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.

I found an old school photograph from the 70s. Literally only one pupil was overweight - all the others looked thin/normal.

Looking at modern school photos, over half the pupils are clearly overweight, many are clearly obese.

Something has gone massively wrong. And no, it's not all about money (or lack of it) as there were lots of people struggling on low incomes in the 70s.

I think this is a really insightful comment. I've lived in France/Belgium for the last 13 years, and I was so shocked at how much the doctors and medical professionals take peoples' weight and diet really seriously. If I go to the doctor and I've gained weight (they weigh you at EVERY appointment, even if you're there for the flu), then they lecture you and prescribe sessions with a dietician. They even do it to pregnant woman!

The American/Aussie expats always complain at how rude the doctors are, and how focused they are on weight. My friends in the USA couldn't believe that I was weighed every 2 months throughout each of my pregnancies, and it was charted on a graph.

They really see your diet, lifestyle, and weight as part of your overall health, and put a huge emphasis on it. They will often prescribe lifestyle/diet protocols before they do medication. My doctor is always giving me diet (eating well, not weight loss) advice, especially for my kids, which I really appreciate. She'll often start an appointment with 'what have you been eating?', 'What are the kids eating?', 'Have you tried adding more vegetables to your pasta sauce, here's a recipe', 'What exercise are you doing?', 'How much sleep are you getting?'. A big difference too is that appointments are typically 30 minutes or even longer, so there is time to discuss these things. I always felt so rushed in the UK/USA when seeing the doctor.

I used to hate it, but now I've grown to appreciate it, and also see a huge link between my diet/exercise/stress and my overall health. Now that I'm leaving and moving home, this is one of things that I will really miss.

I get the impression that biscuits before breakfast and sugar on (already sugary) cereal is a regular occurrence.

Yes me too. You just prompted me to go on her Insta (haven’t been on much for a week or two) and she’s done another STDWU - food is: biscuits, hot chocolate, crisps, cocktail sausages, a cream cracker, cake, sausage rolls, coke and a burger for dinner. I would feel horrific if I ate all that, let alone a very small child.

If I ever get my son to eat oily fish I’ll throw a party 😁.
It’s taken a lot of perseverance and a lot of money spent on a private dietician to get to the point we’re at now with him… he’ll now eat carrots, cucumber, lettuce and broccoli (raw 🤢), plus bananas, apples, satsumas, pears and grapes. Protein is a massive issue though, he won’t touch meat (even nuggets!), and his only protein comes from milk and cheese.
It’s tough going!

But the trouble is that if anyone says it's down to bad parenting, they get jumped on by posters saying it isn't laziness or bad parenting, it's because the sure start centres are closed and the guidance isn't there any more.

A big yes! I've had T2 diabetes for 30 years. Over that time, I've lost count of the number of dieticians, specialist GPs and specialist diabetic nurses I've talked to. They ALL trot out the same spiel, almost word for word from the NHS leaflets/website.

I swear I'll scream the next time one of them says "eat fewer mangoes" despite me never having eaten a mango in my life. They don't listen to you, they just "parrot" off the same spiel which is often completely irrelevant. It's as if they think it's the first time you've spoken to anyone about it - they just go into "automatic". There's no "conversation" - they just preach at you.

Fair enough from "normal" GPs or nurses, but dieticians and "specialist" GPs/nurses should do a hell of a lot better when it comes to giving proper/relevant advice and trying to help you understand what is going wrong and how to improve blood sugars etc.

If they're just going to tell you what the leaflet says, what is the point of them? Why not just give you the leaflet?

It’s not about being poor, it’s lack of intelligence and education unfortunately. It just so happens that these people are more likely to be poor, which is why you see more obesity in poorer areas.

'But the trouble is that if anyone says it's down to bad parenting, they get jumped on by posters saying it isn't laziness or bad parenting, it's because the sure start centres are closed and the guidance isn't there any more'

We don't need surestart centres to tell us we should eat healthily and feed our dc a healthy diet.

If I had a fat kid I would accept full responsibility.

More difficult once older and earning, they obviously then buy their own food but if we as parents cannot give our kids a healthy diet we have failed.

I don't accept the 'it's too expensive' excuses. Really nutritious stuff like legumes are so cheap, cheaper than chips in fact. Shove in a pan with some spices and you will not have fat kids, kids who will then have serious health issues as adults.

But which is more useful. Writing it off as bad parenting or trying to support bad parents to be better parents with actual useful help.

They don’t want help. They don’t accept fat isn’t normal, they don’t like healthy food, they don’t care enough and frankly unintelligent people have zero self awareness and are convinced they’re always right. They think of agencies in terms of ‘the system’ which is ‘trying to spy on/control us’.

If I offered to cook them healthy meals they wouldn’t accept what I offered and would consider it ‘disgusting’ as it’s not UPF.

Yes, some people have a genetic disposition towards obesity. Similarly, some people are born with diabetes type 1.
in both cases, the solution is (in addition to medication for type 1 diabetes) to pay a lot of attention to diet - not to just give up and accept a horrible decline.
Obesity kills in a multitude of particularly unpleasant ways - if your child is predisposed to it, exercise and a good diet are life saving!

I was at school in the 90s and 2000s and out of 120 kids in my year, perhaps 5 were noticeably overweight by today’s standards, so about 4%? It was almost unheard of to have a fat teenage boy, they were all very lean or on the thinner side. Maybe 1 or 2 max in a year group. Now it’s mainly the boys that look very very very fat.

I have diabetes type 1 and nobody is ‘born’ with it. You can develop it early in life but nobody is ‘born with it’. You can be genetically dispositioned to developing it though, if it was that you meant.

We definitely don't.

When I was a trainee social worker, we were often given placements in sure starts and the like and had to put on cooking classes with 0 training whatso ever on nutrition, cooking, hygiene etc and yet, there we were, teaching others! Thankfully I'm a good cook and my mum taught me nutritious meals on a budget but some of my classmates couldn't heat beans.

It is about parents accepting it is their responsibility though, it is their fault if their dc are fat and unhealthy.

We'd blame parents if their dc were seriously malnourished and underweight and call it neglect.

So much enabling and justifying goes on, oh it's the cost of living crisis, oh people aren't intelligent enough to put a jacket potato in an oven instead of chips. It's crazy.

No-one is expecting anyone to rustle up a cordon bleu special every night but they are many cheap, nutritious easy alternatives to junk food.

I agree OP. I think one of the biggest issues is not just finances but finances + time. We eat a good balanced diet and if I think about our typical evening meals and what it costs to buy the ingredients it is the same price really as it would cost to buy chicken dippers, fish fingers, fries etc so it isn’t more expensive but making our evening meals takes more time and effort than it would take to just do chicken dippers & fries in the air frier and I do think the time element is what gets a lot of people. We are lucky that I work flexi & do most of the cooking so I’m home by 4 with the kids to make a nice healthy dinner and time pressure isn’t a factor but if we both worked until 5pm and then had a commute and nursery pick up etc on top and weren’t walking through the door until
6pm, kids bath & bed at 7pm, I could see where it feels the easier option for parents to chuck stuff in the air fryer rather than start preparing another meal. That’s where education comes in I suppose, there are work arounds, using a slow cooker, prepping meals at the weekend which we do for lunches, but it relies on parents knowing and finding the time to do that.

I think portion size is a big thing as well and if you have parents who don’t have that knowledge then even with the most healthy diet in terms of the meals, the quantity is just too much. My aunt is like this, she makes incredible healthy and balanced meals but they are 2x or 3x the size of what would be a healthy portion and too much of any food is still going to lead to excess weight.

So its a pointless conversation then. Its literally just an opportunity to judge as these people are all unhelpable.

You're a bit wrong about diabetes but I broadly agree with your post. This is why it's really important to accept that some children are much much more likely to be obese. It's very difficult to fight genetic destiny and this should be recognised - the NHS gives absolutely shit advice on this. It's assumed that fat people/ people with fat children are just idiots/ need to eat fewer burgers or eat an apple occasionally.

No, it’s an opportunity to discuss our exasperation at a massive human health crisis which is costing the country a fortune and having a terrible toll on the lives of individuals whose parents are too ignorant to raise them with a decent diet.

We are allowed to do this. It’s so common now it’s a societal rather than a personal issue.

Add on: our horrendous diet findings that i wrote about earlier went right through all layers of society- poor to rich.
The main difference: children in private schools. They generally had excellent diets (even the ones on 100% bursaries). Wealthy kids in state schools were the usual mix.
Why? Private schools generally don’t allow any food to be brought in (except for rare cases with a medical need - a handful of kids), and have long days. Food is healthy (as are most primary school meals, state or private!), and the alternative to the daily meal is a salad bar. Snacks are fruit and veg.

PE is on (almost) daily, rain or sun.
No crisp/sausage roll /white bread snacks and lunches, no juice/sugary stuff.
Result: a better diet, healthier kids. Mostly by strongly reducing parental influence.
The average packed lunch in the uk is an absolute disgrace.

'Yes, some people have a genetic disposition towards obesity'

Some people seem unable to control the amounts they eat true. Possibly caused by being overfed crap as a child. We've seen with WLI that suddenly all the genetic/big boned/different metabolism theories go out the window when actually they eat less and lose weight, it's always been about the amount consumed.

Exactly!

It starts with babies. The amount of people who were shocked that it's actually shit parenting and unacceptable to feed a baby four pouches of baby food a day instead of giving them any real food when the baby food "scandal" came out last year was appalling. Who the fuck thinks four pouches of processed puree is an adequate diet for a growing baby?

I'm type 2 diabetic, and would be insulin dependent if I followed the diet advice from my diabetic nurse and GP (who really push slimming world which is an APPALLING diet plan). Instead I follow a low carb diet, and am on minimal medication. I have spent hours online however researching diabetes and diet plans to suit me. I can't tolerate any forms of starchy carbs including from veg, and am limited to berries/melon in terms of fruit as a very occasional treat. The NHS needs a dramatic overhaul in terms of dietary advice.