Donate SIGN UP

Why dont parents realise their kids are obese?

Avatar Image
Nosha123 | 13:25 Tue 11th Nov 2008 | News
27 Answers
So.. they announce today that 90% of parents with obese children DONT KNOW they're kids are fat.... and are storing up future health problems for them....

When are people going to stop making excuses for themselves and change!!!

I know a couple - both fat.. both kids on verge of morbidly obese.. and yes bullied at school for it. They eat more in one serving than my Builder husband could eat! Shocking.. They are killing their kids!

I dont suppose they have many school friends that come over - but if they did.. are they all fat too.. or are they skinny.. and if they are skinnier.. would you not as a parent look at your kid then the other and think - Jees... Little Jenny could do with losing some weight.. she's much bigger than her friend!!!

Answers

1 to 20 of 27rss feed

1 2 Next Last

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by Nosha123. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
I've watched loads of those programmes featuring obese children, where they bring in a specialist to educate the parents about healthy eating. Most of those parents are in denial and just claim their child is just "big for their age" or that it's "puppy fat".

Parents with obese children are entirely, in my opinion to blame for their children being unhealthily overweight. It's the parent who is providing the food, they types of foods and the quantity.

In my opinion, over feeding a child is nothing short of child abuse and such parents should be taken to task, if it is found their child is obese purely because of the lifestyle it has.
Question Author
The family I know.. allow their kids fizzy drinks with their breakfast.. and get several takeaways each week and eat out at the pub - giving their kids chips and crisps in between. The kids do NO after school activities (though would probably LOVE gymnastics or dancing!) - I just feel so sad for the kids.... and dont know the parents well enough to say anything to them without them taking huge offence....

Why cant they see they are killing them??? There are so many stories in the press these days they cant be oblivious to it surely??
One big problem is that the parents themselves dont see a problem or make excusses for their own lardiness. so how will they ever be able to sort their kids out.

Its a big problem and one that will only go away over a long period of time with education.

Perhaps one good side of the 'credit crunch' is less brass to spend on takeaways and junk food?
I totally agree with you Nosha (Nosha - how appropriate?!!)

Most of the fat little g1ts are like it because of their fat stupid parents who let their kids stuff themselves with chips, burgers, crisps, sweets and chocolate.

My local town was once featured on tv as the 'fattest town in britain'. Looking around my local precinct, I don't think they were far wrong either. 98% of the obese kids had obese parents. It is a form of abuse.
-- answer removed --
i know some really fat kids parents are to blame .! they eat nothing but junk food really makes me cross .im lucky my 2 boys are slim and both eat very healthy .i would never have let my kids get massive so they cant run and walk far .
Question Author
On Jamie's Ministry things though one of the single parents.. on benefits.... could somehow afford a takeaway every single night.. as she couldn't cook.
How - if a parent on benefits can afford that many take aways is the credit crunch gonna affect them???Its bonkers.. They whinge that you can buy a cheap dinner from Iceland for �2 (turkey twizzlers and the like) yet if you bought a whole chicken.. you could actually make it last for a couple of days... and vegetable soup! How cheap and easy is that!!!
I just dont understand the mentality of it! Other than Greed and Laziness!
It's also laziness as well as economical reasons. Its so much easier to go to somewhere like the Iceland store and purchase a weeks worth of unhealthy groceries for �10 and then just bung it in the oven for 20 minutes.

Maybe few of these parents can be bothered to stand at the stove preparing healthy meals for their child and miss Eastenders, also perhaps they lack the knowledge to feed their children properly
It is wrong to tar everyone with the same brush. I eat healthily (as do my family), I eat less crap at work than anyone ie biscuits, cakes, sweets, chocolates etc. i go to the gym, swim, walk the dogs daily. why am i big???
Question Author
To I'm a Busy Bee... I think the difference is you are an adult - and so are not growing any more and your metabolism has slowed.. which is why as we all get older and wiser.. we also get wider!
It doesn't mean you are necessarily unfit!
HOWEVER.. a child is still growing and should only ever really be chubby at the point they are about to have a growth spurt... A fat child is blatantly unhealthy.. This isnt a criticism about adults.. but more about how adults can allow their kids to continue being so over weight... dangerously so in many cases
I really believe it boils down to exercise more than what we eat.

As a family we ate loads of all the wrong things by today's standards. Lots of pies, suet puddings and dumplings, fatty meat, thick butter on bread, stodgy puddings, etc. etc. Lots of food to keep us warm and 'active'. (active being the operative word). Everybody ate like that back in the 50's/60's. Nobody worried about diets or whether they were eating the wrong things.

The difference was we walked everywhere and played outside all year round in all weathers when we came home from school. Nobody needed a gym or organised sports. Most of us were skinny kids.

I really don't know what the answer is. We have gone forward in so many ways, but gone backwards in this respect.

I've always been a 'big girl', even when I've been correct weight for height. When your family are all between five-eight and six-foot and skinniness doesn't run in the genes, you're going to be 'of a robust build', as people used to say. That's fine, and I know of lots of people of similar build. Not fat, just 'robust' (or big, if you want to be blunt about it).

There is a difference between that and 'fat' though. And I am talking 'fat' here as opposed to 'chubby', and as opposed to the poor souls who have metabolic disorders and various other medical conditions that lead to obesity. Kids who are fat because their parents over-feed them can't help it. If your parents are obese, if their answer to feeling down, celebrating or just passing the time is to eat, then that's all the child's going to learn. And those parents are unlikely to be of help to their kids if they put the kid on a diet/lifestyle change and then don't look at themselves.

"Oh, 'ee's too fat for is 'ealth. 'Ee's allus eatin' chocolate and crisps," we hear them say about their beloved offspring, as they are in the process of lovingly frying up yet another pan of chips for the family tea.

We used to moan at my mum, because when she went on a diet, we all had to, like it or not. But she had a point.
Some parents are just unbelievable the way they let their kids eat so much cr@p

Every road has its Lardarse family, years ago a family in my road used to come out to the ice-cream van with what looked like a washing up bowl for the ice -cream man to fill up

The kids were obese, they were bullied at school because of this with remarks like "what`s your favourite food?..Seconds?" and "whats`s your favourite musical instrument..the dinner bell?"

One of my kids is a little over weight. The other two are very very lean bordering on too skinny. They eat the same healthy meals except my podgy son kept sneaking and getting bowls of cereal.

I then started making him walk to school. He lost about a stone in 5 months and so did I.
Nosha i was just the same as a child - the doctor first put me on 'a diet' when i was 7. I find this whole subject upsetting.
I know there are a lot more overweight kids and people generally these days, but I also think that there is a tendency to think that all people ought to be skinny or slim.

We are all different shapes and sizes and can't change that. I understand why you get upset Im A BusyBee. Larger people are seen to be unacceptable in these days of conformity and peer pressure, and perfectly OK people are striving to be thinner.

There is no doubt that genetics play a great part in our make up too. Some people are stocky, others are skinny.

However, there certainly are a lot of kids who are tremendously overweight now.
Question Author
I'm sorry Busy Bee if this topic upsets you.... It wasn't intended to offend anyone - skinny or not...

It is clear that the nation does indeed have a problem though.. and that people are either too ignorant or too lazy to address it themselves...

Largely speaking... big kids (by big I do mean fat!) would not be fat if they ate healthier and exercised more... its a simple calculation of what goes in and what is burnt off.

Something has to be done about it - or else the NHS is going to be crippled by the expense of caring for these people when they reach adulthood and suffer heart attacks and strokes (along with the liver damaged binge drinkers too!). The NHS system just cannot support such a huge problem. They reckon in years to come 9 out of 10 adults will also be obese. This is just plain greed and laziness!
I must admit that although, as on my earlier posting, I said I was brought up on stodgy food, etc. like everybody else in those times, we didn't have snacks or fizzy drinks. We had three meals a day and water or milk to drink during the day.

Crisps, fizzy drinks and even squash were things that came out at birthday parties and were treats, not everyday food. I am always amazed at the amounts of coke and crisps, etc. that I see in people's shopping trolleys. I can only think people are living on them.
Question Author
Too True! I remember only being allowed coke on special occasions.... (the drinking kind obviosuly!!!)
See.. we are a society of wasteful greedy lumps!!! We need to change! To many things are too easily at our disposal and we just take it for granted and stupidly become fat on it!

Yep - I am now resisting the temptation to finish the last slice of lemon drizzle cake!!

1 to 20 of 27rss feed

1 2 Next Last

Related Questions

Sorry, we can't find any related questions. Try using the search bar at the top of the page to search for some keywords, or choose a topic and submit your own question.