Obese children "set" before the age of 5 - how to tackle it

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So, the latest research indicates that 90% of excess weight is put on in girls before the age of 5, and in boys it is 70% before the age of 5.

One mother thinks that parents should just be told, straight, that it is down to them to ensure that this excess weight gain doesn't happen - but will this work?

There so often seems to be a backlash against the "nanny state" when parents are put in a culpable position for their children's weight issues - which then gives people an excuse to say "I'm not being told by any Government how to feed my children, they're my kids and I'll give them what I want to."

What do you think? Will people backlash against it or take advice to help their children?

My dd1 was feed no sweets, no chocolate and no crisps for her first year - as she was a greedy baby for milk and eat home made vegtable puree like there was no tommorow.

By the time she was 12 months she was 2 stone, now I knew that her diet was very very low on sugar and wasn't concerned about her weight.

At her two year check, I was told outright that she was fat and I should limit her sugar intake and put her on a diet. I explained that her sugar intake was low, very low and she didn't have crisps and junk, that she was like me a chubby child who would grow upwards and slim out. The health visitor told me no she would not she was fat.

I took her for her 3 year check and she had put on one pound in weight and grown. I told the health visitor nothing, I refrained from saying I told you so.

dd1 is now 5ft10 and under eight stone, she has for the last 16 years had a good diet.

If I had listened to the health visitor and decided to put her on a diet (no deit sheet was produced) would my dd have suffered?

My dd2 was not as big at 12 months she was around 22-23 pounds and was still chubby but not quite as big as her sister.

They are both on my profile and neither are over weight.

But what happens to mothers that are then convinced and possibly restrict food to far and end up doing more damage?

My sister was told to put her DD on a diet as she was a chubby baby - she didn't as DN was fed a good varied diet and now DN is a normal well proportioned 4 year old.

It can be so damaging when parents swing the oppisite way and restrict all fat from a babies/toddlers diet, i know one mum who makes me so angry becuase after breastfeeding her dd for 12 months she switched her to skimmed milk and will only let her have meals with no fat in them, needless to say her dd is tiny.

By the way Ivykaty44 your daughters are lovely!

My kids still use(d) pushchair until the age of 4+ and none of them are fat... actually, a mate walks 6 miles/day as part of her school run, and none of her DC are fat either (even though they get to use the p-chair until age 4+ too). Which is to say We're not discussing something with a simple solution, though I suspect parental denial is a major factor.

If DC were chubby I would be horrified and terrified, I think a lot of parents don't even realise when they have fat kids. I know an 8-9yo girl who must be 2 stone overweight, she has the profile of a heavily pregnant woman, it upsets me every time I see her (mother and twin brother both ordinary size people). So how did she get like that? It boggles my mind.

Anyway, I believe the study. The Yr2 & Yr4 children I know who are quite fat now were already quite heavy in reception. Not 1 in 4 of the kids we see are fat, though, more like about 10%. Which is about the same as when I was little, I reckon.

BUT, a lot of people, girls especially, put on excess weight at about age 12-14, and the study we're discussing stopped at age 9 (I head on radio), so it's missing out observing what happens in teen years, when a lot of life patterns get most set in.

heard on radio, not head...

thank you, charlee

I do believe that some people are genetically motivated to move less and eat more. These same people would probably be very healthy if they were having to hunt and forage for food.

Unfortunately, in our land of excess, they are almost certainly destined to become obese.

I must live in a more "interesting" area then as quite a few of the children I see around are on the hefty side - but then generally so are their mothers.

I remember watching a tv programme a while ago about really obese teens - there was one girl who was 16 and weighed something like 26 stone - she was told her health was in serious jeopardy, her visceral fat was way excessive and she ate tons of junk and did little to no exercise. Her mum said something like "it must be genetic - I was the same at her age, my mum was heavy and so was my nan. So there is no getting away from it". She then did say that her daugher ate the same stuff as she did, with no hint of any kind of realisation that perhaps the food might be part of the reason, rather than the genetics!

LiffeyCanSpellGeansaiNollaig on Wed 17-Dec-08 19:37:53

"I think that 'thinking about food all the time' gene definitely exists. My Dad has it!!!"

We are 4 siblings, and only my eldest brother seems to have it. We were brought up on a healthy diet and fairly frugally by parents who weren't at all fixated on food (or on dieting), but it was noticeable from a very early age that he wanted larger portions and that he got very anxious if he felt there might not be enough or if food didn't instantly materialise. None of the rest of us did. We just assumed that we wouldn't starve and that this wasn't terribly important.

He has been overweight throughout adulthood though the rest of us aren't and our parents aren't either.

So why has this one sibling got this unhealthy food fixation? He is a generally more needy and anxious person, but to me it just seems so odd to get anxious about not getting enough food, plenty of it around in Western society after all.

Interesting thread.

MY DD1 is considered small. I'm always getting comments on how tiny she is and, at 2 yrs old she is only in 18mth age clothes. At Great Ormond Street Hospital last week we had her weighed and measured and she was over the 50th centile! I was surprised as I'm constantly being told how little and underweight she is by various Surestart people and HVs! Is it also our sense of perspective that is somehow skewed?

My DD2 is 6 mths - just weaning. Yet at playgroups mothers have been having their babies on 3 meals a day at 14 weeks That can't help in the early years.

Absolutely agree about the "must eat" gene. I have it, as does my Dad. I can also see that my DS has it and he's only two.

We would be the survivors in a famine situation.

jeanjeannie - if all the hv and surestart persons are seeing overweight and larger children then your dc will seem small in comparison.

A size 14 now, in the 70's would have been a size 16 - the shops have reduced the label rather than have people think they have gotten larger. Our yard stick for measuring has got larger and so your dd or healthy child will appear smaller.

My dd's were both over the 91st centile - but that didn't mean they were overweight, just a larger start. Having men in the family well over 6f6" the start is going to be larger than someone of 5f8"

The whole picture needs to be viewed not just a snap shot.

Exactly Ivykaty44 - it's about seeing things in proportion. I'm fed up of 'concerned' HVs talking about my underweight children - or saying 'how teeny' they are in a condescending manner. Both DP and me are bog-average height and weight - so it's not surprising they are both around 50th centile. The size of the family - in terms of height, does play a big part.

I live in an area where larger children are very visible - and I've got used to seeing it now. I think it's because they are viewed up against them that they look small and those who work with children in our area have clearly lost a perspective on 'normal' range and all its guises.

my DS has been pretty much on the 9th centile since he was born - but luckily no one around here seems to have skewed vision, as I haven't been told he is underweight or anything.

I think I am very lucky in my team of HVs and MWs etc.

I don't know where all of these obese children are. There are perhaps two in DD's whole school.

Yes I remember the HVs who were bent on fattening up babies! Where we used to live there were a lot of fat babies and kids, but much much fewer where we are now. I think that a lot of people will get fat if given the opportunity, and there's a lot of opportunity out there! A generation ago, we had colder houses, colder water, and a lot more physical activity to get through in a day.

Also with better nutrition, children are getting taller and have bigger feet.

So... we could stop heating our houses, only have the hot water on for a couple of hours a day and throw away the car keys.

But we are not growing taller (feet bigger yes) and in the us they are now shrinking in height - due to poor diet which lacks nutrition

TBH I think it would be better to keep encouraging the positives - lots of sport at school and encourage plenty of fruit and vegtables through each day. With real incentives on the positive the negatives will fall by the wayside.

I agree with that position, Ivykaty, but what about the concept that it's pre-school that could be where the problem originates - how do we deal with that?

And as regards tallness - I have seen numerous examples of children the same height as their (generally rather short) parent, but the difference is in the length of their legs (the mum's bums are higher than the kids - no it wasn't just their trousers!!).

I would love for someone to really do a study on this - I am sure legs are getting shorter in relation to overall height (and therefore backs are getting longer).
Someone (dunno who) has suggested that our legs are shrinking due to evolutionary requirement - after all, you don't need long legs to sit on chairs/ sofas/ carseats - but longer backs will still give you a height advantage.

I agree that the perception of weight is skewed - overweight children are viewed as 'well-covered', 'chunky' or as having 'puppy fat'.

When most of the time they are fat. Not necessarily fat compared to many of their peers, because their peers are often fat too.

Children are bigger than they were 30 years ago because they are well nourished, often to the point of being over nourished.

I am a school nurse and have seen some seriously overweight children. We send the parents the results of their screening and offer advice and support if their child is overweight and do you know how many reply to take up that advice?

Virtually none. They don't think it's a problem.

In reply to eekareindeer, I think it is different in different part of the country. I couldn't believe the statistics because DCs in my area don't appear to have a problem and schools have very few pupils that you could call obese, but it was very different when I went on holiday to Cornwall this summer-a lot of families on the beach were fat.
I think it is all the snacks-but anytime I mention it on other threads I get told that it is normal to eat small amounts often. I don't think it is, I don't think they ever get used to feeling hungry! I am sure that I don't have a weight problem because I eat at meal times and not in between meals.
I don't see why a DC can't go around a supermarket without food! I couldn't eat something before it is paid for and scan an empty packet at the check out.

piscesmoon, it can be normal to eat small amounts often, but probably not to have 3 main meals a day as well!!

There is another theory of obesity/fullness - that people have lost the ability to discriminate between thirst and hunger. So they have this "feeling", they think they are hungry so they eat. IN fact they were thirsty, didn't recognise it as such, didn't DRINK any water, just added in more food (which likely contained more sugar and salt, thus further dehydrating them) so they STILL have the "feeling" - cos they are still thirsty! So they think they are hungry and.. [repeat as necessary]

I would agree on the small amounts often if it was instead, and not in addition to main meals!
I think that if you are a person who needs little and often the answer is to sit down and pay attention to what you are eating-a lot of the time they are mindlessly chomping while doing something else. That is what I have against supermarket grazing. I never had a problem with my DCs-I just said it wasn't ours until we had paid for it. We sometimes had a snack when we did a big supermarket shop but we went in a cafe, sat down and made it an occasion.
Even if DCs are used to eating little and often they can cope with the odd day where they have to go longer. There was a huge thread on here recently with people annoyed that a school could contemplate taking 5yr olds on a trip where they had nothing to eat for 5 hours! I expect they all survived!

So Sidge - how do you think people can be made to see that it is a problem? Are they all in denial, or are they just abnegating their responsibility?

after this came up last night I went to lok at the photographs of my dd when she was 2 - and I was told she was fat by the health visitor (sometomes denial can be seen years after) and I was shocked at what I saw. I sahll try to scan photograpahs and upload them.

It is the ones of my dd1 in the stripy outfit - I have uploaded one side on and she was 2 it was just after her birthday as she had the trike.

The photo in the green dress she is 11 months, she is 2 stone nearly and has chunky legs but hardly short...

I cannot looking back see though at her 2 year check how the HV told me she was fat - tell me straight

I think some of you would be surprised wrt how many reception age children are overweight.

We are not talking massively fat; th ebe defined as overweight a child is just a bit chubby really.

I help in school and am often when the kids get ready for PE. I would say typically in a class there are 3-4 with chubby legs and big tummies of an 18mo toddler. And this is a very MC sort of school.

All girls too I'm afraid

If you ask me (nobody did, but anyway) it's because they are fed crap at will and are pushed everywhere until age 4