To think some people on here make too many excuses for parents feeding their kids unhealthy food to the point they become overweight or even obese?

[Giselle374]

I know a lot people are in really difficult situations financially, and the country overall has become harder and harder due to COL.

But I feel uneasy with the way some posts on this seem to imply that being in a hard financial position means unhealthy food almost can't be avoided.

People usually choose to have children, and food is a basic thing. If you didn't wash your child, or clothe them as best as you could, would that be similarly excusable? Arguably food is more important than many other potential areas since cancer and other illnesses are a very real danger if kids are overweight or obese young.

My mother had financial difficulties when I was young: she was a single parent and on minimum wage, and she hated cooking, ate very badly before I was born. But she ensured her meals (porridge, fish, eggs, veg based mostly) were healthy even if they were plain. I was barely ever allowed sugary or processed food. That's one of the things I'm most grateful for.

I do understand families in a depressing situation with few things for the kids to enjoy use food as something enjoyable sometimes
..areas need more resources, green space, libraries etc .

This isn't to deny the challenges of feeding kids healthily. But I think some posts on here lean too far to taking responsibility from the parents,,and I don't think that's helpful.

Btw, unless there’s a specific medical reason kids don’t need snacks, can eat the same as their parents and certainly don’t need food at the school gates

I don’t think anyone is saying children should be forced to eat food they don’t find palatable? It’s not the case that healthy food = unpalatable.

It's a real blind spot, especially in the UK. The thing is it takes 1 generation of this to destroy the knowledge of nutrition and real food, which has already happened (only takes 1 generation to fix it too but I digress.) My point is that many of us were raised eating junk and therefore think it's acceptable, it isn't but then you have to accept that your parents did this to you and that's very, very hard. It's much kinder to our worldviews to pretend it's not actually bad.

I'd like to add that this leads to adults and children being unable to truly see that the crap they are eating isn't proper food, they don't question it, they think their parents gave them that so it's fine.

My kids are always starving after school. I give them an apple or a banana. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I really hate this. When I was a child, I was only fed freezer food—nuggets, pizza, waffles, pies. The only vegetables I ever had were the occasional peas and the odd tin of beans.
As soon as I had my own kids, I made it my mission to learn how to cook. I pushed myself to try and eat a wide variety of foods so I could make sure my children were eating healthy meals every single day.
Sadly, it’s the opposite for my nieces and nephews—they’re fed junk all day, every day. My youngest nephew would scream whenever you drove past McDonald’s or Greggs by the time he was one, because he was so used to going there every day.

It’s an also lack of exercise. Many kids are planted in front of screens etc instead of being out playing. Fewer children walk to and from school than before.

Less physical exercise in schools.

Plus takeaways and junk food, of course.

It all adds up for children and adults.

Is it okay to become obese when you’re eating healthy food? Calories are calories.
Some people just love food, regardless of the type and over eat.
My two children have totally different metabolism levels and interest in food, DD is very slim, DS is chunky, DD will leave half her dinner, DS will ask for seconds, he talks about food, dreams about food, loves food. He is going to be over 6ft and more than likely obese as an adult. There is something different with his brain, he might be a bodybuilder, who knows.

Knowing the statistics for childhood obesity/overweight children I used to be surprised that it was not really evident among the children at local playgrounds, skate-park, generally in the park etc - my theory and it is only a theory is that the heavier children were more likely to be at home indoors or playing closer to home relatively unseen either because their parents weren't taking the younger ones or the older kids were occupied on screens - setting up a bit of a vicious cycle of inactivity/weight gain

Lots of other factors too probably

Mine too @ParentsTrapped they are always starving after school and are usually either coming from an after school sport or going to a sport.
(Both DC are on the light side of a healthy weight for their heights).

I don't think it's just food though (school dinners are pretty healthy these days), I think kids are a lot less active then we were in the 80s/90s...unless you can afford to put them in a bunch of clubs as not many kids seem to 'play out' anymore.

I agree. It’s complicated though. Of my 5 children the only one that is overweight (and he is still just about in the right age clothes, just has a thicker covering all over) is the one that has been having friendship problems at school and is sneaking into the cupboard comfort eating. We don’t have a lot of things like crisps or biscuits (a six pack of crisps doesn’t last long with 5 children and most weeks I don’t buy any for example - it’s too expensive with the COL for nutritionally pointless food). Interestingly it’s his slightly older siblings that have told him that he needs to sort his diet out and he didn’t have any of the chocolate cake I made at the weekend but I worry that means he’ll take to eating in secret. I can see that if a family is struggling to provide fun things to do for their children (where I am all the free parkland estates are now charging £5 plus to park, swimming as a family is £15 minimum, even catching the bus 2 children and an adult to the museum would be £8 (and over 15’s are charged full adult fare in my area), traditional days out are completely unaffordable and I say that as a 45% taxpayer) then food can become the treat - a bag of doughnuts is still cheaper than you could make them yourself and that can cause terrible food relationships. I try really hard not to make food a treat. My father, born in the war, remembered everywhere he had ever been by what he ate there. It’s a similar thing. Life is very sedentary, food is crap, peoples jobs are not as active and I have noticed that my year 1 child is not outside running around as much and less PE as my now 18 year old was at the same age. When I go to the park, less kids have scooters and bikes - again presumably too expensive for families that are struggling. People need budget for fun in their lives.

That is heartbreaking @suki1964
Please don’t tell me those parents are ignorant of the facts around healthy eating / healthy foods.
I remember visiting the US years ago and being utterly shocked at the obesity levels.
Those parents you see at your workplace are setting up a lifetime of ill health for their children.
The softly softly approach by GPs in their surgeries isn’t working.
They are afraid of the hurty words brigade.
The should be encouraged to call it out.
I know someone who changed doctor (I’m in Ireland so it’s a different system) because she was called out on her weight. She was very cross - how dare he etc
She moved to a different GP surgery.
She had a cardio episode a couple of weeks later.
It has taken quite some time for her to recover from it.
I know I need to lose a stone myself.

People always cite ‘running around’ but you can’t outrun a bad diet and too much snacking. The kids on our road are constantly out playing yet one or two of them are morbidly obese (probably a woman’s clothing size 18 at age 11 or 12), and the rest are varying degrees of overweight.

Ok but that means your child is overweight, so what are you actually going to do about it? So many parents here saying their child is ‘sturdy’ or ‘chunky’ aka overweight but seem to shrug their shoulders and put it down to ‘just the way it is’. It’s your responsibility not to send him into adult life with permanent health problems, disordered eating and all the social problems they entail.

My daughter is Autistic and has a very restricted diet, no veg whatsoever luckily some fruit.
I worry about her becoming fat and I worry so much about her not getting the right nutrients. I was a single mum with hardly any money when my eldest was little and I always tried to give him a healthy well balanced diet you can do it if you try.

It’s really hard to become obese on a non-upf diet.

As a parent, you are responsible for ensuring your child is not overweight - you seem to have just decided that it’s his fate. If he enjoys his food you should be encouraging him to learn about nutrition, perhaps teach him to cook. If you think he is predisposed to gain weight you should be ensuring he exercises. Some people do just have to work harder to stay slim and that’s not their fault but it doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t bother trying.

Fully agree.

We make sure meals are made from scratch and we sit at the table to eat them.

Snacks are fruit, crudités and now DD is slightly older, nuts. We’ve never given in to casual sweets and crisps.

Sweets, chocolate, crisps are treats, exceptions, not the rule.

I don’t think any of the above is massively expensive. What are expensive are the treats.

I’m overweight and used to be bigger. It’s entirely because I was eating too much generally but also eating rubbish. I was determined DD won’t be going down that route.

I agree it is heartbreaking. I don’t think it is the normal. I know a few parents who do this, we live in a WC estate, it’s not the norm, those parents are in the mega neglect bracket.
The same people buy the children a can of red bull to wash down the food.

I agree. Don’t get me wrong my kids do have treats / McDonald’s etc very occasionally but it’s not the norm. Yes meat can be expensive but a quick/ cheap dinner for us would be jacket potato with beans or tuna. Or often I roast a chicken and literally strip it bare so works out reasonable and the veg to go with it are dirt cheap. Make own tomato pasta sauce with veg (again cheap and nutritious).

My kids are extremely active and play lots of sports so could eat what they wanted and not be fat but I want them to be healthy as well as the right weight for their size.

Yesterday on way to work I saw a 8 year old having a bottle of fizzy energy drink and grab bag packet of crisps for breakfast. Made me so sad. Mum bought it in Tesco on way to school and it cost £4! For same price she could have bought whole box of supermarket weetabix, milk and banana which would have been great little breakfast at home. So it’s not just a money thing - its honestly like the parents don’t really care / understand food. It’s really sad.

Working in early years, the past few years there have been an increasing number of under 3s that I cannot pick up. I’ve potty trained children who can’t physically pull their own pants up because of their belly. Packed lunches are often a few processed snacks, and children often bring a £1 (or whatever it costs now) bag of haribo in their bag. No matter what type of education you offer the parents, you get a “it’s my child, don’t tell me what to do” response.

Of course, but again willpower isn’t the beginning and end of the story. Cultures differ in their beliefs around healthy food, food for children etc… many belief that it’s better for children to eat extremely energy dense foods because that was true historically. There’s also the fact that some damaged adults use food to express love and care and think giving in to their child is giving them happiness and love. Many don’t understand what is healthy and what is not - yes we all know chocolate isn’t great but many eat sausages or ham more than once a week (not recommended) or give too big portions out of ignorance or have intetnalised that certain foods are ‘stuck up’ or ‘only for skinny cows’ or ‘rabbit food’. Some think that restricting their child’s foods will lead them to be fussy or even develop an eating disorder

Eating and feeding children isn’t simple - it’s a complex mix of nature, what the adult was taught in their childhood, social and cultural attitudes and beliefs, health beliefs, education level, psychology, historical beliefs etc etc etc. There’s a reason the degree to be a dietitian only takes one year less than the degree to be a doctor (4yrs vs 5yrs).

Agreed and unfortunately not going away anytime soon

Thread after thread on here where parents who are giving their children a monitored and healthy diet are accused of 'restriction' and causing ED and going to make them fat because the kids will binge when they're older

The biggest indicator of a child's health and propensity to be overweight as an adult is that of their parents and how they eat when young. Fat children tend to come from fat families, statistically.

But everyone on here is an outlier it seems.

Why have we got to this? Why has parents not have the motivation to feed thier children nutritional food?
Is it the cost? Is it that parents are so rushed as there both working full time?
Is it because children are just being fed to keep them happy?
What is it?
How can things change?

I try to keep everything in moderation, I cook mostly from fresh, homemade pizza with a wrap base, every meal with veg etc.
But of course they get the odd McDonald's and chocolate.

My friend was not allowed any 'junk food' so when she was able to she found a way to get them and binged them and she has been in that cycle her whole adult life now.

I think its a lot more complicated then parents just letting there children eat crap, its ingrained in society now.

I think it's not particularly focussed on kids; I think it's all of us (adults too).

My kids: all skinny. I can't get them to eat anything (yes, eating disorders, not to the point of being close enough to clinically alarming that we appear to be able to access meaningful support). One kid is eating ice cream at the moment as its the only thing she'll touch and I am pathetically grateful. It's not about money: I buy high quality ice cream that isn't full of fake stuff, but still -- it's the only thing she'll eat.

Me: I really struggle with food. Most of the time I eat healthily, but I struggle to cook (not least trying to feed three kids who won't touch anything for over a decade has nearly killed me), and sometimes I also struggle to eat.

I think looking at how people feed their kids is a tiny fraction of the problem, and obesity likewise is a small part of it.

I was shocked on a recent holiday that the children seemed more overweight than the adults but the PP who mentioned WLI made the penny drop- these parents are no longer overweight but their children are on that path.

DS is a healthy weight but 80th centile and we do have to watch his food intake as left to his own devices he would eat huge amounts of unhealthy food. He’s like me with no off switch and I have to be very disciplined and use WLI. DH can eat half a bag of Maltesers and then lose interest!

Too many fast food takeaways and they seem to multiply faster than rabbits. Now with the advent of uber eats, deliveroo et al,
You dont even have to move your lardy arse to go out and get it.
Many people eat far too much and do far too little exercise.
That is the harsh reality and is costing the NHS £billions and rising.
But now instead of actually adopting a healthy life style you can just get jabs to make you stop being fat.
I'll get my coat