If your child is fat then simple: you are a bad parent!

[beorhthelm]

Weetabix.

good call, and now i think of it Shreaded Wheat and Shreddies. they are a minority along the cereal ailse though. and notably dont seem to have as much sugar added.

 

[Soulman]

My son moved in with me when he was 12, so i was a single parent. I used to make his pack up in the evening.
I was on site at 7-30 every day, so used to ring him to make sure he was up for school, so sometimes he would have breakfast other times not.
I admit i had to leave some convenience food in the fridge as he would be home from school a couple of hours prior to me, so a snack was available.
My cooking was bland but healthy, with veg for the evening meal, no puddings or second course.
If he did miss breakfast, which people say is the most important meal of the day, then it did not affect his schoolwork as he managed A+ and A in maths and physics.
He mainly cooks for himself now (don't blame him after my non inspiring meals) and they are fairly healthy meals, and he enjoys a takeaway.
He plays football twice a week, goes to the gym about 3-4 times, works full time, and has no excess weight.
Meanwhile since i have stopped looking after him, and eating blandly myself..... i have put on weight and have become a bit of a chubster.

 

[looney]

When companies start dumping sugar in savoury food and silly women in focus groups think its tasty rather than thinking about there hips then its inevitable.

Sugar in Savoury food should be treated like Cigerette packets, Images and warnings on the labels, that'll teach them.

 

[BBassic]

What happens if you have one overweight child and one underweight child, as I do? The overweight one does NOT shovel sweets into his mouth 24 hours a day and has what we would consider a reasonably healthy diet, plays cricket, tennis and does karate but never loses any weight. The underweight one shovels as much food as possible into his gob all day, does no exercise whatsoever and never gains weight ever. Terrible parenting all round here then.

My brother and I were exactly the same when we were kids. He was a bit pudgy and I was stick thin. All changed when we hit our late teens/early twenties. Now I'm 30 with something of a waist and he's 27 with a very good physique. *******.

I think a lot of is to do with metabolism and genetics and such. Excepting the cases where fat parents beget fat kids. Although that could be genetics as well. Or nature vs nurture. Who the hell knows.

 

[GT49er]

If your child is fat then simple: you are a bad parent!

"If you child is fat and doesn't have a genuine medical condition causing this, then simple - you are a bad parent" would perhaps be fairer.

 

[The Rattler]

2 kids, both thin and healthy.

The missus on the other hand...

 

[Mental Lental]

Hardly any fat kids over here. My high school has over a thousand kids and there are probably about 5 or 6 fatties out of that lot. For some reason they are all girls.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

good call, and now i think of it Shreaded Wheat and Shreddies. they are a minority along the cereal ailse though. and notably dont seem to have as much sugar added.

Low fat yogurts are another con. Advertised as healthy foods but teeming in sugar. One fruit Corner is over 400 calories which is equivalent to a meal.

 

[OzMike]

What happens if you have one overweight child and one underweight child, as I do? The overweight one does NOT shovel sweets into his mouth 24 hours a day and has what we would consider a reasonably healthy diet, plays cricket, tennis and does karate but never loses any weight. The underweight one shovels as much food as possible into his gob all day, does no exercise whatsoever and never gains weight ever. Terrible parenting all round here then.

You should be shot at dawn.

 

[OzMike]

good call, and now i think of it Shreaded Wheat and Shreddies. they are a minority along the cereal ailse though. and notably dont seem to have as much sugar added.

I used to have Shredded Wheat everyday as a kid.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

According to this idiot anyway. It just isn't that simple though is it. If it were, there'd be no overweight kids. Anyway, here you go (takes pin out and walks away...)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11985974/If-your-child-is-fat-then-you-are-a-bad-parent.html

I bet the person who wrote that is a thinster

 

[Simster]

Or, and far more likely, we weren't welded to the sodding sofa playing video games.

This is actually a misconception. Whilst kids are certainly a less active than they were 30 years ago, this doesn't translate into more chubsters as much as other health issues. The real cause of obesity is diet change.

Oh and one more thing, adult activity has fallen at the same rate as child activity since 1975, so it's not just kids.

 

[Hastings gull]

Well, for me in my village :
Very few were driven the 500 yards or so to school in a 4x4
'Games' was compulsory and a couple of times a week, and included cross country
After school we played football and cricket, or generally arsed about outside, no tv, xbox or pc
Bikes were our prized possessions and we spent ages on them
There weren't takeaway places selling shitty food very cheaply, you got a wholesome meal cooked at home (and had to eat your greens)
Fat kids were called 'fatty', not treated like poor luvvies with 'issues' (I should know)

Exactly. There will always be medical problems that might cause obesity, and metabolism is also a factor, though I am sure that they are also used to an extent as an excuse. But in the majority of cases, obese children are the result of parents unwilling to change habits and listen to advice. I have lost count of how many letters were sent by schools to parents about filling lunch boxes up with unhealthy food, and yet were ignored. The proliferation of fast food outlets has just made it easier for lazy parents to avoid cooking a healthy meal. In the Silverhill and Bohemia Road areas of Hastings, covering an area of just over half a mile, I counted over 20 of these.

 

[dazzer6666]

Type of food eaten as well as amount is a major contributory factor I reckon - way too much refined carbohydrate. Body can only store 2 hours worth of glycogen, the rest gets stored as fat. Reduce potatoes, pasta, bread and sugar.....

 

[BigGully]

Firstly I do not accept that there is an obesity epidemic, if so then there must have been one throughout my lifetime.

It seems there are quangos and unelected groups having a field day in the research area at present, always a matter of scale when commenting on the general population of millions.

No problem with getting any information out there but then leave well alone, it isnt for the state or anyone else impinging on peoples lifechoices if they do not effect others, I hear the NHS this and the NHS that bull, but if you care about the NHS that much then there are far more controllables and policies that governments encourage that adversely effect out health service, but choose not to.

More fast food outlets might not necessarily mean more fast food consumed per person, it might but then again we grew up with fish and chips and pubs on each corner so come on, lazy parents if thats your conclusion might have been your Mum !!!

 

[Hastings gull]

Firstly I do not accept that there is an obesity epidemic, if so then there must have been one throughout my lifetime.

It seems there are quangos and unelected groups having a field day in the research area at present, always a matter of scale when commenting on the general population of millions.

No problem with getting any information out there but then leave well alone, it isnt for the state or anyone else impinging on peoples lifechoices if they do not effect others, I hear the NHS this and the NHS that bull, but if you care about the NHS that much then there are far more controllables and policies that governments encourage that adversely effect out health service, but choose not to.

More fast food outlets might not necessarily mean more fast food consumed per person, it might but then again we grew up with fish and chips and pubs on each corner so come on, lazy parents if thats your conclusion might have been your Mum !!!

I see exactly what you are saying -doubtless research will tell us this and that, and it is always good to bring in the NHS into the equation, and in theory it is not for government to tell how to live our lives. All fine. And yes, there were fish and chip shops but the difference was that kids were also at that time far more active. More food outlets might not necessarily mean that more such food eaten per person, but I would suspect that this is not the case, or else there would not be so many. These outlets clearly appeal to a certain section of society.

The vast majority on here, irrespective of what opinions they have, is intelligent and articulate, and the message about diet and exercise will largely have got through. Sadly, that is not the case with many households. Ask your good lady - she must surely have noticed the increasing amount of overweight children at school as the years have gone by.

 

[BigGully]

I see exactly what you are saying -doubtless research will tell us this and that, and it is always good to bring in the NHS into the equation, and in theory it is not for government to tell how to live our lives. All fine. And yes, there were fish and chip shops but the difference was that kids were also at that time far more active. More food outlets might not necessarily mean that more such food eaten per person, but I would suspect that this is not the case, or else there would not be so many. These outlets clearly appeal to a certain section of society.

The vast majority on here, irrespective of what opinions they have, is intelligent and articulate, and the message about diet and exercise will largely have got through. Sadly, that is not the case with many households. Ask your good lady - she must surely have noticed the increasing amount of overweight children at school as the years have gone by.

I also go into schools and I think we have touched on this on a previous thread, but no my wife nor I see loads of fat children in school, we really do not, there are some but there has always been some.

Strangely in ref: to fast food outlets, although some parents as always might use them it seems to me the 20 somethings that drive around and usually discard there Mcdonalds or other debris on the nearest verge are the majority of customers for them.

Look give information and help when invited to do so, but leave well alone because once they finish with that fad they will be knocking on yours and mines door to remind us of our own lifestyle choices that need addressing too.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Firstly I do not accept that there is an obesity epidemic, if so then there must have been one throughout my lifetime.

It seems there are quangos and unelected groups having a field day in the research area at present, always a matter of scale when commenting on the general population of millions.

No problem with getting any information out there but then leave well alone, it isnt for the state or anyone else impinging on peoples lifechoices if they do not effect others, I hear the NHS this and the NHS that bull, but if you care about the NHS that much then there are far more controllables and policies that governments encourage that adversely effect out health service, but choose not to.

More fast food outlets might not necessarily mean more fast food consumed per person, it might but then again we grew up with fish and chips and pubs on each corner so come on, lazy parents if thats your conclusion might have been your Mum !!!

Of course it becomes an issue of state when statistics show growing cases of diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure which medical professionals continually attribute to rising cases of obesity. These aren't necessarily quango's or unelected groups, these are necessary investigations in to changing trends in health. What is the medical profession supposed to do, just ignore rising cases of certain illnesses?

 

[Guinness Boy]

There's a massive difference between a bit of puppy fat and obesity.

My niece is now fourteen but wears adult sized 24 (at least, she's probably bigger by now) clothes. She was raised by my sister in law by herself after the boyfriend buggered off the second she got pregnant. My S-I-L is - guess what - massively overweight. I mean waddles, can barely fit in bed, twenty bags of flour overweight.

The reasons for this are simple. No one ever educated my sister in law about sensible eating, shopping or exercise. Whereas my wife (the youngest) and middle sister were raised by her dad the grossly obese one was raised by her mum who spolied her, did everything for her, but gave her no independence or money. Now that she's an adult she goes to Iceland whenever she gets paid, gets the cheapest shit imaginable and piles it in to a huge chest freezer, cooking double what she needs for every meal. I have seen her make her and her daughter a bacon sandwich for breakfast with the cheapest, saltiest, bacon going, and ten minutes later pour two enormous bowls of cereal and two massive cups of tea with four sugars. We've gone up before and got a takeaway and she's literally wanted to order fifty quids worth of Chinese for four of us.

As of now we don't go up there because when I pointed this out tactfully (I hope but maybe not given the tone of the above) she accused me of bullying her and asked us to leave. Whenever we have been in the last two years we've stayed at a nearby hotel so that she doesn't drown our kids in food.

She has now had the error of her ways pointed out to her by the social far less tactfully that me and is on the verge of having her daughter taken off her and fostered due to the health problems she has from her weight and the fact that at fourteen she can't bath herself or walk to the shops.

IMO this is a mile away from having a kid that's a little bit chubby. Perhaps if we worried less about this and judging parents who are pretty much normal and spent more time on better support and social care for people who basically do not have a clue and are killing their children with "kindness" we'd all be better off.

 

[BigGully]

Of course it becomes an issue of state when statistics show growing cases of diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure which medical professionals continually attribute to rising cases of obesity. These aren't necessarily quango's or unelected groups, these are necessary investigations in to changing trends in health. What is the medical profession supposed to do, just ignore rising cases of certain illnesses?

You must be young, dont hang your hat on intrusive health professionals, they are invariably proved wrong further upstream.

I said offer the information, even support but do not impose or impinge on personal legal preferences.