Child obesity - Your thoughts

[Skillmister]

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.

Saying people need to burn off calories from simple sugars soon after consumption or they will turn to fat is just so wrong. So by that logic you're saying even if i ate under my maintenance calories but consumed a lot of sugar i would get fat? I can assure you that isn't the case or i would be a fatty.

 

[Freakbro]

1 medium yellow skinned onion, chopped....78p

Prices are from Tesco.

78p for 1 Onion, really? 19p from what I can see on Tesco web site

and chopped tomatoes range from 31p (everday) - 50p (named brand) / tin, plus you can get the kidney beans a lot cheaper too.

cba to check through the other prices.

I shop in tesco's and cook chilli/curry a lot and haven't paid those prices. Also, the chilli, buy 1 or 2 loose Scotch Bonnets from a local greengrocer will be far cheaper and hotter for the normal palatte than that Jalapeno

 

[Haggisman]

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

True

 

[Hatter The Mad]

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.

Actually, it is. You're still going to lose weight if you eat only Mars Bars day in, day out, equivalent to your basal metabolic rate.

It is difficult to put on weight. A calorie is a calorie. 99.9% of the time, genetic and metabolic considerations are simply academic and make the slightest bit of difference.

 

[Castiel]

Saying people need to burn off calories from simple sugars soon after consumption or they will turn to fat is just so wrong. So by that logic you're saying even if i ate under my maintenance calories but consumed a lot of sugar i would get fat? I can assure you that isn't the case or i would be a fatty.

I am not saying that that, I am saying that it contributes to the overall weight gain of the individual if it is not accounted for in their overall lifestyle. If you are looking to eat a healthier lifestyle and limit sugars and fats in your diet, then supermarkets adding dextrose and additives to the supposedly Fresh alternatives to extend shelf-life and profit margins is counter-productive and is another thing that we need to tackle....in addition to the general discounting of processed foods.

 

[GAC]

really hate this topic when it comes up in conversation be it for kids or adults.

the simple answer is, get them off there backsides and get a sweat on.

sure a poor diet comes in to a it but if there's no exercise a great diet will still only go so far. if pressure groups, politicians and health experts want to do anything they should get kids doing a hell of a lot more sports at school, and not just football or running, get other sports so they don't get bored.

and then work on diets in home economics classes, besides showing them how to make flapjacks and boil an egg teach them about nutrition and shopping. rather than just making random food.

shame this will come up again in a year or two as nothing will actually be done yet again apart from a bunch of consultants who will make a killing as the gov ask them what to do rather than just doing a few simple things.

 

[V4NT0M]

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

We as a society are to blame for these obese kids, not just the parents of them.

If society did not manufacture cheap, processed & synthetic foods, if shops did not stock them over healthy options to make money, if advertising was not filled with unhealthy messages large swathes of these obese children would not exist.

Our capitalist society is to blame. It's not crazy at all.

 

[anything I don't mind]

I remember having three fish fingers and a lump of mash (not lumpy mash) for dinner and used to ignore the peas. But fat people would have loads more on the plate and at a higher cost.

I bet you anything that fat people spend more on food than thin people, goes without saying realy.

 

[FutileBreadMachine]

While I’m on my soap (or cereal) box I personally think they should ban all sugary breakfast cereals (i.e. wheetos, coco pops, Special K, frosties etc). We all have porridge with various fruit or wholemeal toast for breakfast and whenever I’ve had to settle for one of these ‘cereals’ I’ve felt like cr@p an hour later as my body tries to break this junk down. I don't intend on letting my daughter eat that nonsense so will try and avoid that aisle for as long as possible!

I'm on board with this, I hate all that Kellogs crap, but we've all been brainwashed into thinking breakfast is cereal, and cereals have become for all intents and purposes, desserts! Even yoghurts should really be called desserts now, since even when they add some kind of fruit to them, they also add sugar! Our eating habits are screwed. We should be eating dinner in the morning and something light in the evening. We all have a big meal and then hang around home then sleep.

And I am also sickened by parents with fat kids, the same as I am when I see parents smoking around kids. For one, do they really want to put their kids through having to deal with losing their parent(s) to lung cancer/emphysema? And then the child's health is also affected due to 2nd hand smoke - kids even absorb smoke from the "smoke residue" left on their parents' clothes.

 

[Castiel]

78p for 1 Onion, really? 19p from what I can see on Tesco web site

and chopped tomatoes range from 31p (everday) - 50p (named brand) / tin, plus you can the kidney beans a lot cheaper too.

cba to check through the other prices.

I went to mid range brands (including Tesco own) that offered a healthier balance regarding added salts and sugars. Which is the point of the exercise.

And as we did not cost up the spices/oils or time components of the recipe the cost is still way in excess of the £2.15 even of we are able to access cheaper lower quality ingredients.

 

[Xordium]

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

Rubbish - your diet as a neonate is one of the biggest driving factors on your predicted weight in middleage. That diet then feeds back to shape the chemical pathways that switch on and off genes that cause tendancies towards obesity.

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.

It does but not for the reasons you think.

Water weight is not going to make someone look obese, nor is it going to affect their health.

Never - oh really. Google oedema and see how wrong you are.
Excess water causes long term cardiac strain and inpaired gaseous exchange in the aveoli therefore further reducing the amount of exercise someone can do compounding the problem. And excess water kind of kills people also.

So you do get problems with water from medical conditions or plain just eating too much salt. So again it is hardly as simple as you make it.

Actually, it is. You're still going to lose weight if you eat only Mars Bars day in, day out, equivalent to your basal metabolic rate.

It is difficult to put on weight. A calorie is a calorie. 99.9% of the time, genetic and metabolic considerations are simply academic and make the slightest bit of difference.

And as above the biggest indicator for obesity is neonatal nutrition and feeding which drives the genes to go down certain paths. Plenty of research out there go and look it up - poorly fed babies = obese adults, well-fed = normal weight.

 

[Freefaller]

No excuse for obese children. I find it inexcusable having a large amount of obese people in society. Now I'm talking about fat unhealthy people, not just big people. There are some "big" people who are fit, and strong or "solid" - however obesity is just inexcusable - though loads put excuses attributed to it, such as genetics being the favoured one as well as medical issues and so on (which is fair enough). However that's so rare it falls well outside of the standard distribution and undoubtedly less than a few % actually have a genuine issue.

It's about eating the right foods, doing some exercise, and not eating more than you expend. If you don't do that - you'll gain weight. It really is that simple. Problem is it's a vicious circle, as you get fatter your insulin sensitivity decreases and as such your body wants to store more fat etc...

A calorie is a calorie irrespective if it's sugar, carb, protein. Admittedly, the nutritious qualities of those elements are important to how you want your body to react.

Ultimately:

Calories in > Calories out = weight gain
Calories in = Calories out = weight sustainment
Calories in < Calories out = weight loss

It really is that simple. As I touched on, as you get bigger your body's hormonal profile changes, and in men certainly testosterone and the ability to store and use muscle decreases (unless you have got a decent amount of muscle mass), and as such it makes it increasingly difficulty to lose weight.

I will add... that eating the right foods and keeping insulin levels in control do help - and with modern foods being loaded with sugars and crap doesn't help - however, it doesn't change the fact that a calorie is a calorie. However, the food profile is important - for a healthy nutritious lifestyle you need to vary the diet.

However, we were not designed to be sedentary either - activity is important too! Too many people sitting in front of tv, computer games and so on.

 

[Freakbro]

I went to mid range brands (including Tesco own) that offered a healthier balance regarding added salts and sugars. Which is the point of the exercise.

I appreciate that, but there isn't much added sugar to a raw onion, no matter what range you buy it from

 

[Omaeka]

If society did not manufacture cheap, processed & synthetic foods, if shops did not stock them over healthy options to make money, if advertising was not filled with unhealthy messages large swathes of these obese children would not exist.

Our capitalist society is to blame. It's not crazy at all.

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.

Truth is, if a parent flocks to whatever telly tells them to, then they are bad parents, okay maybe by societies standards 'average' parents, but by a decent standard they are bad parents. I'm on no high horses here, when I have children they will be fed properly, I won't do what apparently most of society does and buy them what all the bad ads tell me too. At the end of the day it's a parents responsibility to look out for their childs interests, if they are too ignorant and don't bother educating themselves on what a simple 10 minute look around a supermarket or a 30 second Google search can teach them, they are bad, bad parents.

 

[Castiel]

I appreciate that, but there isn't much added sugar to a raw onion

No, but the overall cost difference is still within the range I gave...(and I costed a yellow pepper rather than a yellow onion...my mistake)

 

[krooton]

A fresh chicken breast in Tesco & Asda comes in at around £1.56 each...and £1.34 if you choose the value frozen....so times that by 4 and before you begin you have a meal that has cost three times the cost of the entire alternative meal I suggested.

ASDA Smartprice Chicken & Veg Pies
4x 120g
84p

Cooked Chicken Breast with added Water (10%) [Chicken (85%), Water, Salt] , carrots 2%, peas 2%

So that is 12g of cooked chicken breast per pie, or 10g actual chicken when you factor in the added water and salt. 2.1g of each veg. The rest is just water and wheat flour.

So that whole box of pies has a whopping 40g of chicken.

ASDA Chicken Breast Chunks
(400g)
£2

85% chicken, so 340g actual chicken, 8.5 times the chicken content of the pies for only 2.5 times the price.

 

[Morba]

Also untrue, weight gain is calories in vs calories out BUT taking into consideration how those calories are taken in ie; were they bottle fed/breastfed/

Oh god, not this as well
Sorry but nothing has been shown to consistently show that bottle/breast really makes a difference.

 

[Morba]

i hate fat people

<---- Happy to be hated

 

[V4NT0M]

Truth is, if a parent flocks to whatever telly tells them to, then they are bad parents

No they are bad people, or have some kind of learning difficulty / just stupid, nothing to do with parenting.

 

[jas72]

My pet hate is seeing a small child stuffing their face with a packet of crisps. My daughter has had one packet of crisps that i've allowed her ever in my care... Treats are fruit or a small spoon (2.5ml) of honey (real honey from someone i know).

What!

You said to your daughter here's a nice treat and give her a teaspoon of honey and she accepts this? What age is she? I presume she's under 3.