General Chat

Have heard this story several times this week in the media that a 10yr old child weighs 24 stone - I find this very hard to believe.
Do you?

I saw that too and there was more than one vastly overweight. Walking round Gloucester last week were appalled at the number of very very overweight parents and very chubby young children there were. And invariably they were all eating pasties and cakes as they walked along or were pushed in their buggies.

a ten year old can be as tall as a small adult so not too hard to believe the weight really.

Ann - it always seems to those who (to our mind) have a weight problem walk along outside eating.

My mother would not allow us, to as much as, eat a sweet outside - said it was common!!!!

However, when we went to the pictures and came out if it was dark - we passed a chip shop and Dad would nip in - as he told mother it was dark and no one could see!!

We two kids thought it was wonderful.

I've just googled overweight children, and am horrified!!
I just can't imagine how they get so overweight.

Have to admit, my grandchildren eat for Britain - especially the 11 year old grand daughter, who's 5' tall and can still wear clothes for an 8 year old - the jeans are half mast, and sleeves three quarter length - but it's better than having 3 foot of 'spare' material around her waist - they make waisbands with buttons and elastic with buttonholes in, now.
But it's WHAT they eat - in between meals, cherry tomatoes disappear in minutes. Fruit bowls empty in a day, the 2 year old and staffie dog fight over cucumber, and when they stay with me for a few hours, I need 2 packets of water biscuits and a large jar of Marmite!

Grand daughter was woken up at 5am by her brother - what did she do? Made some focaccia bread before school because she prefers it to shop bought bread. But you can see the ribs on all of them - the Staffie's are more difficult to find :-D

I cant believe that a child weighs 24 stone.

chris

my mum was the same about eating in the street,and when i was a child in the late 60s early 70s i can not remember ever eating in the street,my own children didnt either but that was because i was fussy about what my children ate,so pies,sausage rolls or biscuits were out of the question.

my own grandson whos just turned 4 is a very big lad,very tall for his age,and weighs three and a half stone,he wears a size 1 shoe and wears size 7-8yrs in clothes,both parents are 6ft and over(my son his dad is 6ft 3) .
his diet at the moment is normal for a small child,with lots of fruit and veg and not to much rubbish,but i fear he will have to watch his weight when hes older.
i was reminded by this thread about a trip to cardiff a few months ago,i was shocked to see very young children in buggies swigging from bottles of coke,but of couse this just doesnt happen in cardiff but every where now. :-D

At ten I was 5' 6". At twelve I weighed 18st.

At night I went home to several hours of psychological abuse, not sometimes but every night.

From the age of six I found it easier to sit quietly in the corner or hide quietly away and keep still than to face even more rage because she couldn't pretend I wasn't there

There were sweets aplenty and lots of food because they kept me quiet and food was having to be prepared anyway so there was no more effort involved.

Those obese children are not happy children. They are being abused as surely as I was but perhaps not quite in the same way.

True, Sharron, they ARE being abused, whether it's psychologically, emotionally or physically, by being fed crap, it's all abuse.
It doesn't seem 'normal' for a child of, say 6 to be grossly overweight.

I have mentioned this before..
Not all obesity is caused by over eating
My eldest daughter was always a big girl for her age, she also "developed" very early
We never allowed excess junk food and fizzy drinks ect were very rare in our household.

In her early teens, she developed hyper thyroidism but the meds also slowed her metabolism... causing more weight gain.
At 19yrs old, she had radio active iodine therapy to paralyse her thyroid gland.
It took about a year for the gland to stop producing thyroxine which she now takes in tablet form.
By this time, she was about 16 stones and absolutely miserable, but could finally try and lose weight.

She started a" healthy eating plan", and went to the gym 2 or 3 times a week.
Within a few short months she weighed a healthy 9 stones with a healthy BMI.

Unfortunately, without realising it, she had developed an eating disorder and knew she needed help.
At her lowest, she weighed around 6 stones... thats a drop of 10 stones in less than a year.
She accepted treatment, and has never looked back.

It was in the Manchester evening news!!!

Then a larger peice in the mail on 4th august

GL I am pleased that your daughter was finally able to get on healthily with her life. I agree it is not always over eating that causes obesity. However, the number of vastly overweight whole families in gloucester cannot surely be explained by thyroid problems. Difficult to know what causes it really, boredon? Can't be lack of money or they surely wouldn't be buying expensive pasties etc.

I would say lack of health education except that schools are always pushing healthy eating these days. I can't believe that the parents like being overweight as they look so uncomfortable when they walk, especially in the heat we have had.

Not just the eating I would say , my 10 yr old g/son is a big lad not fat as such but could be going that way, why? sitting every spare moment at the games box etc his Dad my son is divorced and although sees him about twice a week can have no say in the matter at all when he was living with them the kids were only allowed an hour a day on the games and he made sure they went out walking nearly every w/end now he tries his hardest and does take son walking/swimming at w/end but the child is so out of condition he now struggles to walk far . .....Mother? hmm too wrapped up in her new man . And forgot to say g/s does not eat much for a start does not like sweet stuff but probably gets a lot of processed meals now ..his dad used to cook meals from scratch :-(

Having finally found an explanation of my mother's behaviour on the internet I was able to further investigate my problems.

I can't pretend to know a great deal about this and it has not been gleaned from advertising sites either but the hormone cortisol plays a big part in laying down fat, particularly in certain areas. This hormone is can be generated by stress.

These portly children are at the mercy of their parent's ideas of parenting which may be causing them untold stress and then from those who like to mention how they have been clever enough to notice the dimensions of their bodies.

Weight gain occurs when you eat more calories than your body uses up. If the food you eat provides more calories than your body needs, the excess is converted to fat.

Of course, certain medical conditions can cause obesity, but in reality these cases are in the minority.

By far the biggest reason is family lifestyle. Your eating habits and activity level are partly learned from the people around you. If one or both your parents is obese, you have a higher risk of being obese.

We were appalled a few month ago when we took our 6yo grandson to taekwondo to find a parent and daughter eating a burger whilst waiting for the session to start - both overweight, I might add.

Having been told that simplistic stuff all my life, I decided that I would take steps, perhaps not the prescribed ones but somebody has to be capable of original thought, to sort out my stress problems.

For me, as I don't doubt for many of the badly cared for children who are fat now, too much stress was my norm, not made any better by the constant advice of those who really did not want to see what was going on at home when I was a child.

Initially I needed hypnotherapy to allow me to face my problems and to dispel some of the enormous amount of anger inside me.

Then there was the search for the reason for my abuse which I have detailed on here far too often. There was the on-line research into the results of stress.

There followed a row with the doctor who closed down and stopped listening when I told him my conclusions. He later became interested and apologized for his reaction which I can understand .As he explained, he has people go to him with winder diets all the time and they never work sustainably.

Over the last couple of years I have been doing what my body wants to do and eating what it wants put into it.

I realize that exercise was used as a form of punishment for being fat when I was young,it made my muscles tense up and my back to seize so I stopped doing what I didn't want to do. Now I am looking to do more because I have energy to do it. Not much at the moment but it is growing.

The appetite is changing all the time, it doesn't rule me anymore and that brings the need to re- focus my mind. There is the space where the appetite used to be. I think the desire to exercise will probably slot itself into that space eventually.

I don't know what I weigh, it doesn't matter, but I sometimes notice a new change in myself like my chin starting to stick out more and the hairdresser saying my neck seemed longer. Having to hoist my trousers all the time can be a bit of a pain but I have lived with worse.

I agree with those who say that family lifestyle can contribute to a high majority of the obese children in this country. One look at the parent’s results in the idea that the whole family could benefit from a good diet & exercise programme, but this is not always the case.

I am overweight in today’s thinking, but I have the exact measurements my Paternal Great Grandmother had, I know because we have her best dress & coat she was photographed wearing in 1934 aged 92. No ‘junk food’ ever passed her lips; she had worked hard on the farm all her life & at 92 still went for a daily walk round the farm.
I am unsure whether I should be pleased to have her genes rather than those of my long lean Maternal Great Grandmother who in her 60’s.

Many studies are being done all over the world; they have resulted in the identification of several ‘fat genes’.

Obsolutely I agree Carol.... I am sure I am a carrier off the fat gene. :-(

As a child I was a terriblely chubby child where as my sisters were stick thin, I was teased because of chubby cheeks and chunky legs so badly by them and their friends I have been on diet since I was 6.

Now we didnt over eat cakes and chocs and chrisps were treats so didnt get them everyday. We had proper food as well home cooked dinner none of this fish fingers or burgers stuff I was active always out on my bike or would walk miles with my dolls pram with my mum sometimes wonder without her. We walked everywhere. Even at the age of 6 we all had our house chores to do, so wasnt idle. The other thing I can think of is we eat white bread with our meals.

So I am not quick to blame the life styles and blame todays parents of overweight children.

Well here is the story http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2384389/The-seven-primary-pupils-weighed-20-stone-Britains-shocking-childhood-obesity-epidemic-revealed-official-NHS-figures.html
Quite sickening really