Parents at fault for overweight children?

I am a parent for my overweight 9 yo son. :ohwell: And just scrolled and seems everyone here is blaming the parents for the childrens overweight issues.:grumble:

The truth is ...it's true. I screwed up and along the way I screwed up my son's well being too. :brokenheart:

I am correcting it now. Or at least die trying!!!

I had got him to start his own food and games journal. He writes down what he eats and the games he played and its duration.
We had agreed to sit and look at it every end of the week and see how it goes - when, where and how the improvement can be made?

His punishment use to include no playing time in the park. But I had removed that from punishment category to necessity category. He needs the park...CRAZY MUCH to burn off whatever his consuming.

I had changed the weekdays are academic days as it literally means no comp and tv - only homework, tuitions etc with exception to play in the park which had been made a must. I am asian..err we are tiger moms . :flowerforyou: And weekends are physical days - games, long walks, trails and 'zumba'ing and (of course movies, tv and comp - at lesser degree).

I had stopped the ban on ice cream and pizza (his fav) which had caused him to eat those at school. So after a short discussion - he pledged to stop all sneaking on ice cream and pizza at school with condition -
1. ice cream time with me once a week
2. pizza everytime I complete a race
I am so good to that. Totally agreeable to that.

Its going all right so far. But with kids need to be more dynamic to get them stay focused.

I can't undo the last 5 years of messing up my baby's life. But I hope with all the changes and examples that I am trying to set he is set for a great life ahead.

Yea.

I am a parent for my overweight 9 yo son. :ohwell: And just scrolled and seems everyone here is blaming the parents for the childrens overweight issues.:grumble:

The truth is ...it's true. I screwed up and along the way I screwed up my son's well being too. :brokenheart:

I am correcting it now. Or at least die trying!!!

I had got him to start his own food and games journal. He writes down what he eats and the games he played and its duration.
We had agreed to sit and look at it every end of the week and see how it goes - when, where and how the improvement can be made?

His punishment use to include no playing time in the park. But I had removed that from punishment category to necessity category. He needs the park...CRAZY MUCH to burn off whatever his consuming.

I had changed the weekdays are academic days as it literally means no comp and tv - only homework, tuitions etc with exception to play in the park which had been made a must. I am asian..err we are tiger moms . :flowerforyou: And weekends are physical days - games, long walks, trails and 'zumba'ing and (of course movies, tv and comp - at lesser degree).

I had stopped the ban on ice cream and pizza (his fav) which had caused him to eat those at school. So after a short discussion - he pledged to stop all sneaking on ice cream and pizza at school with condition -
1. ice cream time with me once a week
2. pizza everytime I complete a race
I am so good to that. Totally agreeable to that.

Its going all right so far. But with kids need to be more dynamic to get them stay focused.

I can't undo the last 5 years of messing up my baby's life. But I hope with all the changes and examples that I am trying to set he is set for a great life ahead.

Good for you for taking the steps to get him along the right path to health. I was an overweight child and my mom was a single mom...bought what was cheap (processed foods) and as a result, I was overweight. I wish she would have taken a stand like you are... Your son will thank you for it one day!

I was going to write out about how I don't think my parents were to blame for me gaining weight, then I realised that I started to pudge out after they got divorced! Yeah they taught me proper nutrition, too bad they couldn't have taught me how to deal with feelings in ways other than eating!!!

But its hard. I know my mom struggled walking the fine line between encouraging me to eat better but not harming my self esteem. My mother and grandmother both struggle with their weight. My Grandma is in her 90s and STILL carries baggage about how her mother crippled her self esteem for being heavy (she got her figure from her dad's side, and passed it right along lol).

THAT (hopefully I answer the good point).
in my 20s, my father has been SOOOO mean with my weight, like he "offered" me once a scale as a Christmas gift, and it made me cry sooooo much (((
And now that I'm working on loosing it, now that everybody is super nice & helpful etc, he's still bull****ting about my weight....

so that's another parent's fault I would say....

Maybe the mom thought they were poisoned apples (Iike in snow white) and she didn't want anyone to know she knew so she told her daughter no to save her!

Let's not all jump on the "blame the parents" bandwagon. Yes, parents are to blame in SOME cases, perhaps many cases, but there is also a thing called GENETICS that can be a huge factor. Also, it doesn't help any that healthy foods are often more expensive than junk food. A $0.69 cheeseburger and $1.50 fries at McDonald's costs less than it would to prepare a chicken breast and fresh veggies, so we also have to look at the fact that healthy living is expensive and perhaps not something a big family can always afford. I'm not by any means trying to defend anyone, but I do seek to understand before I lay blame.

Kids emulate what they see. Kids don't buy the food they eat at home. Parents are responsible for setting the example and using common sense when feeding their kids.

So kids see a parent eating junk all the time, they are likely to follow. Kids eat what's in the house. Parents who don't teach their kids about exercise, eating a balanced meal, and limiting high calorie low nutrition snacks set the wrong example.

Yes, it's the parents fault. Even worse IMO if they were a picked on overweight kid and then end up setting up their kid for the same abuse.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

100% Parents fault. When you make the choice to propagate you take the responsibility to supervise, care and nurture the result of that decision. There is no excuse in this day and age for the mistreatment and faulty care of a child.
You are the adult.
You need to take responsibility.
You need to take control.
You need to educate.
You need to be an ADULT
if you cant you should not complain or try to pass the responsibility on to others or society in general.

I don't blame my parents because I truly believe they were not educated on what "healthy eating" actually was when I was growing up. My parents both grew up in very poor homes, where their diets were limited to foods that were grown at home. Beans and tortillas made up their daily diet when they couldn't afford meats or dairy or it wasn't immediately available at home. So when I was growing up, they could afford any kind of food they wanted, and they felt like they didn't want their children to be deprived of "good" eating like they were when they were growing up. So we were allowed to have whatever we wanted, including burgers and pizza and junkfood. We mostly ate at home because my mom cooked daily, but even then when we ate homecooked meals, vegetables were not part of our dialy diet and we consumed large portions, and a lot of fried foods or foods high in fat. My parents thought "eating a lot" was equal to "eating well." They also had such physically demanding jobs where they were active all day long, so by the time they would come home, they were so exhausted that family physical activity was not part of our daily routine either. So no, I don't blame my parents. They've come a long way now and see things differently and I'm helping them understand my new lifestyle as well.
So now that I know differently than my parents did back when I was growing up, I would be completely to blame if my child became obese due to unhealthy eating and lack of physical activity.

This is the dumbest thing I ever heard! How do you not know that the kid had an apple a little bit earlier??
My son would eat apples ALL DAY if I let him. But what kind of a balanced diet would that be! I know how important protein is, so if she has her child avoid the apple, to make sure he has a big enough appetite to get his protein requirements, that is HER choice. My 9 year old son can't fit a lot of food in his stomach, he grazes all day long. An apple would fill him up for quite awhile before he could have room for a meal. Judgmental people sheesh.

my kids would also eat apples all day if I let them, but ya know what happens if they eat more than one apple(especially green ones), they get the ****s and a belly ache. I already posted my answer to the original question as to whether or not parents are at fault but I do agree that it is not our place to judge. Seldom does the person doing the judging know the whole story. A 5 min. peak into someone's life is not an ample amt of time to make accurate judgements.