Childhood Obesity= CHILD ABUSE

stealthq

There is a vast difference between theory and application.

Not really, no. Making a pot of bean soup is not rocket science.

Getting a kid to eat that stuff is. What do you do then? Put a feeding tube in? Let them "not eat at all then" and then you are abusive for not feeding them enough? Until you have kids of your own don't talk to me about how to feed them.

Honestly, going the 'if you don't want it, then don't eat' works for the vast majority of kids after a couple of days at most. Usually a couple of meals takes care of it. Very few kids will legitimately starve themselves. And really, a couple of days without food is not going to harm a healthy child (obviously this does not apply to kids with issues like diabetes) or cause social services to descend upon the parent - the kid would not suddenly become skin and bones.

If this weren't the case, I would imagine our population after the Great Depression would have been drastically reduced. There was no money to be indulging picky children, so why didn't they all starve to death? Right. They learned to eat what was offered.

ETA: oops, misplaced clause. Fixed.

Jess732008

I would like to see more done to help children not have to grow up at unhealthy weights. However, it is not a simple issue. Many parents are not lazy but simply don't understand proper nutrition themselves so they need to be taught. Also for many people food is a cultural issue. Growing up we always had big Sunday dinners. I was fortunate enough to be a very active child. Foster care is often not a good place for children and while I believe in protecting children putting them in a situation that is potentially physically or emotionally abusive is worse (in my opinion) than leaving them with parents who love them but aren't good at managing their weight.

I now have 2 children of my own and at my 5 year old's recent doctor's appointment they told me my daughter was overweight based off her BMI. However, if you look at her she is thin and muscular. She has quite a toned stomach and is very active. So the statistic of "one in three American children were profiled as overweight or obese" may be a bit misleading.

Yes, my six year old supposedly is overweight but he is like a rock. He has no belly overhang or anything, just a normal muscular and thick boy. He has some interesting tastes too. He loves buckwheat but hates beans. He is not a big soup fan. He likes fruits and veggies. He also likes junk food and fast food which I normally do not have in the house for my own sake and his. I am still fat though because I eat emotionally and have from the time I was a child. I can give into self-pity and feeling unloved and then eat because of it. I also eat because I am happy or bored. I have had some hard things to deal with since I got married and gained over 100 lbs. Part of the gain was medication related. Part of it is my lack of self control. Obese people mainly have horrible self control with food.

_KitKat_

BTW i am a parent of a TRUE picky eater.. And he WOULD starve himself if he didnt like a certain food.. This a kid will eat eventually when they are hungry. How good would a parent be if a kid refused dinner because he didnt like it and wouldnt eat breakfast then had to go to school hungry.. It happens. Have you any IDEA how stubborn children really are? See how long you last as an actual parent when the true loves of your life do this. Soooo tell me how you can force a child to eat what they dont want? I really would love to know.. So please enlighten me.... My father was a marine. When i didnt want something I would be forced to sit there until it was eaten. If i still wouldnt eat it I would get cuffed upside the head. Try doing something like that today

OK, so I may get it for this but.......

No, I do not believe in forced feeding or for a child to be made to finish what's on their plate (many weight issues happen from just this practice) BUT if a child is that PICKY, then the parent normally chose the easy route when that child was young. If a child is offered healthy options the same as they are offered any other food and repeatedly from a young age the child has neutral ideas of different foods and will eat many options. Offering a child choice can be "do you want string cheese or an apple?". At some point early on the parent didn't teach health and took the easy way. Sitting with my 2yr old nephew the other day, he got the same dinner as us...he picked at it and wanted goldfish crackers instead.....I told him " you can't have those till you eat dinner, if you don't like this I can make you some eggs" he picked a few minutes more, I got up scrambled an egg and he ate that. He wasn't forced but he was told he would eat dinner food....and stay seated till he did. I choice the other option for him, I did choose a food he likes...so that there would be no excuse. If he demanded fries, they would just have not been an option. The kids can choose from the choices I give only. If I offer my youngest fruit or a cookie, 99% of the time she says " can I make a fruit smoothie? " or just wants the fruit. I also have no issue saying "that's enough" or "well don't let me see you snacking if you don't want dinner, dinner than a snack if you want it" and snack in my house means anything that is not a meal item, healthy or not.

Also as a new parent, with a busy schedule choosing the easy way just happens sometimes..... but the fault of a picky eater still lies with the parent. I do understand not wanting to go rounds with a 2 year old, but as a parent you need to do what you need to do.

k8blujay2

The "You don't have kids." argument is moronic.

Try feeding a pre-schooler with a will of their own and then see how moronic that argument is...

Please don't be a moron, and people won't judge you as such.

Telling parents how to do so when you have never experienced it first hand is pretty moronic... so you are really the kettle calling the pot black....

Carnivor0us

Wait a second? I'm to blame for my fat cat? What do you think I do, hold her down and shove kibble in her mouth?

You know when she got fat? When I took her in, spayed her and forced her into a sedentary indoor lifestyle. Lack of activity kills, but there is no way I could replicate the exercise she got outdoors.

I have had cats most of my life and I disagree with you. My cats were all neutered and most of the time lived in apartments with limited possibilities to be active. However I played with them every day, they had climbing trees and other chances to exercise. None of them were ever overweight , because there is this idea to control weight. The thought is " calories in, calories out ". It means that someone burns more calories than they ingest. You might not believe it, but it works for animals also. My last two normal weight cats died at 19 years and a few month and except for the last two years of their lives were very agile and active. My neighbor also has cats that are usually very overweight and do nothing but sleep and none of them has gotten older than 9 year........I wonder why that is.

I have a 30 pound neutered Maine Coon. He's 17 years old. For years, he got only measured amounts of wet food and kibble. He had no diabetes, thyroid or other hormonal issues. We've been to many different vets and we have no idea why he's so damn fat. We feed him enough food to support a 20 pound cat, which would be his correct weight. It is a high protein kibble/wet food. His weight hasn't budged.

CICO doesn't seem to work for my cat. Suggestions then? I thought it was just that easy.

I too have had cats my whole life. I've gotten several to lose weight by feeding them raw or high protein food without changing the amounts.

QueenBishOTUniverse

I've never understood this constant claim that children are picky eaters.

....

watch your kid literally gag and throw up cause of textures and LMK how it goes for you. My kids get plenty of healthy foods but I'm not gonna cry over letting them have chicken nuggets or pizza once or twice a week.

I would gag on sauerkraut as a child and would fight my parents over it every single time (and we're talking 8 not 4 or 5). In high-school I learned that the bitter reflex on the back of the tongue is more sensitive in some than in others and that consuming foods which are bitter can trigger a gag reflex as part of a preventive system to avoid ingesting poisons. To this day I give my parents hell for making me eat sauerkraut and telling me I was being ridiculous and it wasn't actually making me gag.

TheVirgoddess

The "You don't have kids." argument is moronic.
I also don't have a vagina, but I can still tell people that it's probably a good idea not to stick live animals up there.
Not feeding your kids garbage should go without saying, and no matter how "good" or "loving" a parent you are otherwise, you're still treating your kid like junk when that's what you feed them. You can be the most incredible parent otherwise but things in life don't just cancel each other out like that.
Kind of like how a parent can occasionally beat the crap out of their kid for doing things wrong but be a fantastic parent in every other way.

Also, as far as the subject of abuse goes, there are varying levels of it. People don't understand that humiliating their kids is emotional abuse (so many viral videos of parents thinking this is a great disciplinary idea). Or that locking their kid away for extensive periods of time with no stimulation isn't abuse. Or a myriad of other forms of abuse that don't require actual physical contact or explicit emotional abuse.

Just because someone else doesn't have kids, doesn't mean that their criticism of incredibly idiotic actions isn't valid. If you were murdering your child because he scuffed your sneakers it probably wouldn't be that random dude on the bus's error to tell you that it's a really bad idea.

I'm telling you that feeding your kids trash is terrible and has such a negative effect on their long and short term emotional health, physical health, eating habits, and understanding of the importance of good diet, that it can probably be considered some form of abuse to know all this and still make no effort to correct it.
I'm going to tell you it, and no matter how much you tell me otherwise, it will be an indisputable fact, just like smacking your kid isn't a viable form of discipline according to the massive amount of studies that condemn negative reinforcement. It's a fact.
Anecdotal evidence, insane semantic arguments regarding who has what or who has what life experience cannot eliminate the facts.

Please don't be a moron, and people won't judge you as such.

So, I don't know if you know this, but vaginas are body parts that are completely under the control of the human being they are attached to.

Kids are not.

And you say our argument is moronic?

You can have an opinion on raising kids - of course you can. You just need to understand that it's uninformed and will likely not be taken seriously. Especially when you compare vaginas to children in your opening statement.

DeltaZero

I've never understood this constant claim that children are picky eaters.

....

watch your kid literally gag and throw up cause of textures and LMK how it goes for you. My kids get plenty of healthy foods but I'm not gonna cry over letting them have chicken nuggets or pizza once or twice a week.

I would gag on sauerkraut as a child and would fight my parents over it every single time (and we're talking 8 not 4 or 5). In high-school I learned that the bitter reflex on the back of the tongue is more sensitive in some than in others and that consuming foods which are bitter can trigger a gag reflex as part of a preventive system to avoid ingesting poisons. To this day I give my parents hell for making me eat sauerkraut and telling me I was being ridiculous and it wasn't actually making me gag.

I'm gagging just reading the word sauerkraut.

40andFindingFitness

STOP ATTACKING THE OP!

Hahahaha. OMG the pics are hilarious.

countrygirl7mels

I do not think that obese children should be placed in foster care, but, I do agree that the parents are to blame for most childhood obesity cases. In my home I stress the importance of personal excellence and high achievement. I do not expect my child to be perfect, but I expect her to always try her best. I incorporate this motto in all of our activities. This means that I want her to be successful overall as in individual, which means I want her to ultimately be a healthy, happy, intelligent, contributing member to society as I am currently. Just like parents who do not encourage their children to read at an early age or teach their children basic skills such as balancing a checkbook, cooking meals at home, or how to check tire pressure, parents who fail to teach their children how to take care of their bodies properly are setting them up for failure.

I see this as a "survival of the fittest" situation, and children who are given the resources to be successful will be the people who excel in life, while others will have a much harder time reaching success. All parenting decisions are personal choices every parent has to make for his or her child, and, after the child is grown, he or she must then decide if a change needs to be made from the lifestyle in which he or she was raised.

We have a lot of resources out there to teach people how to live a healthy lifestyle. I don’t think there are many resonable excuses for people to be overweight, but there is an element of personal choice and responsibility, and if we start taking kids away because they are overweight, then where do we draw the line? Would you suggest that we should also take kids away if their parents smoke in the home or if their parents don’t help them with their homework? Yes, parents should give their kids tools to succeed, but, beyond meeting basic needs, it is not necessary that parents ensure their childrens' success (although, I don't know why someone would not encourage overall greatness). We really can’t go around taking kids away because the parents don’t make good food and exercise choices. We can only try to educate them, and raise our own kids to be healthy.

k8blujay2

I've never understood this constant claim that children are picky eaters.

....

watch your kid literally gag and throw up cause of textures and LMK how it goes for you. My kids get plenty of healthy foods but I'm not gonna cry over letting them have chicken nuggets or pizza once or twice a week.

I would gag on sauerkraut as a child and would fight my parents over it every single time (and we're talking 8 not 4 or 5). In high-school I learned that the bitter reflex on the back of the tongue is more sensitive in some than in others and that consuming foods which are bitter can trigger a gag reflex as part of a preventive system to avoid ingesting poisons. To this day I give my parents hell for making me eat sauerkraut and telling me I was being ridiculous and it wasn't actually making me gag.

Yeah I wasn't too keen on it either... To be fair though my mom would buy the canned stuff... and then tell us "ketchup will make it taste better"... No mom, no it didn't.... I didn't eat it again until I was like 18 and went to Fredricksburg, Texas...

callas444

You're taking a huge, systematic, societal issue and trying to blame one source, parents. Are parents responsible for obesity in their children? To a point... but there is much wrong in our society that have lead to this epidemic of obesity. Unhealthy food is dirt cheap. Healthy food is expensive. Poverty is a huge factor in obesity. School lunches are largely unhealthy (catsup as a vegetable?) because what schools get from the state is crap. Kids are less active then they ever have been in history. Recess and Phys. Ed. have been disappearing from schools. Pay to Play limits what school extracurricular programs parents can afford, particularly middle class as the very poor can usually get the fees waived and the affluent can afford the fees. It's the middle class that can't afford the fees and don't qualify for help with them.

It's a bigger issue than just bad parenting (although that certainly contributes). The First Lady's initiatives are a good start and hopefully she can continue to make school lunches more healthy and get healthy food in the bellies of folks in need. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/12/michelle-obama-lunch-standards_n_5490164.html)

People need help and information, not to be judged. This doesn't help anyone. It's a sensitive subject, very embarrassing to those affected.

k8blujay2

We have a lot of resources out there to teach people how to live a healthy lifestyle.

Those same resources also require you to wade through fad diets and gimmicks such as essential oils... and all it takes is a misstep in your google search for you to get the incorrect info.

PRMinx

Wait a second? I'm to blame for my fat cat? What do you think I do, hold her down and shove kibble in her mouth?

You know when she got fat? When I took her in, spayed her and forced her into a sedentary indoor lifestyle. Lack of activity kills, but there is no way I could replicate the exercise she got outdoors.

I have had cats most of my life and I disagree with you. My cats were all neutered and most of the time lived in apartments with limited possibilities to be active. However I played with them every day, they had climbing trees and other chances to exercise. None of them were ever overweight , because there is this idea to control weight. The thought is " calories in, calories out ". It means that someone burns more calories than they ingest. You might not believe it, but it works for animals also. My last two normal weight cats died at 19 years and a few month and except for the last two years of their lives were very agile and active. My neighbor also has cats that are usually very overweight and do nothing but sleep and none of them has gotten older than 9 year........I wonder why that is.

I have a 30 pound neutered Maine Coon. He's 17 years old. For years, he got only measured amounts of wet food and kibble. He had no diabetes, thyroid or other hormonal issues. We've been to many different vets and we have no idea why he's so damn fat. We feed him enough food to support a 20 pound cat, which would be his correct weight. It is a high protein kibble/wet food. His weight hasn't budged.

CICO doesn't seem to work for my cat. Suggestions then? I thought it was just that easy.

I have a 21 pound Maine Coon. He has a tree and I try to play with him a little every day. He follows me everywhere I go so sometimes I'll walk up and down the stairs on purpose to get him moving.



ETA: Photo

DeltaZero

It's a bigger issue than just bad parenting (although that certainly contributes). The First Lady's initiatives are a good start and hopefully she can continue to make school lunches more healthy and get healthy food in the bellies of folks in need. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/12/michelle-obama-lunch-standards_n_5490164.html)

Except for that large portion of our society that now mistrusts our government and hate that people are "telling them what to do."

jofjltncb6

In...

...before the roll.





Great. Now I want rolls.

Keep_The_Laughter

How many kids do you have exactly?

Irrelevant. And a fallacious non-argument.

I'll take that as 0 from you. I will assume the OP is the same...

who cares? This is not a complex concept. Cook decent food for your family and teach your children about portion sizes. Get them involved with sports, and have them play outside. Buy them a bike, basketball hoop, take them hiking, etc. Don't allow them to get into bad habits by eating hoho's and playing xbox and they won't be a bunch of fat *kitten*.

You're right. It's simple.

Make sure you and your family only eats healthy and exercises. Don't smoke, do drugs, or drink. Get straight A's in school so you can go to a good college and get a well paying job. Be kind to everyone you meet. Marry the perfect partner and have a happy, healthy relationship with good communication. Use your loads of free time to volunteer to help others.

It's really so easy. Thank heavens all you perfect, non-parents, are here to show the way to us doddering fools with mouth breathing kids.

/sarcasm Do some of you really not live in the world that you think it's this easy?

Brett, I almost never enter these types of threads, because the "myopia" is too strong and that is time could be spending watching paint dry or something. However, in this case as a non-parent who has worked with children, I'm chiming in to support you and the other parents trying to get through the perfect world fallacies and to reality.

The baseline assumption that children will behave in predictable and linear ways is false. Human behavior and cognition is not linear. We uncover patterns in human behavior through research and study. The path is not simply "introduce factor A and observe behavior B with not other conditioning." If this were the case every parent in this thread would be breaking out the champagne and celebrating having a household free of back talk, sibling rivalry, complaints, anger, sadness, teenaged angst and so forth.

Food is no different than any other stimulus in the real world. Children are exposed to it at home, at school, in the media and can be indirectly influenced by the opinions of others. As young as kindergarten/preschool, children are coming into contact with other people's eating habits, opinions and cultural expectations around food and eating. As soon as children have enough linguistic experience to differentiate positive and negative context in speech they are exposed to outside opinions about food through advertising. Refusing or fixating on particular food are idiosyncratic behaviors that parents may have to spend months or even years trying to correct or work around, because the source of the issue is not always related to immediate family or easy to identify.

If anyone is capable right now of explaining in detail how to account for each child's personality differences and their responses to parental influence and outside stimuli, you need to write the definitive book on parenting. Every parent, teacher, doctor, therapist and park ranger will buy it if it's published. Until that book is available on Amazon, I'm going to keep agreeing with people like Brett. If you do not understand that children are just as capable of idiosyncratic behavior as individuals in any other age group, then your powers of observation are being limited either by choice or lack of adequate exposure the children's environments.

QueenBishOTUniverse

I've never understood this constant claim that children are picky eaters.

....

watch your kid literally gag and throw up cause of textures and LMK how it goes for you. My kids get plenty of healthy foods but I'm not gonna cry over letting them have chicken nuggets or pizza once or twice a week.

I would gag on sauerkraut as a child and would fight my parents over it every single time (and we're talking 8 not 4 or 5). In high-school I learned that the bitter reflex on the back of the tongue is more sensitive in some than in others and that consuming foods which are bitter can trigger a gag reflex as part of a preventive system to avoid ingesting poisons. To this day I give my parents hell for making me eat sauerkraut and telling me I was being ridiculous and it wasn't actually making me gag.

Yeah I wasn't too keen on it either... To be fair though my mom would buy the canned stuff... and then tell us "ketchup will make it taste better"... No mom, no it didn't.... I didn't eat it again until I was like 18 and went to Fredricksburg, Texas...

I kept trying to explain to them, I actually LIKED the taste, but that it would make me gag every time I tried to swallow it. I can eat it on something like a Ruben where it is mixed in with other flavors so the bitter content is somewhat masked, but when they would serve it as a side with bratwurst, nope couldn't do it.

DeltaZero

In...

...before the roll.





Great. Now I want rolls.

With butter?

BusyRaeNOTBusty

I have not read all 13 pages of this post.

I do NOT think children should be taken away from their parents if they are obese. I do think nutritional counseling is a good idea.

My children eat raw vegetables (I don't look cooked vegetables in most instances), fruit, grilled chicken and fish (although often they put barbeque sauce or steak sauce on it), AND they eat McDonald's, pizza, and sugar cereal. Oh and we had doughnuts for breakfast Sat. They are pretty active, playing outside a lot and we are a big bike family. I'm looking to upgrade both girls to geared mountain bikes this year. And they also watch TV and play some video games. I employ the same "moderation" standards on my children as I use myself.

My horse is only a little high.