Kids weight issue?

Swoletobe

I believe that having a discussion about health in general is very important. Telling a kid "this is good for you" is insufficient. That way they understand why we eat or try to eat healthy food. Also, proportions + active time. Now a days everything is supersized and this is terrible for our health. Listening to our bodies tell us we are full and drinking water before meals helps as well. Play time use to mean playing outside for hours before it got dark. Kids were able to burn a lot of calories vs sitting watching a glowin screen most of the time accumulating more food. Parents have to lay the foundation.

mommarnurse

Idk, I mean, my 3 kids (ages 10 , 10, and 8) eat "junk food" but I think it's not too unreasonable (except that Brandon boy, he ate 5 chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven last night- I have to stop such good baking). When we cook, we rarely fry. We do not buy soda to store in the house. My kids drink a lot of water. Above all, they are pretty active. (sports, dance, playing outside, riding bikes, running around, etc.) But, the boys do play the ps4 daily. They all remain normal weight, the boys in particular are pretty slim and muscular. I guess their diets and activity levels must balance out. I think largely in part child obesity these days is probably due to increasing sedentary lifestyles of children combined with too much fast food and soda.

DearestWinter

Reading this thread made me think of my friend who has a 9 year old son who is very overweight. She doesn't restrict his food intake and he's allowed to eat whatever he wants but I think the bigger issue is that he's extremely sedentary and plays video games in his room for hours after school. He never plays outside. He never runs around inside or does anything active. If he's given the option of going out to socialize or staying at home to play video games then he chooses the video games. He has a 6 year old brother who's naturally very thin and energetic. The kind of kid who will eat all sorts of junk but will also stop halfway through a bowl of ice cream because he recognizes he's full or just gets distracted.

I haven't talked to my friend about this and I don't think it's appropriate for me to say anything particularly since I have no kids of my own. The situation makes me sad though. He's a really nice kid. I feel like his sedentary behavior and weight problems will lead to more trouble down the road.