I like rubbish it is a good word

Preach on! hehe I agree totally. And yes I am guilty of it too...but thankfully for my kids I have woken up to eating more healthy. Neither of my children are chunky at all and I want to give them a head start on eating right so they might not have to ever be. Kids grow up quickly...and adults/young adults get fat easily enough on their own without us helping it along. If that happens hopefully you have instilled enough sense into them to relize how to deal with it ~ A GOOD DIET (daily diet..not "diet" diet)

i know that as i got bigger people made fun of my size, and i didnt really get overweight until i was in my 20's.

The way i look at people like that, is that you should not give them the satisfaction of letting them know they got to you.

I just use those people as my motivation when I am working out...just thinking about all of the mean and hurtful things they say, really can motivate you in the weight room, at least it did for me

I'm a little annoyed by the constant focus on exercise in this thread. I was a fat baby, a fat kid, and grew into a fat adult. I was also an extremely active and athletic kid, and was athletic well into adulthood. It didn't matter.

Exercise, or lack of it to be exact, isn't the problem. Our food supply is. Lack of knowledge about nutrition is. The problem isn't lazy bodies, but lazy minds.

LiveWell,

You proved my point exactly (just more eloquently). It is up to US, the parents, to point them in the right direction. Loved your post.

My son plays outside and does all the same things I did when I was young..

That is fantastic to hear. Wish it could be that way for all kids.

I agree with every thing you said and the situation is getting like it is in the US, here in the UK.
We have a huge rise in childhood obesity, when I was growing up the "fat" kids in school was one in 50. Now it is closer to one in ten. (I was not a fat kid.)
Our kids do have a poorer diet, far too much sugar and aggressive advertising of junk food to kids on TV.
But they also do not play out, you don't see two ten years walking together to the park or racing each other to get there.
Kids are soccer mad but they don't play it much on the streets or estates, the play in on their X boxes instead.
Parents are scared of letting their children out, for fear of drugs pushers and thugs, but indulging them in the highly addictive drugs of high sugar and high fat diets, whilst veg out in front of the tv.
When I was growing up I walked up a steep hill to school every day five days a week for seven years and back in the afternoons, starting aged nine. And we did go to the sweet shop on the way but we didn't get fat because we only got a few penny sweets, not cans of fizzy drinks or chocolate bars.
Now most children even in urban areas get driven to school and picked up afterwards, missing out of basic exercise.
When I was a child was had times without a TV, I would throw a tennis ball against a wall on practice handstands etc.

kwikdriver, you make a good point. Exercise in and of itself is ineffective for promoting weight loss. It's excellent for many things, including weight maintainence, cardiovascular endurance and muscle building...but not for weight loss.
It simply will not solve anything to keep feeding kids the same 'rubbish' (I like that word, also) and then tell them to go excercise more.
I agree with not putting young children on diets, at least not in the sense that most people think of diets. But how about we stop feeding them sugar-loaded cereal, pop tarts, Big Gulps, pop by the case and all the other non-nutrient crap and give them healthy, nutritious food in reasonable amounts instead?



Primate, the fact is that most kids won't 'grow out of it' unless there is some sort of intervention. Obese children are far more likely to become obese adults than normal weight children.
It sounds good to say, "just love them as they are" but I wouldn't apply that reasoning if my kids were sick or hurt as a rationale to ignore the problem and do nothing about it. The question in my mind is do we love them enough to make the effort to change what they are eating and then put up with the whining without caving in when you tell them 'no' to daily unhealthy food?
Junk food on demand does not = love, people.
Changing a child's diet for the better without destroying their self-image in the process is quite possible...it's all in how you present it to the child.

I actually have a question regarding this. My goddaughter is a very big girl. At age 1 she is wearing a kid's size 5. Her mother is at least 75 lbs overweight and my brother, her father, could stand to lose 25 lbs or so. What I noticed is that, every time that Ashlee cries, her mother gives her something to eat.

I'm wondering...will this set her up to be an emotional eater later on in life? I appreciate any answers as I am very concerned about my little monster.

Kryssi, it's very possible. By soothing her tears with food, Ashlee's mom is giving her the unspoken message that food makes everything all better.
At the age of one, your goddaughter isn't like to make that connection consciously, but as she gets older she certainly will.

Ya know the movie quote "You had me at hello.."? Well for me its, "You lost me at...... ." ..... And honestly, about 30 minutes after you posted this thread I started a scathing response that started with, "Dude, you need to chill the bleep out..." then backspaced everything I wrote, and went on down the list of other new threads. But its a new day, and I'm back to reading this one.

I'm the mother of an overweight child. Is just admitting that setting me up for accusations ....as in how DARE I view my child like that? It's reality..she's 9 years old and in the third grade, and she weighed in at the doctors office (when she went in for a viral infection) at 122 pounds. I honestly believe that not caring (to myself) about her being at this weight, ignoring it and pretending it'll go away on its own is more dangerous. I've NEVER mentioned anything about her weight to her, I'd never dream of it...what could I say that could possibly get her to change this? Nothing..it'd only cause hurt and internally fester into self hatred compounding year after year for who knows how long. But, I do read the threads concerning diet & nutrition for children, I may have even replied to some. The point is, I'm trying to see how I can do anything differantly. I don't word for word follow everything I read, but once in awhile you'll pick up one thing.. that totally makes sense, something you hadn't thought of, you apply it..and it helps. Example: Limit or remove sugary drinks (juice boxes, apple juice, koolaid, etc). I did that a long time ago. Switch to skim milk instead of full fat Vitamin D milk, did that too. It's very much like us in our forum, we don't go by everything that we read within these forum walls... we scan through, ignore what doesn't pertain to us, and sometimes incorporate others that we hope might improve our WOL.

I guess it was the highly accusatory (that a word?) statements at the beginning of your post that started the smoldering thoughts. I don't want her to go through junior high and highschool hating herself, getting picked on and ignored because of her weight.... that turns into self hatred because you believe everyone hates you to treat you that way. (That's how I felt anyway, maybe I'm the only one that every felt it?) So......no, I won't just ignore it......

Also..... I remember the times when I was called fat. It burned, I cried, and who said it and where I was ..is just as clear and real to me as when it happened when I was on that playground 25 years ago. I'm happy for you, you had thick skin, it didnt bother you.

Not only do we need to teach our children to eat healthier, we need to really change what society dictates is "acceptable". I had the opposite problem...66lbs in sophomore year in high school. I was called every name in the book. Eating disorder? Nope...I ate the same nasty, sugary, high carb foods my overweight friends were eating. At times I actually ate more than they did. What a surprise when I hit 35! Hypoglycemia and a slower metabolism.

People see overweight and too thin as ugly. We should be seeing it as not healthy. How do we as a society shift the focus? Beats me....but being a part of this forum has definitely opened my eyes as to what is truly beautiful.

Oh wow thank you! Made my day

I felt the same way when I first read Primate's post. It seemed that he was calling any parent an idiot who would watch what their kids eat.

Let me tell you, I wish my parents would have known the dangers of white bread, potatoes, sugar, and rice when I was a kid. Instead, my parents being semi-starved by poverty when they were kids, they never denied me very much in the way of food. Maybe they should've! Maybe I would've grown up a lot happier and healthier, physically and mentally!

Now, armed with the knowledge we have, I think it would be irresponsible to not help our children. You don't have to tell the kids they look fat in order to help them, though. If both parents were on board with the program it would be pretty easy to simply keep certain foods out of the house. In my case, where the other parent thinks you will die without a massive daily starchload, it's not so easy.

"The kids are skinny, they don't need a diet," she says. Well, darn it, I wasn't fat yet when I was 7 either. A couple of years later, I was among the fattest and most ridiculed kids in school.

It's not stupid to be concerned about kids' health and weight. It is responsible.