Childhood obesity

Another version of the same piece from the Washington Post, which I noticed this morning: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/childrens-obesity-rates-in-rich-countries-may-have-peaked/2017/10/10/269d329e-ae0b-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.980450103ae7

I don't remember how much I weighed or my BMI as a child. I was never "fat" per se, as in you couldn't look at me and see rolls like some children. I was just large. I was probably overweight, but not obese. I was homeschooled, and my family was fairly poor and deeply in debt, so we didn't have a lot of money for junk food. I had a decent diet growing up. Lots of vegetables, very little snack foods (we really couldn't afford them). I ran and played a LOT outside. I probably just ate too much, but didn't really look like I did.

It's funny when I look at children in my town when I go grocery shopping, or pick my friend's kids up from school, or see my friend's children on Facebook. I don't see a lot of overweight children. Most of them are slender and look normal to me. Their parents are often overweight, but the kids don't appear to be. I live in a town where the average income is $40,000, the college education rate is 17%, and over half of children in the school system are on the free lunch program, poverty is a real problem in this town, despite the average income being so high, we have a few outliers skewing the average.

Ironandwine69 wrote: »

Very rarely do you see fit parents who have obese children. I wonder why...

True. Although my mother was overweight, maybe even obese, when I was a child yet none of her 6 children were overweight.

It breaks my heart how many young children of my relatives and friends are very overweight or obese.

Obviously childhood obesity is concerning, but it's also important not to fat shame kids, since this sets them up for low self esteem and very tortured relationships with food later. BTW, I notice the public schools in my state are offering kids MUCH better options for lunch (unlimited raw veggie salad bars, reduced portions) but of course as long as parents send their kids to school with backpacks full of candy and chips, there's a limit what the schools can overcome...

Ironandwine69 wrote: »

Very rarely do you see fit parents who have obese children. I wonder why...

My parents were both fit (dad had a manual labor sort of job and mom was a marathoner). I was still overweight. It's not true in all cases.

Government can be very good at implementing change; however there must be a desire for the population to change. Historically there have been excellent movements enacting change but these include a wide variety of tactics, both incentives and punitive measures.

Very troubling news, especially when reviewed alongside the increasing demand on medical care:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/06/one-million-patients-week-cannot-get-gp-appointment-statistics/

Increasing age coupled with increasing weight spells an absolute disaster.

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mazmataz wrote: »

It's a weird thing - my parents couldn't have been more loving, giving and supportive and I couldn't have asked for better parents really. However their kindness and own views towards food and exercise have contributed towards my own negative self-image that I have been trying to undo for as long as I've been aware of it - and it really has had a massive impact on my life. Being a parent must be so friggin difficult!

Ain't that the truth!!

I was born in the 60's when almost everyone was thin. My mother was not. She did all the things I see people on MFP complain about parents doing - constantly trying to lose weight, telling her children they'd get fat if they ate too much while she herself was eating too much, telling us not to eat too much junk food.

Yet none of us were overweight as children or teenagers. I suspect this has more to do with the time in which we were young than anything else. This was a time before video games, when there were only 3 TV channels and homes in our income level (middle class) had only one TV. A time when parents threw you out of the house and said "be home in time for dinner" and you were on your own until then.

We are all old enough to be grandparents now but only one of my siblings has ever been obese, though several of us have been overweight at times.

I would definitely balk at a government backed activity initiative. I hated sports as a child and always preferred passive activities such as singing in a choir, writing in my diary or reading a book (and yes watching endless disney films!) I was slim until puberty and then I suddenly had breasts (A to a D cup in a year!) and the womanly fat that came with them. But I think that despite my inactivity, the food that I ate was always nutritious and, coming from a family of 6, was always shared appropriately.

I guess this applies more to older teens but another thing that kept me from gaining too much weight was that I did not have a car until I was 23 so if I needed to get somewhere I would have to walk there or get a bus (which inevitably involved walking). From around the age of 14, my parents always trusted me to find the best way home and would only collect me from somewhere if there were no other options (e.g in the middle of the countryside). I still have the attitude today and will pretty much always choose to walk if my destination is less than 2 miles away.

sky_northern wrote: »

I don't agree with this quote:
"Professor Ezzati adds: 'These worrying trends reflect the impact of food marketing and policies across the globe, with healthy nutritious foods too expensive for poor families and communities. The trend predicts a generation of children and adolescents growing up obese and at greater risk of diseases, like diabetes. We need ways to make healthy, nutritious food more available at home and school, especially in poor families and communities, and regulations and taxes to protect children from unhealthy foods.'"

The recommendations I agree with but not sure how governments can affect real change. Food culture has changes with easy access to calorie dense foods and changes in technology which means kids.

I've heard some interesting proposals for this sort of thing, actually.

Like this one - we allow farms and ranchers to grow and sell their food with all sorts of pesticide residues, coatings, sprays, and gases used on the fields and on the food. But if someone sells food that has LESS chemicals and such used on them, the farmers and ranchers have to pay the gov't money to verify they have done so, yearly, which means the food itself costs more.

What would it be like if ALL farmers had to use the least chemicals, use the healthiest conditions, etc.... and a farmer had to pay the government money for permission to use the chemicals (which, lets be honest, would mostly be large companies paying)? Then healthier food would be cheaper, and food with more chemicals would be more expensive.

Or pushing that further, you could look at a higher tax, the less healthy a food is (like the luxury tax, only for health, you know?). I'm sure there are other ideas people could float around for this.


Because right now...the professor is in no way wrong on the fact that healthy, nutritious food is too expensive for poor families. When you are trying to keep kids alive, you consider calories first, and vitamins and minerals second. A couple decades ago, a lot of junk food was more expensive than a similar amount of healthy calories, in many cases. That's not true anymore. Chicken nuggets will get me more calories for cheaper than the same price of plain chicken, for example. And it just keeps getting worse.


I definitely agree that parents impact their children's food choices. But there are more factors involved that I think shouldn't be ignored that can make a difference. And I think the gov't or various institutions CAN have an influence on a lot of these.

--Doctor education on nutrition is pretty much nonexistent (if they get an entire chapter on nutrition in their entire medical education, it's unusual, according to some doctors I've spoken to about this), so they seldom have much to give parents by way of advice for healthy diets for their kids. If doctors knew more about nutrition, perhaps they could do better at helping parents help their kids.
--Education in schools on nutrition is guided by things like our gov't food pyramid, which is heavily influenced by lobbying and political agendas (interesting articles about this last food pyramid are around, about the fact that the dairy industry lobbied hard to keep dairy on the food pyramid, when numerous scientists no longer felt that it should be there, for example). More integrity in our government would help with this, or more varied sources on nutrition in our schools.
---Advertising companies now sometimes hire psychologists to help them make commercials most likely to make people buy their foods, and a LOT of terrible ideas about food and nutrition get passed on to people that way. And considering these are now on TV, computers, billboards, and so on, kids and their parents are bombarded by this constantly. More rules about advertisements and what they are allowed to claim could help with this.

I am not denying that parents have a major influence on their kids' weight. But that doesn't mean there isn't stuff that we can do, as a society, to help significantly.

shaumom wrote: »

sky_northern wrote: »

I don't agree with this quote:
"Professor Ezzati adds: 'These worrying trends reflect the impact of food marketing and policies across the globe, with healthy nutritious foods too expensive for poor families and communities. The trend predicts a generation of children and adolescents growing up obese and at greater risk of diseases, like diabetes. We need ways to make healthy, nutritious food more available at home and school, especially in poor families and communities, and regulations and taxes to protect children from unhealthy foods.'"

The recommendations I agree with but not sure how governments can affect real change. Food culture has changes with easy access to calorie dense foods and changes in technology which means kids.

I've heard some interesting proposals for this sort of thing, actually.

Like this one - we allow farms and ranchers to grow and sell their food with all sorts of pesticide residues, coatings, sprays, and gases used on the fields and on the food. But if someone sells food that has LESS chemicals and such used on them, the farmers and ranchers have to pay the gov't money to verify they have done so, yearly, which means the food itself costs more.

What would it be like if ALL farmers had to use the least chemicals, use the healthiest conditions, etc.... and a farmer had to pay the government money for permission to use the chemicals (which, lets be honest, would mostly be large companies paying)? Then healthier food would be cheaper, and food with more chemicals would be more expensive.

Or pushing that further, you could look at a higher tax, the less healthy a food is (like the luxury tax, only for health, you know?). I'm sure there are other ideas people could float around for this.


Because right now...the professor is in no way wrong on the fact that healthy, nutritious food is too expensive for poor families. When you are trying to keep kids alive, you consider calories first, and vitamins and minerals second. A couple decades ago, a lot of junk food was more expensive than a similar amount of healthy calories, in many cases. That's not true anymore. Chicken nuggets will get me more calories for cheaper than the same price of plain chicken, for example. And it just keeps getting worse.


I definitely agree that parents impact their children's food choices. But there are more factors involved that I think shouldn't be ignored that can make a difference. And I think the gov't or various institutions CAN have an influence on a lot of these.

--Doctor education on nutrition is pretty much nonexistent (if they get an entire chapter on nutrition in their entire medical education, it's unusual, according to some doctors I've spoken to about this), so they seldom have much to give parents by way of advice for healthy diets for their kids. If doctors knew more about nutrition, perhaps they could do better at helping parents help their kids.
--Education in schools on nutrition is guided by things like our gov't food pyramid, which is heavily influenced by lobbying and political agendas (interesting articles about this last food pyramid are around, about the fact that the dairy industry lobbied hard to keep dairy on the food pyramid, when numerous scientists no longer felt that it should be there, for example). More integrity in our government would help with this, or more varied sources on nutrition in our schools.
---Advertising companies now sometimes hire psychologists to help them make commercials most likely to make people buy their foods, and a LOT of terrible ideas about food and nutrition get passed on to people that way. And considering these are now on TV, computers, billboards, and so on, kids and their parents are bombarded by this constantly. More rules about advertisements and what they are allowed to claim could help with this.

I am not denying that parents have a major influence on their kids' weight. But that doesn't mean there isn't stuff that we can do, as a society, to help significantly.

Very true I am in residency now and we had 1 day lecture on nutrition and thats it LOL. All they basically say is show us the healthy plate and say 2000 calories a day etc. That is why you should never take what a doctor says about nutrition unless they have had additional education on the matter. Most people from MFP know far more about nutrition than any physician. (with basic training)