Child obesity - Your thoughts

[Skillmister]

250g of chips is 400kc in the oven, call that 600kc fried (as poor people like to fry stuff). The chicken pie is 350kc and lets say a portion of beans (just a qtr of a tin) is 100kc.

Poor people also like cheap white bread with marg, so lets say another 400kc for 3 slices.

Hello portion control? If this isn't excessive I don't know what is.

And if you've never bought a multipack and scoffed the lot well done, you obviously know a little more about whats good for you than most. Sadly many people won't even think what eating the whole bag will do to their insides.

So what you're trying to say is all people who buy processed food eat huge amounts? Do you not think that's quite a massive over generalisation?

not to mention that dextrose and sugars are more quickly metabolised and unless you burn them off shortly after consumption they will be stored as fat.....

That is completely untrue.

You can eat small portions of food and still gain weight if you are eating the wrong foods or not getting the required exercise and so on....

Also untrue. Gaining weight is calories in vs calories out, doesn't matter where the calories come from.

 

[Omaeka]

I would say both of the kids were under 11 and the oldest being at least 80+kg. I shouldn’t have been shocked but I truly was amazed by the ignorance and selfishness of these people.

I do hope your joking, the day a kid of that age outweighs me is the day I rocket to the moon, not necessarily for the kid, but the parents. People who are that irresponsible really do not deserve to have kids as they clearly have no responsibilities at all.

I’m sure I’ve seen this discussed before, but it would be interesting to see you own opinions regarding the matter, who you feel is to blame and what you think should be done about it.

The parents, how could you ever blame the children? It's like having a really, really fat pet and saying it's the pets fault because it's owner did nothing but give it food. Little to no self control with kids whatsoever so it is the parents responsibility to have it for them, Jeremy Kyle would have had a field day with that Adams family.

 

[anything I don't mind]

I used to have chips, pie and beans with some white bread on the side. still do. But i stopped eating marg and butter.

 

[V4NT0M]

And my point is that on one side of the aisle is processed **** & tuther side of aisle is real fruit.

Chopped up fruit is "processed ****", give me a break. That's a plenty high horse you're sitting on.

Have you actually seen these packs they are selling & do you really think they are as good for a kid than the real thing ? If so I'm still laughing.

I have seen packs of chopped, mixed fruit, and that's all they are, chopped fruit.

Sure, one could argue that a whole fruit is better for the child, but you're letting some form of nutritional elitism get in the way of common sense. Eating some chopped up fruit that has been in a tub for a day or so is not going to detriment the child's health.

You do not need to have your child on a super strict, restrictive regime to keep them healthy and normal weight. Just a bit of common sense about what you are feeding them.

Also for the price of the processed **** you could buy a decent selection rather than the few chunks of apple you get & half a strawberry.

This bit I agree with.

I think there are a lot of judgemental posts in this thread that stink of complete ignorance. We as a society are to blame for these obese kids, not just the parents of them. So please, dismount your horses.

 

[BuffetSlayer]

For those talking about cost, the OP mentions a high street coffee bar, so lets assume the family in the OP were in a proprietary coffee shop, one of many that are popular in high streets........

You know the ones, £3.50 for a little pannini and £2.50 for a muffin etc. I am sure if they can afford that kind of outlay, they can afford healthy food too.

Maybe others cant, and that's a separate issue, but look to the war generation. They managed on rations and home grown vegetables for a fair while. Whilst thats an extreme example it does show that careful planning and thrift can ensure a healthy diet.

When I was young, my mother and father had very little money. My mother had £5 a week to run the house - and £2.50 of that was baby milk for me. Yet they managed to raise 3 kids and feed themselves. How? Because they cooked food, they never let anything go to waste either. Left overs from a dinner? Lets have bubble and squeak for tea tomorrow! etc etc.

It can be done and i'm sorry, having little money is no real excuse. I come from that kind of background and whilst we didn't eat extravagant meals we ate well enough, and as a kid I was a bundle of energy so nutrition wise there was no problem.

And therein is another issue - activity. We live in the TV and xbox generation now. Kids are often not as active as they used to be and that makes a huge difference to weight. Activity costs very little too. I used to get a lot of exercise just from running around, climbing trees and having a knock about with a football. I would be out from dusk till dawn every day. Then my parents saved enough to buy me a mountain bike out of the catalogue and that was it then! I biked everywhere, all the time.

Oh, and with regard to cost I know there are many different circumstances but I think it is fair to say that many people have kids irresponsibly in this country when they know they cant afford them. So I think along with better education we need to promote better social responsibility.

Buff

 

[Xordium]

Also untrue. Gaining weight is calories in vs calories out, doesn't matter where the calories come from.

Also untrue, weight gain is calories in vs calories out BUT taking into consideration how those calories are taken in ie what food type, what genetic predisposition the person has, were they bottle fed/breastfed/poorly fed/well fed as a baby, underlying medical problems, exercise, type of day the calories were taken in, etc etc. Weight gain is also significantly water .. more salt more water more weight.

Not quite so simple as you are making out.

 

[Omaeka]

I think there are a lot of judgemental posts in this thread that stink of complete ignorance. We as a society are to blame for these obese kids, not just the parents of them. So please, dismount your horses.

A 13 stone 11 year old is societies fault and not the parents? How? That is a crazy statement.

 

[Haggisman]

250g of chips is 400kc in the oven, call that 600kc fried (as poor people like to fry stuff). The chicken pie is 350kc and lets say a portion of beans (just a qtr of a tin) is 100kc.

Poor people also like cheap white bread with marg, so lets say another 400kc for 3 slices.

Hello portion control? If this isn't excessive I don't know what is.

And if you've never bought a multipack and scoffed the lot well done, you obviously know a little more about whats good for you than most. Sadly many people won't even think what eating the whole bag will do to their insides.

Ok fair enough that is excessive for a child, I was thinking 4x adults, but what you've quoted is only 850kc (i'll ignore the massive stereotyping about frying, along with the fact that no one mentioned anything about having bread with it). That's less than half the RDA, for what's supposedly the largest meal of the day. I wouldn't consider that excessive for an adult. Not necessarily healthy due to the lack of veg, but not particularly excessive (of course that does depend on the rest of your daily diet).

 

[BuffetSlayer]

Ok fair enough that is excessive for a child, I was thinking 4x adults, but what you've quoted is only 850kc (i'll ignore the massive stereotyping about frying, along with the fact that no one mentioned anything about having bread with it). That's less than half the RDA, for what's supposedly the largest meal of the day. I wouldn't consider that excessive for an adult. Not necessarily healthy due to the lack of veg, but not particularly excessive (of course that does depend on the rest of your daily diet).

And your activity levels will make a big difference too......

 

[Xordium]

A 13 stone 11 year old is societies fault and not the parents? How? That is a crazy statement.

Re-read his post - you kind of missed the really important part there - the word "just".

 

[Castiel]

Why does it need to be fresh, why does it need to be a whole breast (what is an acceptable portion - how much lean protein are you getting in your 25p chicken pie for a fair comparison?) and why does it need to cost less than 50p per head?

The comparison of relative nutrition is hardly the point given that we are discussing why it is easer and cheaper to eat low quality, low nutritional value foods over the better quality high nutritional ones....

Also I said bean chilli, that means no meat.

Let us look at a Bean Chilli recipe, just dealing with the main ingredients (we will assume that some things like vegetable oil and the spices are already in the cupboard):

1 medium yellow skinned onion, chopped....78p
1 large red pepper, seeded and chopped....78p
1 large green pepper, seeded and chopped...78p
1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped...96p
4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped...50p
1 (32- ounce) can crushed tomatoes....69p
1 (14-ounce) can black beans....61p
1 (14-ounce) can dark red kidney beans...59p

so total cost is £5.69....significantly higher than £2.15.

Prices are from Tesco.

 

[Skillmister]

Also untrue, weight gain is calories in vs calories out BUT taking into consideration how those calories are taken in ie what food type, what genetic predisposition the person has, were they bottle fed/breastfed/poorly fed/well fed as a baby, underlying medical problems, exercise, type of day the calories were taken in, etc etc. Weight gain is also significantly water .. more salt more water more weight.

Not quite so simple as you are making out.

Genetics will play a part for a minuscule number of people.

Type of day? I'm assuming you mean time? And if so that is one of the biggest myths ever. Eat all your calories at 9pm or every 30 mins throughout the day, doesn't matter.

Congrats on taking weight gain the wrong way. Water weight is not going to make someone look obese, nor is it going to affect their health.

Exercise comes under calories out.

 

[Castiel]

That is completely untrue.

It's not, the speed at which some foods are metabolised is important to weight loss and weight maintenance...some foods release there energy slowly and other far more quickly...carbohydrates and sugars generally being quicker than proteins for example.

Also untrue. Gaining weight is calories in vs calories out, doesn't matter where the calories come from.

If only it were as simple as that...as Xordium points out.

 

[Xordium]

Let us look at a Bean Chilli recipe, just dealing with the main ingredients (we will assume that some things like vegetable oil and the spices are already in the cupboard):

1 medium yellow skinned onion, chopped....78p
1 large red pepper, seeded and chopped....78p
1 large green pepper, seeded and chopped...78p
1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped...96p
4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped...50p
1 (32- ounce) can crushed tomatoes....69p
1 (14-ounce) can black beans....61p
1 (14-ounce) can dark red kidney beans...59p

so total cost is £5.69....significantly higher than £2.15.

Prices are from Tesco.

It should be noted that is not exactly a good meal for little one. Going back to my earlier point - strangely enough children need completely different meals to us and actually fat is rather important.

 

[elmarko]

Adding fructose to fresh chicken and sugar to canned veg and all the other little things that supermarkets do to extent shelf life do not help either.....

Schools do not help either with their menus and access to rubbish during school breaks etc.

Indeed.

Frozen chicken (you would think would have nothing in it except chicken) - look in Tesco's & you will notice it's got sugar/salt & is only 82% chicken.

This is common across the board.

I spend more on food since eating healthy than I did beforehand - eating a healthy variety of fresh fruit/vegetables with good quality meat isn't as cheap as eating cheap oven food.

It's utterly ridiculous that some people are claiming it's cheaper to eat healthy than it is to eat low quality cheap oven food (which has an incredibly low cost per meal).

 

[Castiel]

Genetics will play a part for a minuscule number of people.

Type of day? I'm assuming you mean time? And if so that is one of the biggest myths ever.

Congrats on taking weight gain the wrong way. Water weight is not going to make someone look fat, nor is it going to affect their health.

Exercise comes under calories out.

You might want to look up Ghrelin and the part it plays in stimulating hunger and the impact it can have on the metabolism in obese people.

 

[Castiel]

It should be noted that is not exactly a good meal for little one. Going back to my earlier point - strangely enough children need completely different meals to us and actually fat is rather important.

Indeed...I was just illustrating that the cost is still somewhat north of the example I gave of a standard meal that can be bought for a family of four.

 

[Omaeka]

Re-read his post - you kind of missed the really important part there - the word "just".

I still don't agree. There is no way shape or form any reason a child would get so big other than bad parenting. Okay example;

your child wants a pack of biscuits and you only give them one or two and they moan about wanting the whole pack and throw a tantrum.

Discipline. Lots of it.

The whole poor families having to buy cheap processed rubbish is nothing to do with childhood weight issues, these families have obviously never heard of exercise. The poorer the family the more prominent exercise should be logically, as you couldn't afford to give your children things like video games and T.V, so naturally a cheap football and the back garden would be your best go to.

Besides a bag of apples are 99p from ASDA! If you go ignorantly looking for 'healthy' eating you are going to spend a bomb yes, because most sheep will flock to the 'ZOMG HELFEE EETANG STOOF HERE!' aisles in the local supermarket, if you know where to look you can get healthy produce for the same, and sometimes even less than the rubbish.

 

[ikillbears]

i hate fat people

 

[Castiel]

i hate fat people

That seems rather irrational and intolerant.