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Actually, feeding children junk food isn't the sole domain of overweight parents. Thin parents are just as guilty of feeding their children junk. I know because I see it all the time.:
I also know that just because you're overweight does not mean your children are fed junk. My children are all thin, despite the fact that I am overweight.
So justed wanted to make absolutely clear: overweight parents do not necessarily equal overweight children. ANY parent, weight notwithstanding, can be resposnsible for their kids' bad diets. I am not comfortablle with any insinuation that because a parent is fat, that they must feed their kids junk.
I agree 110% with Sushee on this one.
im overweight and my child is not "fat" far from it, i think its very niave of you to just put the blame on "fat parents"!!!
sushee has some great points!!!!
I have seen fat parents AND thin parents give their little VERY chubby toddlers junk food. I feel VERY sorry for these fat babies because they don't have much of a chance with parents like that (including being "OK" with the au pair girl giving a 6-month-old Pringles!). I have also seen parents of all weights really care for the diet of their children.
I also know fat children who eat healthy foods, just too much, and their parents don't stop the snacking because "carrot sticks are healthy".
It's a minefield of problems not least is that everyone needs different amounts. DS eats more than some adults I know in a meal but is really slim because he runs it all off. Other children would eat the same as him and pile on the weight (I am trying to fatten DS up a bit to no effect.)
What can we do to stop child obesity? I think it would involve too much nannying and monitoring, so that's not a good idea. There are ranges of "child junk food" here in the UK; they are biscuits with grape juice instead of sugar, they are little corn "crisps" (look and feel like like chipstiks) with loads of veggies in them (they upset DS's tum so we don't use them often, but have). They are low-fat and "healthy" (for a given value of "healthy"). That's not a bad idea, so long as it's not abused. TBH I don't mind giving DS a packet of raisins or biscuits from my handbag when we're out and about; they have WAY less sugar than my home-made biscuits. But if he were a bit bigger I'd be frowned on for him having biscuits.
Maybe ban McD's from having happy meals? That would really upset the kids who eat there every night (and then their mothers medicate them for AHDH - I've seen this too). Maybe teach home economics properly at school? That would only work if you actually bothered with that as an adult.
I don't think you can do anything, tbh, unless you think that forcing a family to go to a "food camp" or something would be the answer: you will ALWAYS have people who over-eat and who over-feed their children.
I also agree with what you have said Sushee & Gudism,I?m overweight and all my children are well within the normal weight range,just because you see fat parents does`nt mean we all stuff ourselves or our kids with junk food every day,some people can actually have medical conditions that make then gain weight, I have a liver condition! :angry:
Yes, there will always be people that overfeed their kids, but the amount of crap available that is quick, easy and full of FAT and salt it too much for some people. Pathetic.
It's an all too familiar sight to see an entire, heavyset family, some of the kids are so large its just heartbreaking.
I don't think you have the right to make that judgement call.
Two wrongs do not make a right. Please do not flame other members in your posts. If you cannot post without a cool enough head to NOT make it personal, please go away until you're calmer before posting, or don't post at all. Any further flaming will be edited without further discussion.
Feel free to contact me privately by email or PM if you wish to discuss this.
I didn't read anything in Chalalan's post about fat parents?? I think she was saying she doesn't mind if the parents want to put whatever they want in their bodies (whether they're fat or thin) but they should be more responsible for what they feed their children. Of course there are some kids with medical problems, everyone knows that, obviously she wasn't referring to them.
I agree, parents of all shapes and sizes should be responsible for what their kids eat (as they are responsible for the other areas of their life) and childhood obesity is a problem sadly :( I think we just need more education about what is a good diet.
Just to clarify, I don't necessarily agree that the size of the parents are to blame, but it can most certainly be a contributing factor.
Has anyone ever watched the show "You are What You Eat"? Bad eating habits go through and entire family. The cases on that show are pretty extreme but it shows some people truly have no idea.
SaraJane, the title of the thread has been edited to something more appropriate - the original title did have a reference to fat parents.
Trillian- Oh, I see, I didn't know what ppl were on about, lol. Thanks :)
I think bad eating habits are true of many people. I know my sister's kids used to eat more junk food than any kid should, but she (and her kids) are thin. That they're thin seems to then 'excuse' my sister for her poor choices on their behalf, and shields her from the kind of scrutiny overweight parents seem to be under.
So I maintain that fat parents do not necessarily equate to fat kids. Yes there are some overweight families. There are also families with thin parents and overweight kids. And there are overweight parents with thin kids. I think it's far to specific to assume that being fat makes you the kind of person who will not make good choices for your family. I think any parent is capable of that.
*sneaks in* I personally think that it's not always food to blame for overweight children it's these damned bloody playstations and gameboys that have the kids sitting on their butts all the time that contribute.. *sneaks back out*
i often see at the shopping centre an entire obese family plodding along, morbidly obese mum and dad up front and a couple of huge kids tagging behind them... it is just so sad.... im not saying all obese parents have obese children, but i definitely notice alot of obesity being 'passed down' through the generations.... i think it has a lot to do with education.... some people have not got a clue (obviously)...
i don't have a clue about a realistic solution, the situation is completely overwhelming, although the solution is very basic - eat less, move more.... people have to actually want to change their lifestyle.... if everyone stopped eating anything that came in a packet i think that would be a start, but to be honest i'm not sure a lot of people have it in them to want to change.... it can't solely be about education, there has to be the desire to change.
I remember an overweight friend of mine once telling me how she noticed how people watched everything she ate. I think the same is at work here: we notice the obese family and assume the obese parents are passing their 'bad eating habits' to their kids. But if we saw a thin parent with a big kid, we don't attribute that sort of 'vice' to the parent.:
Weight seems to the one of the few things that people are still allowed to openly discrimate against. I can honestly say that because I often am aware of obesity-related bias, and because of my psych studies where they talk about 'confirmation bias' (where people specifically look for examples in their surroundings to support their prejudices or bias) I specifically 'people watch' with that in mind all day everyday and know for a fact that an entire overweight family is far less common than people make out. You are JUST AS LIKELY to see overweight parents with thin kids, or thin parents with overweight kids.
Except when you've got it in your head that fat parents=fat kids, those families are the ones you tend to remember time and time again.
yes i would assume the obese parents are passing their bad eating habits or poor lifestyle choices etc down to their growingly obese kids - i think its a fair assumption? however if i saw a more normal sized parent with an overweight kid, i would still have the same assumption of the parent (some people can be couch potatoes and live on fried food and still have a great metabolism).... what i'm try to say is i put the parents at fault if their kids are unhealthily overweight...:
we notice the obese family and assume the obese parents are passing their 'bad eating habits' to their kids. But if we saw a thin parent with a big kid, we don't attribute that sort of 'vice' to the parent.
i guess i notice the entire fat families because it seems to be so much more severe (their obesity)
If I see an obese child, I tend to look at the parents, no matter what size and think they are just not feeding their kid properly.:
My SDS was obese, his mother rail thin. He ate well but far too much, he was also allowed to eat/drink whatever he liked. 1.5 litres of Coke a day (at the age of 9), 3 vanilla slices for dessert on top of a man sized meal.
He was always puffed out, tired and didn't sleep well. He was always sick and it sucked. It took exH having to talk to the mother very seriously and he took him for an hour walk 3 times a week. It took 2 years but he feels so much better and takes great control over his own diet. He had withdrawal headaches from the coke for a while too...
I have a question - why do you assume that what they are eating out in public, is what they are being feed at home, and why do you assume that all "fat" children are being overfeed and eating the wrong foods?
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe their parents are allowing them a treat while they are out? Or maybe they should deny their children the right to experience a treat in a public place just to satisfy your visual judgements.
Next time you're out and you see a "fat" child with a "fat" parent, why don't you go up and talk to them..... Maybe that child has a thyroid problem, or an advanced growth issue - like my own daughter who I am constantly have to defend - because she happens to have a genetically passed down advanced growth where she is 2 years ahead of her age. Until you know the people and they way they truly live, you cannot make judgements and put everyone into the same basket, it is not only irresponsible of you, but it is also extremely rude to post such a knee jerk response before you actually have all the facts..children her own age - I am apparently over feeding her and feeding her nothing but junk food - which is on the contrary! However I do know that to teach your children good eating habits you need to allow them to experience every facet of food, because if you completely deny them "junk" food when they are older and the parent is no longer in control of their eating habits - they are going to gorge themselves on what they have missed out on.
Signed - Mother of a "fat" child
Mmmm tricky one - who doesn't occasionally go to the food court and indulge in some oh so good maccas chips :redface: and yes I might have slipped my daughter a few chips on occasion. Thing is, the rest of the time she eats a wonderfully balanced and healthy diet as we can give her, and as she grows up, we hope to instil in her that moderation and eating a well balanced and healthy variety of foods is just life. Occasionally indulging in junk is a choice you can make as long as it's not your way of life.
Having said all that, there are times that I wonder what people think and realise that my own judgments in the past were a bit the similar, now I've realised that you can't judge a whole family, overweight or not by what you see on one occasion in a food court.
As a teacher, yes there are many kids who do not eat well, and whose parents simply do not know or understand what healthy eating is, but one of the even larger issues to me is inacitivty of these kids. We do something called K-A -Day, the kids run(or walk) 2 laps of the school on most days. Some of the kids will be huffing and puffing after running 100 metres and will have to walk the rest of the way...Where we used to run and ride our bikes, shoot hoops, play chasey etc. these kids are much more inactive due to computers, TV's etc... Another teacher and I were also commenting just recently on how many of our kids also come in from their run and tell us they don't feel well, that they are breathing too fast and think something is wrong!!!! They don't realise that it is normal to feel that way when you do exercise.
Anyway I'm going to slink off my soapbox too now and say that it is way too big an issue to judge over what is potentially an isolated incident, however, obesity in children is definately a big one and the answer isn't so simple.
wow, Lulu. I think it's makes my point though, that children can be taught bad habits from a parent of any weight. My kids didn't have coke or sweets or junk when they were young, but my sister's kids did, all the time. Yet if we walked out together, there would be an immediate assumption that not only do I eat badly, but that I must be the parent who feeds her kids badly too. I've had her buying her 2yo a chupachup, and despite the fact she was paying, the lady at the counter looked at me and said that kids that young shouldn't have so much sugar. Aside the fact that the old biddy should have minded her own business, it displays a prejudice that I know exists everywhere. I'm not the only one to have been a recipient.
In fact weight prejudice is so ingrained that in studies, they have shown that just by 'widening' people on TV screens, that viewers immediately attribute negative characteristics to them, such as being less trustworthy, or more malicious.
Whilst I think that there is scope for a discussion about childhood obesity and what we can do about it I don't think that it will occur in this thread. In fact I can't see that anything very constructive can come of it because it has already become quite arguementative.
With this in mind I am closing the thread now rather than after more members have offended and/or been offended.