In feeling annoyed at parents of overweight kids

[noonki]

I am not saying that all children should be a similar size and I know that some kids are naturally much tubbier than others. (I was when I was younger). But there are so many huge children nowadays and at the supermarket I hate seeing the crap that their parents are putting in the baskets. I hated being overweight, and think that parents have a duty to encourage their kids to exercise and not to have junk in the house.

[beanieb]

woops - I mwant to say that you care so much about them but not yourself.

[FairyMum]

There is a boy in our street who is very overweight. He is also very active. Always out cycling in the street and running around with the other children. The whole family is chubby, but they all look healthy and they are a very active family. I think people are too quick to judgel people on their weight these days.

[bythepowerofgreyskull]

My friends daughter is over weight, she always has been.
Her Mum has always said, oh it is awful that she is that size but she has got my genes. NOW - her mum is large, granny is large but dad is very slim and she has half of his genes too!

Thankfully the daughter has bags of confidence and isn't bothered by other peoples opinions and when she was in her first year at senior school and a grown up size 20 she slipped into conversation that she hadn't come last in cross country - the fat girl did shocked to hear that size 20 aged 11 doesn't count in the fat girl stakes.

She is now 16 and after a great hair cut she has decided she would like to be slimmer. and is walking more and eating less.. she is now a size 18-20 and beginning to loose.

I have seen what she has been fed alot of the time during her childhood and it has definately contributed to her size.

[Hecate]

Why I am fat is a long story, starting when I was 12. It is a combination of so many things. An extreme trauma followed by comfort eating and then binge eating. Plus asthma and repeated steriods my whole life. Throw in mental health problems and depression. Now add a multitude of physical health problems and it has spiralled out of control. - it's a really VERY long story

I am trying to take control now. So far I have lost 7 1/2 stone and have come down from a siz 40 to a size 32 - bloody hell that's fat, isn't it? I have to go ahead for an operation - gastric sleeve I think it's called - where they cut your stomach out!! but my 'ishoos' are getting in the way. I'm trying to sort it.

But the point is, my life has been one long miserable hell from which I have planned escape after escape (I'm crap at that too!) and I will protect my kids from any of it happening to them.

[onlyjoking9329]

all three of our kids have eaten the same stuff over the last year and not had much in the way of exercise but it is only DS who is overweight, i am slim size 8 but was a size 12 a year ago, i rhink it is important to eat healthily but to be honest whislt looking after my dying husband it wans't my priorty to make sure the kids ate healthily, shoot me if you like

[onlyjoking9329]

well done hecate on your weight loss, good luck with the banding.

[noonki]

Onlyjoking I am not at all having a go at situations such as yours. I am so sorry that you lost your husband I cannot begin to imagine what a hard year you have had. Thinking of you

[ScottishMummy]

Noonki is it only parents of over wt children who get your wrath? what about children with psychological/behavioural difficulties should they pull themselves together?

do you ask strangers to judge and potentially berate your lifestyle or are you carbon neutral, altruistic,physiologically at your peak. always making ethical sustainable decisions

so easy to tut and judge and post others

well diet is not purely food it is a complex socio-economic activity. think about it, if it was as easy as simply telling people what to eat then a few high profile campaigns and the children would be svelte and exercising.

we live in a first world counrty we all pollute, contribute to environmental melt dowm, you are probably vicariously linked to unethical trading (your mortgage provider will be active in many areas of trading)

[divastrop]

i do think alot of it is due to lack of excersise,possibly more than crap food.i mean,i can remember that chips cooked in lard and fried sausages were quite 'normal' foods when i was a child,but everybody ran around playing most of the time unlike these days.

i blame childrens' telly,computer games,and media hype over child abductions myself

i was bullied for being fat but i always hated physical activity.i ate the same as my sister and she was never overweight,but she did judo and went for long bike rides etc.

[LucyJones]

Hecate well done the your weight loss
People can be so naive - fat person must = greedy person. But people have all sorts of issues than can be the cause.

[unfitmother]

My sister's DD is overweight, my sister feeds her kids really a healthy diet, better than mine but both my dcs are really slim.
I feel for my niece and for my sis as I know people must judge her.

[Hecate]

thanks oj.

how are you holding up?

That's a really stupid question. sorry.

I just want to say something supportive or caring to you but the words don't exist that don't just sound totally inadequate.

My love to you anyway. x

[divastrop]

what i dont understand is the number of overweight toddlers i seem to be seeing recently.my 2.7 year old and 16 month old never keep still for longer than 2 minutes,so i cant imagine its an activity issue.

[beanieb]

Wow Hecate - all power to you

My family are all slim (my brother is practically skeletal) but my sister and I, and my mum to an extent, don't half complain if we start feeling too squished in our clothes.

I think it's easy for us slimmer folk to judge and not realise that some people are putting in a shitload of effort to be healthier.

[nooka]

There is some interesting stuff on weight perception that may also play a part. Some research done the recently that showed that people were getting less able to judge if they were overweight. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7502062.stm I was then interested to see a thread
www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1032874/Ive-finally-shed-fat-suit-says-Katy-Hill-dropping-ston e.html about some silly celeb who had lost weight and was posing about it, where several people commented that she wasn't fat previously, when she quite clearly was overweight.

There is also evidence to suggest that people are not that aware of how much they eat until they keep a food diary - I wonder if this is also true for parents thinking about what their kids eat?

I do feel very sorry for anyone who is so overweight that it limits their lives (struggling to walk what I would consider short distances etc) and this is especially so for kids I think. Trouble is that once you are overweight it is so much more difficult to take exercise and change eating habits. I do think that in most cases where you are talking about primary age children it is the parent's responsibility to ensure their children are as fit and healthy as they can be.

[FairyMum]

Yes, I have friends who are overweight and eat really healthy food. Just a bit too much perhaps and for various reasons. I am slim and sometimes if I am stressed or lack sleep I can get very skinny. Its not really something I have any control over. I imagine it being the other way around. Lack of sleep, for example, is closely associated with either weight gain or loss. So is depression.

[onlyjoking9329]

Bless you hecate, we are doing as well as we can given the situation. The kids are doing ok thou their brand of autism stops them from understanding lots of things, which in a way is helpful and in a way it isn't

[Hecate]

You're in east midlands I've just noticed. Whereabouts (or would you rather not say?)

[noonki]

In reply to scottish mummy - I fully appreciate that their are many reasons to being overweight - as I have said I have been fat and not quite so fat for years.

But what galls me is that huge RISE in overweight children. There have always been situations that have resulted in kids being overweight - health, circumstance and otherwise but this cannot account for this increase.

Of course I am a not totally perfect parent and my life is not unquestionably ethical. But the number of overweight children is massively on the increase and yet as a nation we have progressively got richer for decades ( may not feel like it now)

we also are now more aware than ever of the severe longterm psychological and physical damage that can be done by being obese. I know only too well - dad has heart disease, my mother in law had a stroke and I have bad knees and i was bullied for being fat.

So I do not want my kids to go through the same shit....

PS I am with the cooperative for my mortgage so ethically probably scrape through there !

[onlyjoking9329]

Hecate we are not far from ikea.

[Hecate]

I had to google the ikea stores to figure that one out!

[ScottishMummy]

Noonki thanks for elaborating.Understandable to be concerned about your DC but too complex to start guessing/judging other people circumstances

i am alarmed that body wt is used as a blunt assessment tool of parenting and life style, and implicit of the child. inherently the message sent is good child = slim child bad child = Over wt
child

i do understand the heath effects of diet,sedentary lifestyle, and long term health outcomes.but that is a different discussion from being simplistically annoyed at parents.Diet, Health care and lifestyle are complex psychosocial issues. a reductionist eat less is reductionist and too simplistic

[MmeBovary]

I do think genetics have SOME part to play. My mum's family are all on the large size, my dad's family all slim. Since I had DD I have put on weight, but DH and DD are slim - we all eat mostly the same - we don't eat fatty/junk food (or only occasionally), and crisps and chocolate etc are a treat (in fact I eat less of these than the other two). Yet my sister is totally skinny. I know that I am more prone to put on weight so therefore i need to be more careful. Life is a bitch!

[onlyjoking9329]

i am happy for you to CAT/contact me hecate, i can't give my email out as it is my name.

[GreatAuntieWurly]

noonki, I am a little upset by your comments, simply because my ds1 is overweight. he doesnt eat unhealthy food and we dont buy crap. He may have the occassional biscuit or crisps but not often. He is an active child and we have even taken part in the mend programme to keep his weight under control. We have seen dieticians and doctors and no-one can tell us why he is the weight he is.

I do wish that I could wave a magic wand and make things better because it me who has to comfort him when he is being picked on in school.

Please dont judge me as being a bad parent as my child is overweight, if I fed my kids crap all day everyday then I swould eb the first to hold my hands up and admit I had done wrong.