they come from chips or apples.

You never , ever see a fat child with slim parents. If a child is fat then the whole family, including granny and grandad will be fat .

Tbf I know some fat kids with skinny mothers. They’re the instagram type of mother who focuses solely on herself and her looks whilst giving little Johnny a share bag of crisps and an iPad to shut him up.

There are some who do this - a tiny minority.

The school where I worked latterly had a free breakfast club. We'd have some kids who didn't use the breakfast club, but would walk to school whilst eating a pie from the baker's as their breakfast, together with a fizzy drink.

I am aware that there were issues with (usually) mothers living in temporary accommodation where they didn't have proper cooking facilities, but that wasn't the case with those I mentioned above.