Fat kids

AndrewJRenko

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

When I was young my parents had me involved in everything. Rugby, soccer, hurling, football, golf, tennis.

I hardly ever had an evening off during the week, there was a training session of some kind to attend.

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Cross Country was another great thing down our way. A great way to achieve and maintain fitness.

I would encourage all parents to get their children involved in their local AC.

Sport is great for kids, but it's not a panacea - looking at the local Camogie team, there are some fairly heavy girls there. Great defenders, mind you.

Romantic Rose

There are plenty of children who aren't fat but are fed absolute filth too. Our diet is just horrific here in Ireland. I was at a football earlier and the amount of crap I saw people eat. Just guzzling fizzy drinks and crisps and sweets. I would rarely see parents feed their children anything healthy. You would definitely be in the minority if you fed your child fruit or water, around here anyway.

This generation are going to have serious health issues when they get a bit older. I don't think my generation were fed the way children are fed today when we were that age. A complete beige diet devoid of any nutrition.

On top of that, food companies are adding way too much sugar, salt and basically manky chemicals to food and being allowed to get away with it.

Convenience all the way. It will come at a price though.

Murrisk

cbyrd wrote: »

Oh Lord, I've been expressing for the last 11 weeks for my baby who was 6 weeks premature. It's like having twins. Feed him then get pumping for the next round, there's not enough to store. He's ng tube fed mostly or when he's awake we try the ebm in a bottle. Can take an hour to finish. He's fed every 3 hours during the day. 4 at night on a high energy formula cos he can't take much fluids so needs the extra calories.

It's not always possible to have some in store to get someone else to do a feed. No mother should be made feel guilty for not breastfeeding. It's bloody bloody tough and tiring. Prolactin levels are higher at night so in order to maintain a good supply a mother needs to feed/express at least once, ideally twice between 12am and 6am.

Oh look, I know. I know that expressing is not that easy. And that they are other good reasons to not breastfeed. And a woman can't wait around in the beginning trying to produce milk; the baby needs to be fed. But I honestly think women should give it a good go at least before giving up on it. What's the harm in that? To not even try is pretty bad, IMO.

Murrisk

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

When I was young my parents had me involved in everything. Rugby, soccer, hurling, football, golf, tennis.

I hardly ever had an evening off during the week, there was a training session of some kind to attend.

Organised sport is great but it's not the reason. I was a slip of a thing as a child and did no sports at all. I was fairly active in other ways though. Diet is the main issue, IMO. I think parents need to learn the appropriate portion sizes for different ages of children and limit sweet things to small bars of something one or twice a week. And no crappy fizzy drinks! Milk, water and low sugar diluted cordial all the way!

DEFTLEFTHAND

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Sport is great for kids, but it's not a panacea - looking at the local Camogie team, there are some fairly heavy girls there. Great defenders, mind you.

Re Camogie listen you're preaching to the choir here brother.

I'm still heavily involved in my local hurling club and have on occasion assisted in their training sessions. There's always a problem with the basic skills, rising on the run, soloing, free striking.

When we play a short match at the end of training it's like a game of hockey, ground hurling muck.

Skills and pace are so far off our mens teams that it's even funny.

whoopsadoodles

You know those waffle cones that you get in fancy ice cream shops. The huge big ones that they put 3 big scoops into?

A few months ago I saw a very obese child, somewhere between 8 - 10 years old walking out of an ice cream shop in blanchardstown eating one of those.

I try to be pragmatic about most things, and try not to judge people. I don't tend to judge obese adults at all but I couldn't help reserve a bit of judgement for the adult that poor little girl was with.

How can you do that to your child? Allow them to be so so overweight but hand them a 1200 calorie ce cream?

I would like to have been able to think "maybe it's a one off treat and the child does deserve to be able to have an ice cream like her friends" but I was only trying to fool myself. If that was the case then a regular sized ice cream would have done.

What I didn't do was judge the child. It's not her fault her parents are allowing this to happen.

imme

I'm pushing this for Thread of the Year OP

It could happen

Seriously though or not so seriously fat kids make me sad and somewhat angry

It doesn't have to be this way

Stupid parents are the answer

Samaris

Burial. wrote: »

Fat acceptance is sadly becoming a thing. I was linked a hilarious buzzfeed article (who else) that the average woman in America wears a size 16-18 and they wanted to "celebrate it". They then proceed to show pictures of absolute whales with folds like Michelin man and putting captions like "slay" under them.

It's sad that these people are encouraged and given positive reinforcement. It's sad that these people will become parents and will pass on the same bad habits and attitudes to their poor kids who don't know any better.

It's child abuse really. Someone said that of course their parents will love them no matter their size but I doubt that... When you permit and encourage them to get so fat as a child and endanger their life from such a young age its anything but love.

Honestly, I can read that as it's sad that people are encouraged to accept being exceedingly overweight, but I can also read that as it's sad that people are encouraged to write "hilarious Buzzfeed articles" exposing and mocking other people, calling them whales and laughing about how they should be harpooned.

Seriously, that's disgusting and it's bullying. And it is sad that these people will become parents and presumably pass on their nasty, bullying, cruel habits to their children who will presumably use them on their classmates.

Sad all around really.

Regarding breastfeeding, breastmilk is best for the baby, but it's not always possible for many reasons. I couldn't be breastfed, yet my mother was able to feed preemie twins as well when my brother was born due to the milk production. Issues can be just milk won't produce, stress, insufficient milk production, mastitis, painfully chapping nipples. The more panicked a woman gets about the feeding not working out, the less likely that the baby will actually get any milk. That's when formula is necessary and good.

On the other hand, the push for formula over breast in parts of Africa (from western sources, particularly Nestle) was not only pure evil for financial gain, it lead to increased deaths amongst newborns because the conditions weren't right for formula to be a sufficient alternative - either due to lack of clean water, lack of money for formula - leading to the need to dilute it down or mix it with corn starch, leading to malnutrition, mastitis as women were lactating with no means of getting rid of the excess.

Paddy Cow

Burial. wrote: »

Fat acceptance is sadly becoming a thing. I was linked a hilarious buzzfeed article (who else) that the average woman in America wears a size 16-18 and they wanted to "celebrate it". They then proceed to show pictures of absolute whales with folds like Michelin man and putting captions like "slay" under them.

It's sad that these people are encouraged and given positive reinforcement. It's sad that these people will become parents and will pass on the same bad habits and attitudes to their poor kids who don't know any better.

It's child abuse really. Someone said that of course their parents will love them no matter their size but I doubt that... When you permit and encourage them to get so fat as a child and endanger their life from such a young age its anything but love.

The "average" thing is annoying. What they don't seem to realise is that average does not mean most. If you have three people, size 12, 16 and 20, the average is 16 but two thirds aren't that size.

boombang

Anybody who thinks this isn't related to kids guzzling crap left right and centre is deluding themselves. I see fat kids in my local spar buying energy drinks, chocolates and sweets like they're trying to make sumo weights. That's what we see see in public, we don't know what their parents are serving them behind closed doors, but from what I can see for sale in the shop plenty of ready meal junk being eaten by somebody.

Anybody who want to shut the thread down wants to put their head in the sand and not address an important health problem.

People need to take some responsibility. If you don't know how to cook, look it up and learn. If you don't know about nutrition, hit youtube and learn. You'd barely need to be literate these days to catch up given all the accessible and video resources available.

Burial.

Samaris wrote: »

Honestly, I can read that as it's sad that people are encouraged to accept being exceedingly overweight, but I can also read that as it's sad that people are encouraged to write "hilarious Buzzfeed articles" exposing and mocking other people, calling them whales and laughing about how they should be harpooned.

Seriously, that's disgusting and it's bullying. And it is sad that these people will become parents and presumably pass on their nasty, bullying, cruel habits to their children who will presumably use them on their classmates.

Sad all around really.

Na Buzzfeed are the clowns trying to shove fat acceptance down our throats....if only there was a similar outlet to sprinkle a little common sense and start fat shaming more and not be bothered by the weirdos with the gender studies degrees chiming in with claims of bullying and insensitivity.

Being fat is an addiction and a choice. If you weren't prioritising shoving cream down your throat then you wouldn't be fat. It's not healthy, it's not attractive, it's not making your life more efficient and easier...it makes no logical sense to overeat so much that your body gets flabby and everything becomes harder to do. Crack heads aren't glamorised, heroin addicts aren't celebrated for having scars that "slay". Alcoholics aren't encouraged to show off that radiant purple head from the gat. They're rewarded and encouraged when they make endeavours to get clean and improve their health and their life. Why are fat people given a pass?

Now if fat people were magically denied the right to have kids, or become a guardian over a child, and if there were denied disability payments, which is basically conning society into paying for their McDonald's and their takeaway order then I'd have no problem. Eat yourself to an early death, I couldn't care. But that's not the case.... Kids don't know any better, and by the time they realise their parents/guardians failed them they're often already affected physically and mentally. Can they overcome that of course, but why allow it to happen in the first place...prevention is the greatest cure and all that. I have no problem shaming anyone with names if it'll have any effect in stopping them from passing on their bad ways to kids.

helimachoptor

I agree its all too common.

I think parents these days with kids are lacking basic fundamentals of

-Knowing how to cook from scratch
-Knowing what food is bad
-Encouraging exercise (and really doing it as a family)

Too much reliance on prepacked ****e, too much snacking on biscuits, crisps etc

Kids do was parents do, so if the parents are sitting on their asses so will the kids.

Diarmuidin

The volume of parents who use Supermacs and Macdonalds as their stable diet is astonishing.

Mooooo

There are a lot of reasons for it, laziness and bad habits from parents or even stress/ mental health, chips are fired on instead of preparing spuds veg meat from butcher etc more people living in towns and cities means kids are are doing less activity outside of training if training, breast feeding may be be better but I don't think bottle feeding is a cause of obesity it's a lot more to do with diet and activity. Sugar being used as a replacement years ago in food and blaming all fats as being bad isnprob the biggest cause in the western world

Sadb

Burial. wrote: »

Na Buzzfeed are the clowns trying to shove fat acceptance down our throats....if only there was a similar outlet to sprinkle a little common sense and start fat shaming more and not be bothered by the weirdos with the gender studies degrees chiming in with claims of bullying and insensitivity.

Bei becomes harder to do. Crack heads aren't glamorised, heroin addicts aren't celebrated for having scars that "slay". Alcoholics aren't encouraged to show off that radiant purple head from the gat. They're rewarded and encouraged when they make endeavours to get clean and improve their health and their life. Why are fat people given a pass?

Now if fat people were magically denied the right to have kids, or become a guardian over a child, and if there were denied disability payments, which is basically conning society into paying for their McDonald's and their takeaway order then I'd have no problem. Eat yourself to an early death, I couldn't care. But that's not the case.... Kids don't know any better, and by the time they realise their parents/guardians failed them they're often already affected physically and mentally. Can they overcome that of course, but why allow it to happen in the first place...prevention is the greatest cure and all that. I have no problem shaming anyone with names if it'll have any effect in stopping them from passing on their bad ways to kids.

You make a very good point about glamourising it. We should not be encouraging fat people as other addictions are not encouraged. But I don't believe that shaming is the answer either. Crack addicts, alcoholics, gamblers etc are not shamed either. There isn't pictures going around Facebook of a local alcoholic saying "John doe has drank himself into oblivion for the past 5nights, can't hold down a job and doesn't care for his kids"
The difference, I suppose, is they can hide their addiction, fat people can't.

Nagnata

I think anyone's kids who are obese should have their child allowance cut or removed. I'd do the same with medical cards for adults who are obese or smokers. Unfortunately it would never work as outrage from fatties and the bleeding heart brigade would be too much. But I think something drastic must be done to stop this epidemic. The average life expectancy of kids today will lower then their parents and that's with more advanced medical care.

Dtp1979

siblers wrote: »

That's actually nonsense, go to any gaa or soccer club during underage training and its full of kids, the estates around me are full of kids playing on the green. The vast majority of children would rather play with their friends outside than stay indoors

It's not nonsense. Sure, there are kids playing gaa etc but compared to 20 years ago there's way more sitting on their arses now playing x box and eating rubbish. I never said every single modern child is stuck indoors.

AndrewJRenko

I saw most of this episode of Doctor in the House on TV3 this morning. I know TV3 are sensationalist, and see it as their job to rile up nice middle-class people Daily Heil style, but it was still scary;

https://www.tv3.ie/3player/show/680/128005/0/Doctor-In-The-House

A Finglas family where Mammy has 3-4 cans a night, Daddy has 8 cans on a quiet night, 12 on a good night. They have a family dinner at 6-ish, and then get pizza or other takeway dinner later in the evening. The 23 year old lady brings her 6 year old to school, gets a chicken fillet baguette for breakfast on the way home, and then goes back to bed for a few hours. Her body fat was over 50%, so she's basically carrying the weight of another person, in addition to her own. The 17 year old lad gets home from school and goes to bed from 5-8pm, then stays up to 1 or 2 am.

It was honestly scary - though I didn't watch to the end to see if they managed to get it back at all.

It wasnt me123

^^^^^

It might be sensationalism but the story was true. A family of 7, 2 parents, 4 kids and 1 grandchild - eating a perfectly normal dinner at 6pm and then ordering a huge takeaway later in the evening - the whole family were enormous, but especially the two girls, 19 & 23. The presses were filled with trash, the adults drank a lot every night and the kids barely moved their lardy ar*es off the couch.

Yes they did turn it around, but if I had a team of health professionals running around me for a few months, I'd look great too. The two girls didn't lose much weight but they did, as a family buy healthier food and become more active.

Parents need to take responsibility for the food they buy and consume. Don't buy crap.

Arcade_Tryer

Nagnata wrote: »

I think anyone's kids who are obese should have their child allowance cut or removed. I'd do the same with medical cards for adults who are obese or smokers. Unfortunately it would never work as outrage from fatties and the bleeding heart brigade would be too much. But I think something drastic must be done to stop this epidemic. The average life expectancy of kids today will lower then their parents and that's with more advanced medical care.

Ah yeah, punish the kids for the parents' problems. A sound policy.

Investing more in education in the form of obesity prevention programmes such as healthy eating and PE classes would perhaps be a better plan.

Nagnata

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

Ah yeah, punish the kids for the parents' problems. A sound policy.

Investing more in education in the form of obesity prevention programmes such as healthy eating and PE classes would perhaps be a better plan.

Kids have PE classes and most good schools have healthy food policies, zhome is where the problem is. But kudos for the typical lazy parent response looking for someone else (ie the state) to raise your kids for you.

Arcade_Tryer

Nagnata wrote: »

Kids have PE classes and most good schools have healthy food policies, zhome is where the problem is. But kudos for the typical lazy parent response looking for someone else (ie the state) to raise your kids for you.

Firstly, PE could be increased. And secondly, many schools do not focus on healthy food policies. And thirdly, education has been proven to be the most significant correlate of health. If kids are not getting the education at home, the best solution is to provide it in school. And more than what is already on offer through increased focus on PE and nutrition. But I suppose in your world kids born to families where the home life is the problem should be punished?

whoopsadoodles

Nagnata wrote: »

Kids have PE classes and most good schools have healthy food policies, zhome is where the problem is. But kudos for the typical lazy parent response looking for someone else (ie the state) to raise your kids for you.

That's not what he said at all. He said you would be punishing children by removing children's allowance. And it's not the children's fault.

PE is just 30 minutes twice a week in some schools. And healthy food doesn't just mean not bringing a penguin bar Monday - Thursday so their policies are often rubbish.

Arcade_Tryer

Nagnata wrote: »

Kids have PE classes and most good schools have healthy food policies, zhome is where the problem is. But kudos for the typical lazy parent response looking for someone else (ie the state) to raise your kids for you.

Jesus Christ, if it represents a negative externality (which it does), and regards children from disadvantaged areas suffering the early stage setback (which it does,) then even the most conservative of economists would agree that state intervention is required to correct the market.

Hammer89

Said this before but, on the whole, Irish people aren't very happy and from very, very early on life we're given tools to sooth stress or unhappiness through an oral means, be it a nipple or a soother.

When we grow into adults, the default response to these feelings remains but it's not practical - or legal - to whip your ma's tit out and nibble on it, or go around sucking a dummy, so we turn to the next best thing in regards to oral satisfaction and that is food, which we're abusing more and more because it has positive temporary results, even if the long-term effect is detrimental for our mind, body and spirit.

Dr Crayfish

I didn't do PE or play sports in school. I was crap at football so there were no other options. I still hadn't a pick on me. I know from experience managing your weight is probably 90% down to what you eat. We also had computer games in the 80s and 90s and i was mad into them. They must be just eating absolute crap all the time.

helimachoptor

When I was growing up in the 80s a McDonald's happened on my birthday and my brothers so twice a year. People bring their kids to McDonald's for their breakfast these days

Dr Crayfish

helimachoptor wrote: »

When I was growing up in the 80s a McDonald's happened on my birthday and my brothers so twice a year. People bring their kids to McDonald's for their breakfast these days

My Dad used to bring me for McDonald's breakfast as a kid sometimes when we were in town. The Big Breakfast, with scrambled eggs. They don't do them any more. I had a Sausage and Egg McMuffin only this morning, they'll always have a special place in my heart!

Steve012

Hammer89 wrote: »

Said this before but, on the whole, Irish people aren't very happy and from very, very early on life we're given tools to sooth stress or unhappiness through an oral means, be it a nipple or a soother.

When we grow into adults, the default response to these feelings remains but it's not practical - or legal - to whip your ma's tit out and nibble on it, or go around sucking a dummy, so we turn to the next best thing in regards to oral satisfaction and that is food, which we're abusing more and more because it has positive temporary results, even if the long-term effect is detrimental for our mind, body and spirit.

You shot who in the what now?

AllForIt

Burial. wrote: »

Fat acceptance is sadly becoming a thing. I was linked a hilarious buzzfeed article (who else) that the average woman in America wears a size 16-18 and they wanted to "celebrate it".

I recall reading about a movement in the states a couple of years back that is actively promoting 'the fat look'. I don't know what the motivation behind it is, it's either to try and lift the confidence of a fat person or it's a cynical attempt by junk food manufactures to keep their customer base. Whichever it is it's appalling either way. As if if the fat look were considered sexy then the health implications of being fat would just magically disappear. FFS the issue is not about how ppl look on the outside, it's about they look on the inside.