Too Fat for Fifteen

I agree 100%. I had great parents... and a weight problem. I ate good, healthy food, but didn't really exercise enough. Nothing my parents did or didn't do would have changed that fact.

This show is sad, but if you watch, some of these kids are very inspirational. Scotty aside, who in my opinion is just lazy, the rest of them have a chance. The girl that started off at about 515 pounds tried her butt off to walk that mile. If she can do that then she can accomplish anything.

I think the point of this thread should be (IMHO) not about what a teen feels when they are a teen or older, those emotions may be completely real, and completely valid, but they are secondary to the issue. When a child is 4 or 5 or 6 or even 10, they don't have the capacity to judge for themself what healthy food is without the guidance of an adult in a position to teach them. Unless their parent or guardian has paid or otherwise contracted someone else to teach their child, then it is their responsibility to make sure that child understands how to eat correctly, and to introduce that child to healthy foods. Allowing the child to learn to "hate" certain foods is no excuse. It's your job as a parent to find the healthy foods for them that they can eat, whether that be through gradual introduction, cajoling, or even through a heavy hand (like almost EVERY parent did before the last decade, I certainly remember mom saying "eat your vegetables or no TV for you tonight." I ate them!), there's a way to do it. Anything else is neglect on one level or another, "giving in" is not an option, EVER.

Once a child is 15 or 16 and can earn their own money, then it comes down to how they were brought up to that point. A child that has been correctly taught the value of food may still make the occasional bad choice, and in some cases, other emotional trauma may still trigger food as a defense mechanism, but we do the best we can as adults. I don't judge teens for being overweight, nor do I judge their parents, not without the full facts. I DO however, privately judge the parents of young children who are obese, that's a flaw, and I shouldn't without the full story, and I recognize this as a bad trait. But then I realize that there are flaws with every human emotion, and sometimes we must just recognize them, thus I know that while I shouldn't judge every parent of an obese child (young child), I know that in 90 to 95% of the cases, my judgement will be correct, and while I feel bad for the 5 or 10 % of parents I mistakenly condemn as "bad", I realize that maybe, if something is done, the other 90% of those children won't grow up with emotional issues that take years to resolve, and sometimes physical problems that can cause them to live unhealthy, unproductive, and shorter lives.

that's my take on the situation.

And yeah, when I see a mom in the grocery store with an obese child and I see pop tarts, a case of regular coke, Mac and Cheese boxes, and Sugar Smacks in their cart, it does make me angry a little inside. I'm sorry, that's just me. I don't like it, and there's nothing I can do to change that.

Just my 2 cents... I wasn't taught how to eat right as a kid beacuse it didn't ''matter." I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Literally 3 and 4 servings at a meal and 5 or 6 snacks thru the day - no matter what I ate I didn't gain weight. I was TINY growing up and keeping me full was my parents main focus, teaching me portion control wasn't an issue. As a result, when I grew up & my metabolism slowed, I packed on a ton of weight. So, in my case, my weight gain as a teen was in no way their fault.

You can try to show your kids healthy eating habits at a young age. However, you must give them some opportunites to splurge, or allow them the choice to do so, or they could have issues in the future. My husband grew up with 6 siblings, and they were all very skinny and healthy growing up. However, due to the fact that his parents were not able to afford sweets, soda, chips, etc... all of the children have grown up to have weight issues as they became addicted to those items that were withheld from them.

Just making sure the food on the table and provided to your children is healthy isn't enough. You need to help guide their choices, and allow them to learn that sometimes the stuff that's good for you tastes better and makes you feel better than the stuff that's not so good for you. I limit the amount of "processed" foods that my kids get, and there are many opportunities where I offer them soda and they choose milk or juice, or even water! I've even had people shocked when they see the 3 of us (my kids and myself) share an order of fries from Mc Donald's and not even finish them. That, and the fact that we still have candy from past year's parades and Easter in our cupboards or on our counter. Even when they see the temptation, my boys are making healthy choices - and they are only 3 & 5! It's not hard! I am not even sure how I've done it, but it's working! And if for some reason it stopped working, I would not hesitate to put my kids on a diet.

There are too many parents out there who enable their kids. Yes, I hate telling my 5 year old that he can't have something to eat every time he tells me he's hungry - but if I fed him every time he said he was hungry he'd be eating 24/7! My pediatrician even told me that he's on the "high" side of the growth chart and to limit his food AND YOU CAN STILL SEE HIS RIBS! I don't know how any parent can let their child become obese and not realize it. There are kids in my son's kindergarten class who are quite large, but the parent(s) is not.

Yes, sometimes eating healthy is a little more expensive. However, if you are eating proper portion sizes instead of what society shows us are correct portion sizes, it really isn't that much more expensive.

That's the other thing, what's with all the flavored milk these days? Am I the only one who remembers my mom ALLOWING me to mix in chocolate syrup once or twice a week as a treat? When did chocolate or strawberry milk become acceptable as a lunch food in our public schools? What A$$H0le made that ok? I mean, even in the 70's when I was growing up, we knew that you shouldn't drink chocolate milk every day.