Nutritionist in yesterday's Observer suggests we should go back to the methods of the past to combat rising rates of obesity in children (17% of all 2-8 now obese)

[harpsichordcarrier]

Anita Bean says "A common mistake for parents is to give the child too much choice. The old-fashioned rule of just eating what was put in front of you seems to havewaned.The children chouldn't get into the habit of rejecting food, which gives them power and control. Don't let them demand food."

this seems to me to be really crappy advice and massively missing the point. I sort of see what she means, but surely giving choice is not the problem, it is whether the choices and the diet is healthy enough...
and surely giving children power and control over their intake is exactly the point, so they can make good choices when we no longer have power and control over what they eat.

but what do I know, I am not a registered nutritionist

If food was simply nutrition I wouldn't have a son who won't eat (he won't even eat chips) and there would be no overweight people or anorexics for that matter. Food is far more than nutrition. It can be pleasurable and it can be disgusting and the sooner we see experts dealing with that aspect of eating the sooner we will have people of sensible weight.

It's not what you eat it's why you eat!!!! It's a no brainer really but time and time again I see experts on TV telling people what is healthy. Most people know what is healthy (some don't I agree) but for a myriad of reasons choose to eat unhealthy food or drink alcohol.

those of you who don't come accross obese kids, go to your local theme park...

I went to the coast at the weekend and I have to agree, I was struck by the number of overweight families there, in the amusement arcades not running about on the beach.

I have a similar problem to Dropsophila in that my dd2 doesn't eat much, she has been anaemic and once weaned dropped from the 90th to the 35th centile. I have to give her high-fat foods and it is hard not to give her chips and crisps if only because I know she is getting something - her favourite foods are fruit and vegetables but hardly any carbs or protein. Ds, OTOH, is huge at 16 mo but if he carries on being as active walking as he is now then he will burn his fat off.

I also agree about Home Ec, the most useful things I learned at secondary school were how to make a cheese sauce, pastry, and soup. I remember my cousin telling me how pleased she was that it was now Food Technology and that her ds had designed a meal plus advertising for a motorway service station and I thought she was mad.

I too went to the coast at weekend (in SE) and there were quite a few overly round teens and younger around.

lol at 'behind a very large sofa'

very mixed round here, but i do notice a lot that even kids who look quite a normal weight overall seem to be carrying a lot of weight round the middle - and later on even quite skinny kids have a wobbly belly. That is sheer lack of exercise IMO. and may i say that I fit right in to this description

it seems like a mix of reasons to me but I would bet that long-hours' children's telly, plus the invention of the internet, plus the expansion in the number of food outlets, all play a part. In the 15 minute walk from our house to the centre of town, there are 14 direct opportunities to buy food, without even crossing the road. In my town when I was growing up, there was a pub and a teashop and that was it.

I wonder if it is cultural. In DS's school there are lots of non UK families and honestly the obese one's are few and far between.

I never did home ec at school and I love to cook. I had an older sister who loved to cook and that's what got me hooked. My mum and my other sister think we are bizare ' all that fuss....'

I hate cooking with a passion but do it for my family. Although so much of it gets uneaten that fish fingers do feature too...

drosophilia, you asked if it was cultural.

In my oriental culture, food and family are intertwined. Traditional celebrations were always around a table groaning with food. Although my mother was not demonstrative, her love was expressed in her cooking and the care she took in its preparation. The food was not particularly healthy (oily, salty, animal fats etc) but it was tasty and cooked from scratch, eaten with rice and vegetables.

No one in my family is fat.

I openly admit that I have a very old fashioned view of food. My dd is only 20mths but the rules are if she doesn't eat a reasonable amount and try everything on her plate she gets nothing else until the next meal. She will not starve herself and will now eat anything when she is hungry. I mind a child who has a brother who is picky with food and the mum openly admits that she was cooking different meals for each child, the little girl who I care for is 2.2 and is slightly overwieght. She had been allowed too many unhealthy snacks from a young age and had been refusing fruit until I started to look after her. Since introducing my eating methods she now eats what ever I put infront of her including all fruit and veg. It gets results.

I also hasten to add that I also am completely against play stations in primary school children. If they don't start to enjoy team games and sport from a young age then the habits will not be ingrained by their teenage years. Too many children sit on them after meals instead of going out to play as in past generations.

tori, mind you, it depends on the child as well. You need to have a fussy eater to understand about power struggles. And my dd will eat anything at nursery or at grandma's house but not do the same at home

I do look after 2 fussy children who are now not fussy either at home or with me anymore. I do understand. With food you have to set the boundries and stick to them which is how I educated both sets of parents.

tori the unfortunate truth with my ds is that there are too many boundaries. He is dangerously allergic to foods in 5 different food groups (apparently this is unusual) and then throw in dogs, cats and dustmites for good measure. You can imagine how this has affected his relationship with food (some foods could literally kill him) and my relationship with food and him ( constantly checking ingredients etc).

So when he became a fussy eater as well as having a severely restricted diet you can imagine how difficult we all began to find it.

He is also one of those kids who would starve himself quite happily (well he becomes very grumpy but is not aware that it is hunger). He is dropping down the scale and he is stick thin. There are times when I am tempted to gorge him on sweets just to put weight on him.

drosophila, that must be so stressful. I never worried about the fact that dd2 never ate, I took the 'she'll not starve, she gets what she's given, mealtimes won't become a battle ground, she'll eat if she's hungry' line. Except she didn't, and ended up anaemic. I know exactly what you mean about letting them eat junk just so that you can't see their ribs.

Ahh blueshoes I would use the exact same description of how food was viewed and prepared in my (Italian) family, right doen to the fact that the food was probably more oily and salty then would be considered healthy now but as you say lovingly prepared and always cooked from scratch from good quality ingredients. Yet all of us (younger sister apart) have a weight problem.

drosophila, yes, food is most vertainly more then just nutrietien and fuel, which it should be, but I suppose with all teh advertising around, it's really easy to connect emotions to eating food, obviously most of the time, the emotions shown in advertising can't actually be recreated really, but that doesn't stop people seeking that.
It's starts at a young age when a Kid gets a treat for being good, or for being brave, or because they are upset....so, it gets ingrained from a young age.

I think the whole rotund tummy on otherwise normal sized Kids most defiantely is to do with the high amount of manmade carbs in our western diet....well, I certianly know that when I eat to much of them, it shows on my lovehandles first!
Lack of cardio vascular exercise is off course also a reason for it. But I suppose sometimes it's difficult, if you live in an area where the children can't really play out and be active and where, for whatever reason you cna't take them to sportsgroups/clubs...etc...!

The cultural aspect is very likely to have a great impact....especially if they eat their traditional diet.

They should just do awy with all processed foods, and I am sure there would be not an obesity problem as it is....if only eh...or if at least un processed foods would be cheaper then processed stuff....

I can absolutely see how this has affected your DS drosophilia. It must be a very difficult situation for you. Obviously when I say about my attitude towards food it isn't easily applied to a child with those circumstances. . As you have already said, when you are anxious about your ds's diet he will pick up on that. Its very hard not to show any anxiety when you know he may have severe reactions to various foods.

Lazycow, I do not discount the genetic factor!

tori, "setting boundaries" about food sends a shiver down my back. With dd's personality, "setting boundaries" means "power struggles" and I pick my battles with her. Food is not a battle I want to fight, when dh and I are relaxed about it to begin with. Without the emotional backdrop of a "you eat what I serve or you get nothing at all", dd is free to exercise reasonable control over her intake.

It is not all junk. I trust her.

Dd is offered the food dh and I eat at the table. If she refuses, we don't force. Sometimes she asks for more. A few days ago, dd actually praised my cooking . If she says she is hungry (having refused her dinner), she gets a sandwich, even pudding. What she does not eat with us, she makes up for in nursery and on other days. This fussiness gets better with age anyway.

Different style.

Blueshoes I'm glad you have a method that works well for your child, I don't force my child to eat every morsel on her plate, I just expect her to have a little of everything. Very different. But if she refuses I do not give pudding. As far as I am concerned if she isn't hungry enough to eat her dinner then she doesn't require pudding. When she gets older i.e. around age 6/7 she will be able to choose from healthy options like 'we are having fish pie, would you like carrots or brocolli with it', but not 'what would you like for dinner?'