Overweight and obese children!!!

Having struggled with my own weight now for about 5 years I just feel very sad when I see overweight children. I have two girls 12 and 5 and they are both scrawny, yet never stop eating! My 12 yr old literally eats 3 x the amount of food I eat but is tall and very slim. But the fact is they are never still, I took them swimming yesterday, walking, playing on the beach and to the park (I'm on holiday until september) so I guess they counter what they eat. Generally their food is healthy, all meals are always healthy choices with the exception of the occasional pizza but they do have snacks every day. Sometimes they chomp threw a box of grapes or blueberries like they're sweets and other times they'll be munching on rubbish but I do believe that this is ok as long as it is moderated by me!! I'm the parent so their weight and food consumption stops with me, I'm the one responsible.

I must admit I sometimes wonder what big kids must eat if my children eat all they do and are so skinny ;-)

I blame the pikeys

They just seem to be taking over

When I was a kid, " mam, I don't like this dinner, reply, smack, theres people starving, eat it or go hungry"
Problem solved.


No lock on the firdge in my house when I was a kid. If you wanted something you asked, if you were told no that was the end of it

Parents nowadays think there kids are special and need to be treated and waited on hand and foot.

So so so so true. I used to HATE mushy peas when I was little. I honestly thought my parents had been taken over by aliens when they fed them to me, since they knew how much I hated them. Ahh, childrens imagination. BUT I STILL had to eat them.

And I completely agree on the 'Parents nowadays think there kids are special and need to be treated and waited on hand and foot.' What happened to adults being adults and kids being kids? Seriously, kids run their parents around these days.

I blame the pikeys

They just seem to be taking over

No it's the Chavs

I don't think the odd Greggs sausage roll here or there does any harm and kids need more fat % wise than adults but a completely bad diet is lack of control by the parents.

My very skinny kids (they never seemed to be full and yet always stayed very thin like all the kids in our family) were allowed sausage rolls as a treat straight from the shop if we were in town around lunch time (so no more than one or two days a week) but in the house we controlled the three main mains and the snacks until they reached older teens. So a chocolate biscuit would be in their lunch box along with fruit/salad and sandwiches.

I really do think it is parent control that is the issue. If your kids have a weight problem and are old enough to reach into the cupboard/fridge, DONT BUY unhealthy food for them to snack on. Far better than locking cupboards. Have large bowls of fruit and mini snacks like fish sticks etc around, give them packed lunches (including at grandma's) and don't allow them money to spend in shops on junk. By locking things in the cupboard you are increasing the interest of the child in the junk food so don't have anything in the house. Get the grandparents on board too or make alternative childcare arrangements.

i agree. i have to say i have been overweight from about the the age of 4. iwhen i was younger i went to a babysitter. they fed me dinner and also fed me their son's leftovers from his plate and then i would go hom my mom would make my dinner (unaware ) that i had already eaten. it started then so from the age of 4 i have ben over weight. andno my parents never encouraged me to go out an play. i actually wans't allowed to go out and play unless it was in our back yard but that was only when mom would come out and watch me. so not very often (my whole family is over weight)

i have never been taught to eat properly (im trying to teach myself) yes i know im 31 and should have taken control of this along time ago. ) i still live at home with mom and dad. and yeah she still feeds us all abslute crap. i jsut dont' eat it anymore. i have to say when i graduated high school i was around 250 pounds. at my highest i hit 319.
my younger brother though i dont' know if he has ever stepped on a scale is at least 250-270..and all he does is sit and play video games and play on the computer and watch tv.

i just cringe when i se young children now who are over weight as i know exactly what they are going through. alwaays teased and bullied as a chile and i have to say it destroys their self esteem. i really wish parents would "smarten" up and realize what they are doing to their children.
wow that was longer then i thougth it was going to be. sorry

thinking of myself, as a pre-teen I was really scrawny: I was short and thin and I liked books, all I would ever hear was that I had to eat more and go outside more. But mostly eat more. I particularly remember my grandmother practically forcing me to eat every 2 hours even though I was full from the last time. I suppose part of that may be because she grew up during the war (and aftermath), so she desperately wanted to provide that which she herself lacked as a kid: food. Things were not paricularly improved by the fact that although I was pretty ok with all veggies, I refused to eat any red meat (i.e. I only ate fish, chicken and rabbit), and that was seen as difficult because I wouldn't get enough nutrients. That's resolved now, I eat everything... though I still prefer fish or chicken to pork or beef.

However, there is no excuse whatsoever for the parents of today. They have never lacked food (quite the opposite, really) , they KNOW the risks associated with too much weight, and if they're overweight as well, they know the social difficulties an overweight child faces.

Usually though, I have encountered overweight children with overweight parents, it's a habit/lifestyle thing. So this makes me wonder if the kid in the Opening Post maybe has another problem that she's dealing with via food. Maybe she's being bullied in school or she's worried about her grades or she could go faster in school and is bored, or (heaven forbid) she was molested... Does she have any hobbies that you know of? Maybe if she could focus here energies somewhere other than food, she could work out her problems that way instead of eating them.

Though maybe I'm projecting myself to this kid, I used to - totally subconsciously btw, only realized it once I started counting calories - eat when I was anxcious or worried. Which is bizarre because I grew increasingly worried about my weight, and therefore ate more.

This makes me terribly sad. I was in the city centre yesterday and was just amazed at how many fat children there were (the adults and late teens are a separate issue!). Kids being left to nurse a Greggs sausage roll or a Happy Meal, and judging by the size of them you knew it wasn't a treat.

Personally, I know my parents meant well but weren't the best in terms of controlling what I ate. There was also an element of good cop/bad cop in that Dad would be quite strict (he was a runner), and then Mum would give me what he'd denied me anyway. I've binged since I was 11, and they were both aware of that and never did anything. I'll never understand why they didn't intervene.