i'm normally not the one to judge...

karenjoy

I work in child health, and I see a LOT of overweight children, and some obese children, and I have yet to see an overweight or obese child with both parents of normal size, there is always one or both parents who are overweight themselves, always. I have also yet to meet a parent who says 'yes I know my child is overweight, I will take on board the advice and support on offer and make healthy changes....'etc... They all say things like -we are all big in our family, it's heavy bones - or we never give them sweets, treats etc and they do loads of exercise...etc etc

I saw a child who was more than three times the average weight for a child it's age and height, and the very overweight mother told me all manner of things about how she didn't over feed, never gave crap, child did loads etc

School said the day before the child brought in THREE large cakes in its lunch box, THREE WHOLE cakes, also regularly has donuts, always has crisps, pepperoni and all manner of rubbish, that they live in walking distance of the school but drive every day.....yep this is what we are up against, child abuse by another name

Ajontheguitar

Has anyone seen the show Toddlers and Tiaras? I caught it the other day - probably won't do that again, unless i feel like torturing myself. What I noticed though, is that 95% of these crazy pageant moms are VERY overweight. One mom was getting angry at the way her kid/brat was behaving and then the camera shot over to 3 cans of mountain dew - that was her breakfast. No wonder she was acting out?! She was literally bouncing off the walls. Then another little girl, about 6 years old, was drinking Red Bull because her mom said it got her "stage" ready.

So wrong, on SO many levels - and then they are on TV, clearly not aware that this is horrible behavior and parenting. They spray tan these kids, give them fake eyelashes and fake teeth so they look good on the outside and then fill them up with crap - teaching them that it's all about their outward appearance, not their health. Such a shame.

Transference and trying to live out failures through children is an unfortunate truth about us as people. We project our insecurities into our kids when we're not careful and give them burdens they weren't designed or deserved to have. Why do we need to make a tv show about it? Half the people watching it probably have lumps in their throats realizing they've done the same thing on (hopefully) smaller scales.