"Why do parents let their kids get fat?"

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Comments

  • Truly sad LN, but very common.

    Oh, and having met Joolska, I can't believe that she ever had so much as an ounce of puppy fat.

  • There will always be parents who continually write little Johnny a note to say he's not fit to do PE and feed him on Maccy D's because he refuses to eat healthily.

    Well if you don't keep buying him fast food he will have to eat healthy stuff if that's all you buy. Also, the reason he's not fit is because you keep excusing him from PE.

    I'm not saying that most parents are like that, but there are a fair few of them.

  • when we were in school people used to just forge their own notes......

    in my boys school now if you have a note to excuse you for PE you still have to get changed into kit and you have to do other jobs like umpiring etc......so its easier just to do the PE..........

    Ricksteer...............its amazing how many kids can be as stubbing as adults......you can refuse them all foods unless they eat their veg.but how many days/ weeks are you prepared to go before either of them will give in.....

    if i was given a plate of olives  or bruissekl sprouts and told i couldn't eat anything else until i had ate the olives then i would lose a hell of a lot of weight than eat them ...i would rather eat nothing..............

     

  • i didn't eat any veg until i was 18..although my brothers and sisters did..........I still only eat a minimum can get away with and bulk up on mushrooms and onions for my veg......

     I ate chips 6 days a week quite often twice a day and roast potatoes on the 7th.............I ate rounds and rounds of bread to fill myself up..............yet I was slim in those years.......

    i was not overweight like I am now when i eat a balanced varied diet.......

  • seren nos wrote (see)

    when we were in school people used to just forge their own notes......

    in my boys school now if you have a note to excuse you for PE you still have to get changed into kit and you have to do other jobs like umpiring etc......so its easier just to do the PE..........

    Ricksteer...............its amazing how many kids can be as stubbing as adults......you can refuse them all foods unless they eat their veg.but how many days/ weeks are you prepared to go before either of them will give in.....

    if i was given a plate of olives  or bruissekl sprouts and told i couldn't eat anything else until i had ate the olives then i would lose a hell of a lot of weight than eat them ...i would rather eat nothing..............

     

    Forge their own notes? "That require effort maaaaaaan. That's sooooooo sad." Skulks off with hoodie obscuring face to sulk and listen to rap music with indeciperable lyrics. image

  • must be easier to forge them now with comnputers.......................

  • Seren - olives are poisonous anyway. I've heard them described as the devils'......erm....we'll say "eyeballs........."

  • Olives poisonous?  Really, I quite like them.

    How much PE gets done these days.  My little one has just started Reception but we've been told his PE kit has to stay in school in case they do it and it will be returned at half term!

  • My kids do PE 3 times a week.  That's primary and high school.  Not including after school footie and hockey.  

    For all that Scotland is supposed to be very unhealthy (and Liz McColgan was apparentlly testifying to parliament this week that there aren't good enough facilities  because £3 to play footie is too expensive)- there are a shit load of sports grounds, footie pitches, tennis courts and parks near where I live and several times more sports clubs (local authority and private) than I remember as a kid. Perhaps access isn't perfect but by god there are so many facilities and they are really good quality too.  

     

    I live in South Lanarkshire so only a few miles from where the new commonwealth games stuff is being built - and it looks fabulous. 

  • @ cinders. Game and Gamestation are still around though many stores closed. The kids are still fat though. I think a game should be made called 'go play in the park'. When the kids plays the disk it should display on the TV in nice big letters GO PLAY IN THE PARK FATTY.



    Joking aside, people do need to wise up. Where I live we have exercise machines for kids in the park. What a waste of money. They only need a football to have fun and keep fit. The world has gone f**king mad.
  • Simple solution.

    1. MacDonalds should get rid of their drive through.

    2. Fast food restaurants should have a door that's a foot wide. If you can't squeexe through the door, you can't go in.

    3. All games consoles and televisions to be powered by a treadmill.

    4.Cadbury's to make a switch to producing fruit and veg products.

    image

  • Interesting thread! A combination of genetics and environment I guess..

    In mah daay *cue Hovis theme* there wasn't the processed, energy-dense foods kids eat today, I played out with my mates til it was dark, I cycled everywhere and didn't get taxi'd in a Mum Truck. Maybe 1 kid in our class of 30 was a fatty, as were their parents.

    Nowadays you see kids old enough to walk, in buggies, being fed sweets and / or sugary drinks by their overweight parents who haven't a clue.

    And as for fat dogs.. that's animal cruelty. Again there's a fat owner on t'other end of the lead image

  • Lol Rickster, I've long said that about televisions being powered by a treadmill.  If kids want to view it then they have to power it up first!

    Raindog, we've got one of those roller treadmills in our local park and its actually very popular, no idea why!

  • It's a shame KK.  The school hall looked great fun with all the climbing frames etc and he's raring to go on it image

  • money and transport can be a problem for kids and sports.............my boys play hockey.......the local hockey club is 7 miles away by car but would be at least 2 buses away because its in a different valley.

    the club is great that under 18's only pay £40 a year for all the match fees and training fees........and they do help them get to away matches ..but agian the pickup point is 7 or 8 miles away...............

    if the kids are good they get invited to special sesions run by welsh hockey.....14 sessions during the year.............but the up front cost is £150 each......so a hell of a lot of money to pay and you have transport the kids to  cardiff........

    without transport around here its difficult to get kids to activities.....

    even after school activities in my sons school........as its after hours no school bus so parents have to go and pick them up........we are only 5 miles away some a lot more......no direct bus and 5 miles is a long way to walk with  abag of books and a bag of kit

  • was lloking ath the local pools swim aquads........teh A squad is £600 a year paid monthyly.they then have top pay for welsh swim memebership and god knows what else.........

    sport isn't cheap is itimage

  • Maybe the reason is because they're also fat and just don't give a damn? Just saying.

  • I think it starts from day 1. Usually if the kids parents are fat they are too. Thats perhaps not true in all cases but is very common. My little ones don't drink juice or eat chocolate or much crap. Funnily enough they are not fat. We gave my little one birthday cake yesterday and she ate the strawberries and left the cake lol She doesn't sit in front of the TV either and is always wanting to go out for walks and enjoys being outside. We are very lucky to live somewhere where its nice and easy to do this but many people don't. Could schools be blamed for not laying on sports etc?

  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    I haven't read through all the thread so apologies if this has been covered.



    Something I always ponder is why the French are (generally) slimmer/fitter.



    I haven't come to any major conclusions. It is definitely true that French kids seem to eat what their parents eat at a restaurant (ie, there isn't really the concept of a 'kids meal'). Also, anecdotally the kids and parents are generally more active (the generally nicer weather seems to help) from cycling as a family, to throwing a frisbee around a park.



    I read a report the other day that said the French have little knowledge of what is 'healthy' compared to Americans (in that French people don't particularly worry or stress over food) but are generally much healthier.



    Interesting stuff this. What other factors of the French culture/way of life are at play here?
  • tradionally italians are much bigger as adults........and there way of life seems similar to me to the french

  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Are we agreed that generally French people are slimmer/healthier? If so, what are the French doing differently?



    I've now read the thread and thought I'd throw in a couple points.



    Regarding PE at schools. Not wanting to get political, but the current lot seem intent on (re)introducing competitive sport. This is good for some kids, but many others aren't or don't want to be competitive (I.e., they may be crap at football etc). It seems to me that the curriculum doesn't cater well for these kids. The last lot did seem to try and change this but arguably went too far by not allowing kids to 'lose' at a sport.



    Regarding tooth decay. My wife (a primary school teacher) has been banging on about this for years. There is policy at her school that means kids have to have fruit at morning break. Sometimes this is things like raisins, which are sticky/sugary. This means that kids may not have brushed their teeth for 10-12 hours and have rotting raisins stuck to their teeth.



    I'm 36 and when I look back to my primary school pics there were 1 or 2 fat kids. I'm in touch with one of those kids still (30 years later) and he is still obese, as are his kids.



    I can't really comment on breast feeding (I have no kids of my own). My best mate and his wife have just had their first baby. They are feeding the baby as and when it 'needs' it, apparently on the advice of the medics.
  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭

    I'd imagine many things are to blame for kids (and adults) getting larger.

    For a start the availability of fast food is far great than it was in my youth (70/80's). Also thinking back for my mates and I things like fizzy drinks and sweets were a once or twice a week treat. These days for many that is an everyday occurrence. It also ties in with the fact the UK has by far and away the highest level of chocolate and fizzy drink consumption in Europe.

    The French comparison is interesting, but then like the example given when I was young people did eat smaller versions of their parents meals. I know I did. I can imagine I'd have been wearing my dinner if I suggested I should have been eating something else to my mum! The modern thinking of kids meals is nothing but marketing. Until some marketing folk convinced folk it was the done thing kids just eat smaller portions of their parents meal. Why wouldn't they? Do you think in India a young child is eating a small plate of curry that their parents eat, or some animal shaped chicken nuggets?

    I also don't believe in the climate argument. I'd say parental fear is a bigger issue. When I was a kid everyone walked to school. Not one person at my school was driven to school. Now if you go by the same school at opening or closing time there is a convoy of Chelsea tractors waiting to ferry the kids about.

    Add to that the modern thinking that everything should be some sort of official organised event. When I was a kid we just went out to play. Sometimes it was sports, other times it was just messing about in the street. These days more and more kids just seem to get shuttled between friends houses, not allowed out as it's to dangerous.

    Technology will also play a role. I'll admit I clocked up many an hour playing games on the Speccy or C64 back in the day. Although if I wanted to see a mate or find out what they were doing I had to get up and out the house and go chap the door. These days they can just text, email or Facebook them. No need to even get up off the couch.

    So you have a less active population, easier access to and higher consumption of high calorie foods and people wonder why folk are getting fatter! We feed kids more calories and there is a culture of fear that you are a bad parent if you let your kid outside to do something that isn't an organised event at a school or club. Yeah, the kids will get fat.

  • One factor is that people don't understand risk.

    They don't let their kids play out in the parks, or on their bikes, or climb trees because a paedophile will get them or cars might kill them, or they'll fall out of the tree.

    Granted... this 'wrap-'em-up-in-cotton-wool' mentality must save quite a few kids from accidental death etc.   What? Maybe one in several hundred.    And maybe one in 50,000 is saved from a nasty man.

    But the flip side, is a generation of kids who are destined for an early grave, or unhealthy life, because of obesity - and the many diseases that are linked to weight and inactivity. So instead of risking losing about 0.1% to an early death...  parents are condemning perhaps 25% to a shorter, less happy life.     OK... these figures are plucked from the air, but they're illustrative....

    To cap it, I'd say those "protected" children lessen the ability to perceive risk, so may be more likely to have bad accidents when they do occasionally get loose.... so I'm not even sure there's any sort of up-side to this risk-averse culture we have.

  • French tend to be thinner because they understand their food. You can be a kid and have a glass of wine. They are educated with it. Perhaps we wouldn't have the alcohol problem over here if we were the same? But Italians are educated with their food and seem to be a little plump (generalization) as the years go on.

    What about Japanese Sumo wrestlers how do they get that big on fish lolimage

  • French healthier / thinner?

    I don't think so. Having spent some time in France this summer, the beach was littered with basking whales. Not very many slim bodies there.

    Every breakfast ceareal in the supermarkets was chocolate this or chocolate that. Only the US / UK food sections had anything that wasn't chocolate.

    I don't think that you can generalise like that. I admit that last time I was in Paris I thought that the women were slimmer than the avarage English woman but that was 6 years ago.

  • T. Mouse the women are hairier too right?image

  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    T.mouse wrote (see)

    French healthier / thinner?

    I don't think so. Having spent some time in France this summer, the beach was littered with basking whales. Not very many slim bodies there.

    Maybe you were just unlucky at the beach you chose image.  

    I think it's fairly well accepted that the French have a much lower level of obesity compared to most other developed countries.  A quick Google seems to confirm that.

  • skottyskotty ✭✭✭
    Big_G wrote (see)
    T.mouse wrote (see)

    French healthier / thinner?

    I don't think so. Having spent some time in France this summer, the beach was littered with basking whales. Not very many slim bodies there.

    Maybe you were just unlucky at the beach you chose image.  

    I think it's fairly well accepted that the French have a much lower level of obesity compared to most other developed countries.  A quick Google seems to confirm that.

    it was probably full of Brits.

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