to be angry with those parents who have let down their overweight dc

[frumplump]

Overweight parents who allow their own issues to destroy their own dc's good health, what are they thinking?

I overheard a heartbreaking conversation in a shop where an awkwardly fat teenage shop assistant was dispairing at how she was wasting the best years of her life because she had not learned to eat healthily from her parents.

She was saying she had low self esteem and wanted to lose weight desperately. Teenage girls have a difficult time at the best of times, it's just plain cruelty for her parents to have allowed her to become so unhealthily big. She found walking difficult ffs! They say parents will outlive their children. What's going on? How can parents be so cruel?

Lisa - congratulations on your weight loss.

when I was at primary school 1972-79 you just did not see fat kids. If there was one he or she really stood out from the crowd - and i gew up on a south London council estate.

The difference is my mother's generation were taught to cook by their mothers and shown how to stretch the food budget - the sunday roast became Monday's shepherd's pie etc.

the other big difference is: computers and computer games. After school and in the summer holidays we were out on our bikes.

My sister now works with young kids in a very deprived area and they never go out. On Monday, despite the glorious weather, she will ask them what they did at the weekend and the answers will all be: "played on the Wii"

But it IS a class thing and I don't think shying away from that helps anybody.

Most overweight kids are from poorer backgrounds. They live off junk and always have the latest home entertainment.

There are overweight children at independent schools - my DS is one

But of course weight is a class issue - it's unfortunate but true and there have been lots of studies demonstrating this. Partly it's down to income - I love sushi and it's very low fat and nutritious but costs a lot more and is much more difficult to obtain than fish and chips ...

dear lord, mumsnet seems to have lately had an influx of twats

Obesity is related to poverty BUT that doesn't mean the middle classes are exempt.

Thing is, if you struggle to afford food/bills/housekeeping, chips are far more filling than salad. I'm not making a cheap point, if you have a family on benefits being able to afford a healthy diet, especially if you are somewhere where transport costs to large supermarkets with big ranges are prohibitive, is tough.

Bus fare from my small town to nearest big town is a fiver return for one, for instance. I can walk to a supermarket but in some parts of nearby deprived areas, it's not as easy.

On the money issue, I know we are talking about kids but just for a comparison, the old age pension is just 2/3 of the amount needed for a healthy life - including decent food and being able to get out and about and maintain friendships.

And then there's the lack of cookery lessons on schools...

always in bloody aibu too

(Bus point being fare from one of the villages near me to a big supermarket will the the same as I quoted, £5 return for one. From council estate in my town to nearest supermarket will be £3.30 ONE WAY due to fare stages.)

If a parent has weight issues they find hard to get under control, they're probably underestimating the amount they eat.

You hear larger people saying all the time that they hardly eat anything compared with 'x' who's thin. They clearly don't link the fact that the 'little' they think they eat is actually a substantial amount. Also, it's often the wrong kind of food.

SIL, for example, has been overweight since childhood. She eats things like pork pies, sausage rolls, cheese, white bread, etc on a regular basis. Because she doesn't eat lots of puddings or sweet things, she thinks she should be thin. It's just her warped perceptions.

Take that to a parent and they think they're eating little or not eating the wrong things, when actually they're taking in way too many calories, and they'll feed their kids in the same way. It's not them being cruel. It's them not knowing any better.

A few too many calories taken in regularly over a number of years will soon lead to major weight issues. Then you've got to start saying no to your kids. And we all know parents who won't say no to their kids for anything, let alone something as emotionally fired as food.

I don't know if there's an easy answer to this. Clearly, at a certain stage, when obesity becomes a health issue for a child the state has to intervene in some way. They need to educate the children and the parents so that BOTH are aware of the implications of their diets/lifestyles.

not sure if this has been said yet - a couple of years ago there was a programme on oversized children/teens. One girl, at 15/16, was so large they feared she wouldn't outlast her 20s if she carried on. Her mum was huge as well, their diet was atrocious - yet her mum's reasoning was that "it was in the genes". Because she was enormous, and her mum before her and her mother too, it was genetic and not something they could do anything about. So they didn't try, they just kept eating vast amounts of crap.

The dad was a very trim healthy size and was worried sick about his daughter but didn't live with them so had little input.

There may be a genetic propensity to put on more weight, but it doesn't mean one HAS to be fat! Dietary control and exercise can keep the weight down, so using genetics as an excuse is just silly. And just that, an excuse.

I was a skinny child, but once puberty hit, things went awry (medical). The problems with my weight were exacerbated when I started dating. It was the 'done thing' to drive around in a fast car, with the music up loud, and stopping in McDonalds every now and then to fill up. That still happens these days too. You can't really stop a teenager doing that, no matter what time curfew is.

I believe my Mother thinks it was partly her fault that I have ended up the size I am. It's not. It's mine.

A lot of people on here have said that there's a mountain of literature, etc so parents should know what is healthy and what's not. However, many parents either choose to be ignorant, or they really can't make sense of it all. Various diets have confused the crap out of me, even though I'm well educated! It is getting better/clearer now though: Dieting is bad. Healthy lifestyle is good.

Quattros the other countries thing struck a chord with me. I've just come back from a relatively poor european country where the majority of the diet is vegetables. Everyone was slim (and healthy looking). I don't think I saw a single overweight local. It made me feel huge though over here I've been feeling pretty good about how good I look 10 weeks post birth.

So the question is whats going on here that isn't there? what are they doing/not doing that we could copy

yes goblinchild and perhaps we should withdraw medical treatment from anorexics too

so why don't we do the same (actually I do, home grown veg is cheap and I dont drive) but as a nation

I still don't get the good food costs more thing. We rarely have takeaways. They are a treat as they are so expensive.

I disagree that it is about not knowing how to cook. I arrive home from work late and leave very early. I don't have much time to cook. My dcs therefore eat a huge amount of tomatoes, cucumber, carrots and peppers often with some kind of fish. There are always apples and other fruit in the house which they are welcome to eat when ever they want. No cooking required and a reasonably healthy (I think) diet.

I think it is more about societal perception and structures than skill in the kitchen. I think many people work longer hours than their parents did and therefore they feel that they do not have time to fit cooking into their lives.

In addition, we have become used to different body shapes. My ds is a very, very large boy. He is on the 98th centile for height and weight. However recently I was told by the GP that he might be under-weight! He was referred to a peadiatrician for something else and she laughed at the suggestion (calling him "robust") and said that people had lost sight of what a healthy weight looked like.

at secondary sch when you have to give teens two quid for dinner its hard to stop them spending it on chocolate crisps and a can of pop

So what's the point of stating it's a class thing - is that a solution in itself?
Lots of you have posted yes, tyes of course it's a class thing
What does that actually mean- oh, don't worry it's the thicko's, it's okay to slag them off?

As a slim parent of healthy slim kids I think it's about instilling a love for good food over self discipline tbh. I think encouraging them to monitor what they eat can set up a very dodgy relationship with food.
Just provide healthy snacks, lots of excercise and home cooked meals.
Also making sure they get really hungry before a meal is important for the enjoyment factor I think.
My children are allowed ice cream, cake, biscuits and crisps too but they actually don't ask that often (well, ok, in this ice cream van season a lot more than usual)and when they ask I often give them what they want.
Do you think this is wrong?

About the class thing. When I was on income support and living in a council hostel, the 5 fruit and veg thing came up, as well as fish oils etc. I didn't have a pot to piss in. Once I nicked some salmon fillets. Don't flame me, I know it was wrong, but I felt guilty about the meals. I didn't even have an oven, just 2 electric cooker tops, FFS. It's not class, for many working class people the intentions are there

so all the extras really do add up, day to day - the biscuits, crisps, juice etc

all they need to do is eat 3 healthy meals, snack on fruit twice a day and drink water and exercise every day

Sorry junglist, that made me laugh. I hope it was wild alaskan salmon