Love = Food : a scary story

[MrsBigD]

\link{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=390588&in_page_id=1879&in_a_source=\How could I make my boys this fat}

This article caught my eye especially after reading a thread here on mn re giving food/sweets as rewards and the phrase 'food = love' was mentioned... I'm guilty of rewarding dd with treats ... but she's 4.5y old and weights 12kg ... though after having read this article and this mother mentioning that she was trying to pep up her sickly boy... I'm going to think about it twice! Thankfully dd is as partial to strawberries as she's to chocolate :)

OMG
The woman was off her head!!!

at least though she doesn't blame advertising and/or Fastfood chains for the obesety of her kids/family but accepts that it was her fault. Good thing she responded to that ad looking for big kids!

Never saw the devastation she was causing? What a complete idiot.

I know... especially being a nurse you'd think she'd notice, even if 'love makes blind'

dont know whether to be or

I am not really sure I believe this 'love is blind' stuff. Or may be it's just me being the arch cynic as usual.

I've done quite a bit of research about childhood obesity and the bottom line is that parents are totally responsible for their childrens diets. Check out the supermarket trollys of obese families, it is no coincedence that there is generally a high proportion of high fat processed foods in them.
There is nothing wrong with giving your child an occasional treat but it must be occasional and not their everyday diet.
I'm by no means a food facist and am a couple of stone overweight myself but I believe that education is the way forward in order to counteract the childhood obesity epidemic. (most)Parents don't harm their children out of malice it's generally out of ignorance, lots of mums don't know that feeding their offspring high fat processed foods (that the kids want and enjoy) is damaging them.
Sorry for the rant.

You can see how it starts though. I must admit I have to force myself not to mither kids to eat their tea. Mine is 2 and sometimes eats all and sometimes eats none of her dinner and if she eats none I do worry. But guess she won't fade away.

carmenere, did i read somewhere else that you are a nutritionist? me too

and well said, i also think the government need to get more involved with want can/cant be added to food, advertising at kids etc.

She's obviously beyond stupid. This isn't just stupidity, it's some kind of mental block. It's simply not possible to be psychologically healthy and not notice that your children are the same size as baby elephants.

At least she wised up though.

I'm not actually a nutritionist Gloworm but I did a course in nutrition and have written articles about childhood obesity for Irish newspapers.

I believe that the government does hold some responsibility too. Jamie Oliver said something very apt on the Parkinson show last year basically he said that the government want women to work but haven't made any effort to replace the work that historically women have done in the home.

This makes sense to me because as well as not implimenting childcare solutions there is no one at home who has the time to shop, cook and feed children a balanced diet. So we are all just doing our best and if you don't know how to cook or anything about nutrition and you have very little time, your best is often high-fat processed foods.

Nutrition and cookery should be obligatory lessons in secondry school imo.

So true Caligula. As a nurse I wonder what she said when confronted by other obese children?

The Mother of these two boys said the following which to my mind is the root cause of how her children became so obese. Her attitude was formed in childhood by her own mother:-

"I was brought up to equate love with food".

Until the scales fell from her eyes by others she was in complete denial of the problem.

Callisto, I was wondering the same thing. How could she not notice her kids were obese? How could she think that was a healthy diet?