Obese children

[venator]

Some schools are back today, and I see the kids walking through the village clutching crisp bags and chocolate. At least they have to walk to reach the toffee shop!

The message that they are letting themselves in for serious health damage doesn't seem to be getting through

Can anything really be done for them?

[ummmm]

Not much...

I have a skinny child and a chubby child. Skinny eats twice as much as chubby. Skinny eats more than his Dad. Chubby is a bread thief. I don't buy crisps, drinks or biscuits...I don't give them cash either. Sometimes it's just the way it is..

I also only buy bread when it's needed. He'll still eat though, even if we don't have butter.

He's not fat..he's just bigger than my other two.

My sister is obese...so is her daughter....They eat sh!te.

[venator]

Agree there, ummmm - some of it's genetic - one of my daughters is chubby, but doesn't overeat or eat rubbish. We have a family group of grandparents and one of three sisters is chubby, two are skinny.

Having said that, the increase in the proportion of obese children can't be down to genetics, surely?

Many of them have obese parents - OH is a midwife with 30 years'experience. She has seen increasing numbers of grossly obese mothers whose rolls of fat have to be taped up out of the way with surgical tape - what a lovely thought!!!!

[ummmm]

It's 'mainly' not genetic. My sister is greedy...she'll happily admit that. She over fed her kids though. She was giving her 3 year old adult portions!!

My Mums family are thin...my Dads family are fat (the women are all less than 5ft, bless 'em)

[pa___ul3]

I eat crap, I always have, but I do a lot of sport so I'm in decent shape.
You can get people who eat great food but do diddly squat, I think the activity side should be encouraged more than tasty food is discouraged.

[Prudie]

I agre pa-ul, I think the general lack of exercise contributes as much if not more than diet or genetics.

[B00]

Children don't seem to play out as they used to.

I was a child of the 70's and during summer at least we were out literally from dawn to dusk, only coming in when our mums yelled from the doorstep that it was tea time. We didn't have time to get fat, eating distracted us from (probably) terrororising our neighbours with our incessant screaming and yelling.

You very rarely see children playing out anymore- kinda sad really, and no I don't believe the world is a more dangerous place so we shouldn't let them run riot and be children. We closet them indoors now and give them XBoxes to play on instead.

[gingejbee]

...and they are probably suitably dressed for the current weather, too.....not.

[B00]

eh? We didn't dress properly either. We were pretty much in rags by the end of the summer holidays, as our mums got tired of putting decent stuff on us and we'd ruin 'em.

[jno]

wot B00 said. But the world really was a less dangerous place then - we could play on the street because only three people on it had a car and they didn't come home till 6pm so we knew we were safe. Once in a while someone else would drive along (probably hopelessly lost, poor souls), but compared with the M1 outside our door now it was a totally different world.

[Prudie]

i know these threads have been done before but there's no getting away from it. As B00 said when I was as young as 10 we'd be out playing in the woods for hours with parents not worrying and at school in the summer every damn PE or games lesson started with the much hated 'all run round the track'.

[ichkeria]

I don't agree that "not much" can be done. I thought the question related to children eating junk food, possibly as a substitute for "proper" food - which surely can't be good?
Give a child a proper breakfast, for example, and there's a chance he/she won't feel the urge to top up on junk, and they may even have the energy to take more exercise...
We are obsessed by size and shape. Better overweight children eating healthy food than underweight children eating bad food. There used to be a lot more of the latter ... I suspect there aren't a huge number of the former.

[B00]

Im going to disagree and say it has not a lot to do with diet for youngsters why they're fat. I know im harping back to my childhood again, but I and others my age ate Christ knows what harmful stuff, pumped full of additives, and God knows what else, none of which was healthy or good for us- but we burnt it off playing.

[ummmm]

It is dangerous now. Cars is what makes it dangerous..

Chuck 'em out the door. That's my motto :-)

[ummmm]

Yeah B00...I lived on coke and crisps...and there was a chippy next door.

What ever happened to the yellow and black caterpillars? I used to collect them...haven't seen them since I was young.

[mickrog]

I agree Boo....get the kids off their backsides and away from games consules...get them outside burning off those calories

[B00]

TV dinners were big in the 70's (remember those?) and my mum was fascinated with them, probably on account she didn't actually have to cook it (she's an awful, awful cook!) and I think i lived on those and crisp butties.

[rockyracoon]

Sometimes it is sll in your size however much the medical profession disagree, my OH is big, eats very little fat and swims 1 and quarter miles in 40-45 mins, he does this 5 times a week. The doc would still classify him as obese, what more can he do. I know a lot of kids are bigger than they should be but I do think it's about exercise as eveyone else as said. I had the same upbringing as Boo by the sounds of it and none of my friends were overweight that I can remember, neither was I.

[LoftyLottie]

My son was skinny, then chubby, then extremely skinny during his childhood. He played outside all the time, walked and cycled miles and ate reasonably sensibly, but still went through a chubby stage, just before shooting up a mile and going skinny. Not all chubbyness can be blamed on lack of exercise or diet. Obesity is something else though.

[EvianBaby]

Agree with B00 on the playing out thing. Although I don't totally agree that it's all that much more dangerous now then it was when I was a kid. There are a hell of a lot more temptations to stay indoors now with ipods, playstations, etc.

I do believe diets play a part too. Lots of families are both now parents who each work full time and don't always have the time or energy to fix up proper, fresh cooked meals. It's easier to get something that comes in a box out of the freezer and bung it in the oven. I'm obviously not suggesting this is the case for every parent.