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?

Squilly- 2 wrongs don't make a right.

Of course people die of a combination of lifestyle factors. Did I say otherwise? Did I say that FAT was the ONLY cuase of premature death or cancer, CHD or diabetes? No.

But you do seem to be trying very hard to defend obesity for some reason.

The thread is not about smoking and whether it kills people- it is about parents who allow their kids to become overweight.

Squilly, I look after my family fine too, and I also look after my class.
So none of the children make unkind comments about the three children in the class who are significantly overweight, they don't sneer or look down on them or even ask questions about why they can't run or even bend properly. One of them is so fat that he can't cross his legs on the carpet.
So no teasing, no dismissive comments and no negative attention paid to their difference.
Supportive, fluffy comments only. And they just keep on getting fatter and fatter. School nurse has had little effect with their families, they see it as interference.
They are 9 years old now. What will they be like when they have the freedom of secondary when they can buy and eat what they choose?

Oh, and both my grandparents smoked like chimneys, 40+ a day and both lived to be over 90. What does that prove?

I started by defending people who eat in the street who are fat. Then I started to defend people against blanket statement that weight alone causes diabetes and cancer.

I'm not defending obesity. I'm defending people who are struggling with their weight. People who aren't well educated who haven't got great eating habits, who don't understand nutrition.

It's oh so easy to sit on your thin ass looking down at the world. Well try being obese. Try getting out of it. It takes time and effort and some of these people are too darned tired and worn down by their lives to make that effort.

Does that make obesity right? No. But attacking people when they're down is crap.

Goblinchild, if fluffy supportive comments made fat people fatter they'd all be o.k because I suspect they don't get many, so perhaps that would make them thinner? And the fact that your parents smoked with no consequence clearly proves that it's all A-Ok to smoke then. Smoking causing health issues is clearly crap then.

I think it's time for me to walk away from this one because the fat bashers are gonna keep on bashing and it's getting more than a little preachy for my liking.

There seem to be some very sensitive people on here. I haven't noticed anybody 'fat bashing' - just debating.

I don't think anyone is "fat-bashing" just being concerned about obesity in children, and wondering why their parents don't do something about it. I don't care if adults are fat (they can even eat in the street if they want to, as far as I'm concerned), and I don't judge them for being fat, but I can't help feeling very sad and a bit angry for fat children, and, if I'm honest, judging the parents a bit

***

Nancy66 - I've weighed between 8 and 9 stone all my adult life, at 5 ft 6. I weigh more right now because I've had a baby, but I'm losing it (no dieting, just a more normal diet and improvement in SPD) and will be back to 9 by the time my son is 1. I assure you, I am not remotely sensitive on the issue of weight and diet. Yet I feel there's a genuine note of distaste in some posts here. Being fat is not a moral failing. It's a health problem and sometimes a mental health problem, but people are genuinely disgusted by it, in a way they just don't seem to be by the dangerously underweight. I find that puzzling.

I also note that the OP referred to a working age teenager, who knew she was overweight and knew she had an unhealthy diet - but blamed her parents. If she knew the situation and was old enough to earn her own money, then whatever her parents' failing, its now down to her to resolve.

I have to say that I am absolutely APPALLED and DISGUSTED at some of the frankly, stinking attitudes on here towards fat people. The assumptions being made are horrendous
Fat= stupid, common, bad parent, selfish, greedy, lazy, cruel to name but a few.
Yes I am pretty fat. A size 26 and last time I weighed about 23.7 stones. I also have a degree and I am a good parent. DS is slim and perfectly happy and healthy. DH is slim and a keen follower of sporty things! I always loved to read and found throwing myself into academic stuff solace at school to take my mind off not having a boyfriend due to my size. I would argue that yes we need to tackle obesity but we also need to tackle the hatred towards fat people. I feel people are fat because of another need somewhere else that is not being satisfied. Friendship perhaps or love and acceptance. My teenage and Uni years would have been much happier if people had just been a bit bloody nicer. So I needed to diet to achieve that did I??
Having suffered from the consequences of dealing with shit attitudes like this for most of my life I would say it is my number 1 priority to ensure DS does not end up big.
I would like to lose weight to ensure I am a good role model and for my own health of course but I hate the intolerance and cruelty of people and almost feel like I am appeasing them by losing weight and somehow making myself more socially acceptable which I resent.
Not to say that this stops me however, I just cannot sustain weight loss and for the last 9 months have just had no motivation to change whatsoever.
Obesity is a massive problem and its hard to know how to tackle it. I would say the availability of crap food is a problem. I try and cook from scratch a fair bit but we have the occasional McDonalds or takeaway but not often as we cannot afford it. I was big as a child. I was bought sweets every day and allowed to have pop tarts and micro chips for breakfast as a teenager. My Mum thought she was showing love by saying yes all the time. My sister is slim. Families need support and the breakdown of family is a massive issue at the moment and I think more important than tackling obesity. Its tackling the symptom rather than the cause.

This thread maks me really

although I find the class aspect of this debate rather hideous- it has made me think about why anorexia is treated SO differently and I do wonder if in part it is because it is so prevalent among the daughters of the midde class. Obesity is frequenty caused by compulsive eating disorder and binge eating disorder. These are major and complex eating disorders. One of the really devastating things about them is they result in people being treated by others the way they feel they deserve- with ridicule, disgust and hatred. Those of you who think these disorders are easy to cure really have no idea. Yes of course it is terribe when this is passed on to children and I think these famiies definately need intervention but honesty all your judgement does nothing but make the problem worse by contributing to the cycle of sef hatred, shame and blame.

Shithappens - you seem to be taking a general conversation about childhood obesity and warping it into a thread entitled - "let's talk specifically about shithappens and her weight issues."

this thread is not about you, don't bristle so. Nobody is even thinking about you when they post. I am fat - fatter than you I guarantee. I am not reading this thinking it's about me or anyone's attacking me.

I'm worried that you are upsetting yourself for no reason. I think you really need to take a step back and realise that this isn't about you and a general discussion about weight isn't a personal attack upon you. I feel really sad for you that you feel so low and down on yourself that you can take things onto yourself that don't belong to you.

Cheeky- what would it take to make you lose weight? If the dr said that you would prob die young and you would never live long enough to see your grandchildren- would that make any difference?

You need some sort of wake-up call, or emotional support from someone to help you. You must be an emotional eater/self-destruct and you need to find out why.

Does your DH not worry about you?

I think it's easy for this notion of fatness to become overly heated. Yes, some people do have emotional issues and use food as a crutch, and they are like addicts. BUT many people simply over eat and don't know when to stop.

My neighbour is a good friend and she is oveweight. She has no emotional issues with food apart from liking it too much and eating large portions. She does no exercise.

She simply doesn't want to lose weight enough to make changes. And there are millions of others like her. Fortunately her kids are slim, but they do no exercise either and neither will their kids I expect.

Families could have support-I think that people would fall over backwards to help. Everyone is saying that they don't know where to go for help or haven't the self esteem, yet it is easy. When DCs are weighed by the school nurse the ones who come in with notes from parents excluding them from being weighed are the overweight ones. You would think that those parents would be the very ones who wanted them weighed and would be asking for an appointment with the school nurse to ask for advice on how to change their eating habits. Many seem to be in denial that their DC is overweight in the first place.

"we lived on a council estate in southampton"

oooo which one one of our OU cases studies has been of a Southampton council estate.

It's not impossible to do the shopping on the bus (if you've got a bus near you ) - however I prefer the shopping trolley personally

"yet it is easy."

well obviously you've never been in a place in your life where your self esteem and confidence was so low that you were unable to ask for help. It's a crying shame that in the "cuts" in public spending those that are in the best place to help the 1000's of families who are socially isolated and have varying issues (not just weight) are mst likel to be cut first.

I grew up on a council estate in the Scotland in the 1970s. Nobody was fat because the planners (in their wisdom) built a massive estate with a newsagent, post office and pub. To get to a food shop you needed to go by bus. Vans came round selling over-priced low quality food.

I would imagine that council estates today suffer from the same lack of facilities. Mix in crap public transport, lack of money and a big dose of depression and you end up with badly fed children. However, it is cheaper to sneer and make fun than to spend billions improving the situation.

Food is cheap and comforting and is a cheap treat.

I am not fat and neither are my DCs so I am not being defensive about this.

At the risk of making this thread about me which is not my intention, I decided that it might be appropriate to give the child's perspective. Everyone is talking about the rights of the parents, the feelings of the parents, but what about the child?

I was fat for most of my childhood. My mother REALLY overfed me and we lived on chips because, frankly, she hated cooking and simply couldn't be arsed. She'd pile a huge, adult sized dinner plate with chips cooked in lard - by that I mean put in cold lard and then heated and sausages, eggs, mince (without the fat drained) etc etc.

I was obese by the time I was 10! My stomach had stretched so much that I needed a huge amount of food to feel full.

I was bullied and began to take comfort in eating more, even though I was bullied for being so fat.

My weight went up with my age - 14 stone at 14, 15 stone at 15. At 16 I took my first paracetamol overdose. For many reasons. But the weight and bullying was part of it.

I truly think that my mother wanted me and my sister fat, because she was slim and she her whole life has been the centre of attention and simply couldn't stand the thought of having attractive teenage daughters.

I never had a boyfriend, until what? 19/20 and then I was just used, not loved. I'd go with anyone who'd close their eyes and have me, just to feel that someone wanted me.

I had other mh issues, took other overdoses, had stays in mh units, many problems but low self esteem, total hatred of myself and my powerlessness over food was part of it.

I've always hated myself and my weight, but just got bigger and bigger because of my emotional problems, because of patterns laid down in childhood, because of many things.

At my heaviest I weighed 36 stone. I eventually had a sleeve gastrectomy and I am now 25st 4 and going down. At the age of 35.

My life has been WASTED! I never had a normal childhood. I never had those lovely teenage years of going out with mates, meeting boys, wearing pretty outfits... I married the first man who was prepared to have me and I have hated everything about myself for my whole life.

I blame my mother for making me into a fat child. She had NO right to do that. She had the power, she had the control, it was up to HER to keep me healthy as a child.

Once I was an adult, the responsibility was just handed to me, whoops, you weigh 20 stone, good luck with that. And yes, once you're an adult, it's your own problem and you have to sort it out, but don't think for a second that you can just magically undo years of - abuse, poor eating habits, emotional dependency on food, low self esteem.

I will never ever ever do that to my children. If you let your child become obese you are, well, I think if I type what I think it will just get deleted.

I think that instead of focusing on the choices of the parents, you should focus on the lack of choices of the child, who has as little control over food as they do over where they live or what their name is.

It isn't easy to ask for help, but if the school nurse is coming in to weigh DCs it is easy to get them weighed-find out they are overweight and take the next step. You just go with the system-it is harder to have to sit down and write a letter to opt out. The school nurse isn't likely to just tell you it is dreadful-she will give practical help.

I'm interested in what Quattro said about siblings being different. We had that in our family: we were 4 sibling who all had the same home-cooked diet, yet only one of my brothers ended up overweight. In his case, it was definitely a case of portion size.

Not sure what my parents could or should have done; they did try to gently suggest smaller portions but he got terribly anxious at the thought of not getting all the food he wanted.

He was the only one of us that ever worried about there not being enough food (money was a little short, but certainly not to the point where anyone was ever going to starve).

Yes indeed, Riven. Bravo, Hecate.

mrsmerryweather in answer to your question well I had gallstones after ds was born (immediately blamed myself for my weight like I blamed myself for having a c-section) and had to lose weight before they would operate. I went from 22.7 to 18 stone and they operated and I had them removed. I had similar comments to the ones you give and DO think about not living as long as a thin person but my motivation is just NOT there otherwise I would have lost the weight by now. I know all the health issues but just do not see being fat as the huge crime that others so clearly do.

I have had wake up calls, like the humiliation of not fitting on rides in Alton Towers or a ride to go with ds, asking for seatbelt extensions on planes, seeing pictures of myself on a beach and none of it has the repulse factor that I think you think I should feel enough to make me change. I have tried Lighterlife and WW, all the usuals and successfully lost weight but not kept it off. I have gone to gyms.
I like food and I like how feeling full feels. I think life is short on pleasure and food gives me so much pleasure. I know however this is a bit messed up so work hard to not give ds this skewed view.
Dh does worry and I know he doesn't know the best way to help me as I am so prickly about it. I just feel unconditionally loved by him and that support means everything to me.
anyway sorry to hijack. I feel sad when I see large kids as I know the agony they must be going through