Chubby Kids...

[DizzKneeGeek]

If you saw my THIN, assumably heathly friend, with this same cart of junk...as her cart always looks this way, would that make you a little angry too?

I know it wasn't directed at me...but yes, It would. Nobody should eat like that. I did...for many years and now I spend every waking minute of my life trying to undo the damage I caused myself. Just because you're thin doesn't mean you're healthy

 

[mkingdomlvr]

If you saw my THIN, assumably heathly friend, with this same cart of junk...as her cart always looks this way, would that make you a little angry too? Just curious, not trying to be snarky at all. She takes that crap home to her fairly overweight kids! But by looking at her, most wouldn't think a thing of her cart full of fun snacks!

Honestly, I probably wouldn't notice her if she didn't have her kids with her. Adults making bad choices for themselves might make me feel badly for them that they don't care enough about the bodies God gave them to take care of them, but ultimately they are adults. When it comes to children, it's a different story, the child can't choose better for themselves and won't ever learn how to choose better for themselves when they are adults.

 

[ReneeA]

I don't want to excuse any bad behavior, but geneticists have found a defect in a gene in some people where the hunger just never gets turned off. I'm sure that's not the problem with all people that are overweight though.

My family is all pretty average, some are thin, and we don't really have to work really hard at it. My sister is 5'10" tall and only weighs 125...she's scrawny. Her oldest is 5 and is built the same way -very tall and thin. Her youngest just turned 4 and is super tall and getting very chubby.

We were just there for the holidays and my nephew ate a huge, heaping serving of spaghetti for dinner. Then he begged for more. He laid on the floor and kicked and screamed that he was still hungry. My sister didn't give in, and he eventually gave up...but returned every half hour or so to beg for more food. She said that's how he acts at every meal, everyday. She told me that she never gives in, and has cut all of the junk out of his diet. When he starts crying for food, she offers fresh fruits and veggies (which he eats in mass quantities).

I feel bad for him. From the looks of it, he's doomed to be heavy.

 

[MemoryMakers2669]

Honestly, I probably wouldn't notice her if she didn't have her kids with her. Adults making bad choices for themselves might make me feel badly for them that they don't care enough about the bodies God gave them to take care of them, but ultimately they are adults. When it comes to children, it's a different story, the child can't choose better for themselves and won't ever learn how to choose better for themselves when they are adults.

OK, so thin mom, with her thin kids...cause you see it ALL the time with them as well! But they are thin now, so it is OK!?

The statements of it is fat adults making fat kids that I find wrong wrong wrong! At least where I live anyway. Seems to me...said ti before, that most of these overweight kids now a days aren't coming from heavy parents, but "normal" sized ones!

 

[Christine]

Honestly, I probably wouldn't notice her if she didn't have her kids with her. Adults making bad choices for themselves might make me feel badly for them that they don't care enough about the bodies God gave them to take care of them, but ultimately they are adults. When it comes to children, it's a different story, the child can't choose better for themselves and won't ever learn how to choose better for themselves when they are adults.

I have a guy sitting next to me at work. Exactly the same age as I am. He weighs over 300 lbs, had a stent put in his artery in his 30s and has suffered from Type 2 diabetes for years now. He didn't get heavy until he got out of college and he admits that he uses food for an emotional crutch. His weight is not due to his build or heredity. His doctors have told him that he will die if he doesn't stop. He takes 5 diabetes meds, including insulin, high doses of BP medicine, and much more. He still cannot stop himself from going to McDonalds and eating candy during the day.

So, last week he brought in his adopted 11 year old son. I was SO sad to see this boy following after his father. He was certainly not morbid yet but at 11 he had quite the "gut" on him and his father was getting him a candy bar at 9:00 a.m.

My coworker is so disgusted with his own situation, yet I have to wonder why he is allowing this to happen to his son.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

OK, so thin mom, with her thin kids...cause you see it ALL the time with them as well! But they are thin now, so it is OK!?

The statements of it is fat adults making fat kids that I find wrong wrong wrong! At least where I live anyway. Seems to me...said ti before, that most of these overweight kids now a days aren't coming from heavy parents, but "normal" sized ones!

Honestly, that is not the experience at my Publix and Walmart. If the parents are lean, the kids with them usually are too. If the parents are chubby, the kids are chubby too. I'm sure it's different all over and we can all only speak to what we see on a regular basis.

 

[xoprincessmomxo]

Let me start my post by saying this does not include children who are obese because of a medical condition or just chunky.


Children might be pre-destined to be big kids, or as my mom would have put it "big boned", but no child is built morbidly obese. Kids need to get off the game systems, outside running around, and need to lay off the mac and cheese and snack cakes. I have a nephew who is going to be a big kid. No way around it, he is not built small. Given the opportunity, he would sit around playing computer happily gobbling up chips the rest of his life. But, my sister makes sure that he eats healthy and is involved in some sort of sport year round. We, as parents, can't always let our kids do what they like all of the time. Especially when it's putting their lives in danger.

 

[tw1nsmom]

My sister is has always had a similar diet to mine and she suffers from being obese. She is not a pig, she eats pretty much the same as I do I've always been thin, she was thin until about age 25 and is now 50-75 lbs overweight. It's definately not fair and not her fault or the fault of our parents.

Are you saying that none of those things you mentioned are anyone elses' business? If my neighbor is abusing his child, I'm not only going to judge him, I'm going to turn him in to the authorities. I would judge another parent for any of the reasons you mentioned. What's wrong is wrong, including feeding your kid crap instead of healthy food.

Of course I would report abuse to the authorities. What I'm saying is that you can't know a situation by looking at a person for a short time in a store. You can't look at the "chubby" kid and know that their parents are abusing them by giving them a diet of junk food and you can't look at the thin kid walking in a store and know what goes on in their home either. The OP edited her post after I started writing my post. She started off just talking about being infuriated at parents of chubby kids. Not morbidly obese kids.

 

[aprilgail2]

I was referring to this line in the OP:

I saw this mom in Walmart today with her daughter, who was a beautiful little girl. She was probobly 6 years old. She was obese. Very large, could hardly walk.

The OP was assuming this child was obese due to poor eating habits when she has no idea what her situation is.

My godson was so fat he had rolls and rolls- he had a bone marrow transplant and all the steroids caused him to gain so much weight-it was not good.

My daughter is skinny-one of her good friends is pretty heavy and I have to say that the heavy child eats much healthier than my duaghter does! Her friend had grilled chicken, veggies and eats a lot of fruit where my daughter will eat out a couple times a week if we are busy. She eats fruit and drinks water but so does her friend and her friend has the weight problem no fault of her parents! They both play the same sports too!

 

[mjkacmom]

OK, so thin mom, with her thin kids...cause you see it ALL the time with them as well! But they are thin now, so it is OK!?

The statements of it is fat adults making fat kids that I find wrong wrong wrong! At least where I live anyway. Seems to me...said ti before, that most of these overweight kids now a days aren't coming from heavy parents, but "normal" sized ones!

The highest risk factor kids have in becoming obese is having obese parents:

What causes obesity?
The causes of obesity are complex and include genetic, biological, behavioral and cultural factors. Basically, obesity occurs when a person eats more calories than the body burns up. If one parent is obese, there is a 50 percent chance that the children will also be obese. However, when both parents are obese, the children have an 80 percent chance of being obese. Although certain medical disorders can cause obesity, less than 1 percent of all obesity is caused by physical problems. Obesity in childhood and adolescence can be related to:

poor eating habits
overeating or binging
lack of exercise (i.e., couch potato kids)
family history of obesity
medical illnesses (endocrine, neurological problems)
medications (steroids, some psychiatric medications)
stressful life events or changes (separations, divorce, moves, deaths, abuse)
family and peer problems
low self-esteem
depression or other emotional problems
What

 

[tw1nsmom]

I don't think anyone is speaking about children with medical conditions here.

But when you are in a grecery store and you see an obese mom and an obese child with a cart full of chicken nuggets, hot dogs, candy, cookies, non diet soda, frozen pizza, canned pasta and other atrocities; you really have to call it like you see it.

Take a deep breath and realize noone is referring to your DD with hypothyroisism.

The thing that gets me about threads like these is that people think it's ok to judge and bash fat people in a way that they wouldn't anyone else. As I said in a PP, the OP changed her original post to say morbidly obese when it originally said chubby.

I also know that the vast majority of fat people are that way because they eat too much and exercise too little. I haven't lost almost 80 pounds in the last year without figuring that one out. However there's no way of knowing which people you see in public are that way from bad choices and which small percentage of people are that way through medical reasons.

I'm just saying that this disgust and anger with fat people (and I've seen it on these boards over the years in many forms/threads) gets my blood boiling. It's likely that the fat person with junk food eats that way frequently, but how do you really know? If you saw my cart a few weeks ago you would think the same about me. I was buying for our holiday parties and had a lot of junk in them that I wouldn't normally have. You wouldn't know that all that food was for 3 separate parties I was throwing and that all the junk that was leftover was thrown out at the end of the parties. You wouldn't know that I had lost weight and so had my DD by exercising and eating an extremely healthy diet of lean meats, vegetables, fruits and whole grains and that this was a once a year thing. You would just see a fat mom (I still have a ways to go) and a chubby kid with a bunch of junk in her cart.

I've run across this my whole life and it's set me back more times than I can count. I've been exercising and had people give me dirty looks or outright rude comments about how fat I was. While I was exercising! While I was trying to do something about it! When I was younger, that criticism would send me back to food for comfort.

You don't know if the fat person you see in public is on the journey to get thinner or if they've given up. You don't know if they've cut down on all junk food, but the one time you see them with their kid at McDonalds is the once a month treat visit that they've cut their junk food intake down to. It may be that they eat that way all the time, but you don't know.

I know way more thin parents of thin kids that keep only junk in their house and feed a steady diet of junk to their kids than I see fat parents doing. I have a constant problem with parents sending junk into school to share for what seems like twice a week celebrations. I send in healthy food for my kids and they come home saying that they ate their healthy snack and also the junk that another parent sent in. The school talks about healthy lunches, yet serves hot dogs, hamburgers, pb&j and tuna sandwiches as daily offerings.

There are so many ways we screw up our lives that the public can't see. Because being fat is visible people think it's ok to verbalize their disgust and ridicule. What I'm saying is that we can't truly know what goes on in someone else's life and until you're 100% certain you should mind your own business. I don't look at your thin child who I happen to see you yell at in public and assume that you abuse her at home. Don't make assumptions about the chubby kids either. The OP said she saw a beautiful little 6 year old and was disgusted by the parents. Why couldn't she have just said "I saw a beautiful little 6 year old." ? Period. Why is it ok to be disgusted? How do we know that that mother isn't the most wonderful, nurturing mother in the world, but is working through this one issue?

 

[Chicago526]

Most fruit juice actually has HFCS added to it. It's actually difficult to buy juice that's 100% juice. Since I don't drink coffee and it's difficult to fix tea at work, I usually take a bottle of juice for first thing in the morning. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to find 100% juice without any added crap.

Try Trader Joe's if you have one near you. Tons of 100% juice and a good organic selection as well, if that's your thing. Not a single product they carry has HFCS in it, if you're trying to avoid it completely.

 

[Deb in IA]

ThreeMusketeers, thanks for being brave and bringing up this topic.

As a pediatrician, I can tell you that it is a VERY significant problem that is probably the biggest (no pun intended) issue facing us, and our children today.

The NHANES data is the best and most comprehensive statistics on this epidemic - and yes, it is indeed an epidemic. The trend is clear and indisputable:

This is also worth viewing. It is a slide show of the trend for increasing obesity in adults, from 1985 to 2007. Follow the colors in the legend below the map. It is very sobering:

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/



I know this is a real crisis and not just charts and numbers. Just today, a patient came to my clinic - 3 1/2 years old, and weighing 120 pounds . . .

 

[xoprincessmomxo]

ThreeMusketeers, thanks for being brave and bringing up this topic.

As a pediatrician, I can tell you that it is a VERY significant problem that is probably the biggest (no pun intended) issue facing us, and our children today.

The NHANES data is the best and most comprehensive statistics on this epidemic - and yes, it is indeed an epidemic. The trend is clear and indisputable:

This is also worth viewing. It is a slide show of the trend for increasing obesity in adults, from 1985 to 2007. It is very sobering:

http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/



I know this is a real crisis and not just charts and numbers. Just today, a patient came to my clinic - 3 1/2 years old, and weighing 120 pounds . . .

Thank you for posting that, Deb in IA. I think that sometimes, people look at the little dimply knees and chubby cheeks on children and forget that in the end, those cute rolls are heading them in a very rough, sometimes deadly direction.

 

[Luv'sTink]

Hmmm..I am over weight and my husband is over weight, our son? Normal weight, tall and lean.

 

[luvsJack]

Yes obesity is a real problem. Its a major problem for adults and for children. Weight is a problem I deal with everyday for myself.

But, with that said, I agree with those that are saying no one should judge by what they see. Being over weight can be caused by more than overeating and overeating in of itself can be an illness (the same way alcoholism is)

Just as some adults cannot control their eating, some children cannot either. Parents of those children should not have junk food in the house, I agree; but it would be heart wrenching to tell a child they cannot have food when that child really believes themself to be hungry. I know a teen boy who is overweight and there is not junk in the house; he eats cans of canned veggies, soups, pasta or whatever else they do have in the house.

The focus should not be on how many rolls of fat someone sees. It should be on eating healthy and getting exercise everyday. If the weight comes off; good. If not at least the child is lving a healthy lifestyle.

 

[Deb in IA]

Hmmm..I am over weight and my husband is over weight, our son? Normal weight, tall and lean.

That's great for your son. He seems to be in the rare 20%:

 

[PatsGirl]

I have also fought chubbiness most of my life , some years winning the battle, some years losing and it seems that the last few years even more so with peri-menopause, etc. DS was always very thin, ate healthy until his late teens and has just recently started to bulk out (on purpose). DD is chubby Most of it is my fault and I take responsibility for it. She always loved her juice! Until about a year ago she was still drinking 3-4 glasses a day, usually apple or cranberry. I was also forcing her to drink two glasses of milk each day which she despised. She is now down to one glass of juice and no milk because she gets her dairy through yogurt and cheese. We talk alot about being "healthy", not "chubby". Her biggest problem at this time would be her lack of exercise and dislike for so many foods. She will eat most vegetables Ibut not salads; ie., lettuce, tomatoes, onions) but doesn't like much meat. Loves her carbs so I try to limit them. She could live on rice pilaf Her favorite activities are sewing and quilting, computers, reading, etc., all sedentary. We've tried all types of physical activities: dance, cheer, figure skating, jump rope team, etc. She'll bike and swim during the warm months and she'll ski the once or twice each year I can afford it. Other than that...

When I get on a roll to lose weight she'll walk with me (because she's afraid to stay home alone, lol) but other than that I don't exercise and she doesn't either. Sad but true.

I agree that when a child becomes obese w/ no medical indications, the parent is to blame, no question. They buy the food, bring it into the house, and prepare it for the kids. They (me) are also the ones who allow the kids to sit and color or read or work on the computer too. I am working on this and hope that I can turn things around for DD's sake -- middle school is hard enough for girls, being chubby only adds to the issues. DD is probably 7-10# overweight, just has that little belly roll. I try to keep the situation light and tell her that the roll is going either up to the bxxb area or down to her hips in the next year or two and that can only be a good thing

 

[MemoryMakers2669]

The highest risk factor kids have in becoming obese is having obese parents:

What causes obesity?
The causes of obesity are complex and include genetic, biological, behavioral and cultural factors. Basically, obesity occurs when a person eats more calories than the body burns up. If one parent is obese, there is a 50 percent chance that the children will also be obese. However, when both parents are obese, the children have an 80 percent chance of being obese. Although certain medical disorders can cause obesity,

I just don't see this 80%. I know a lot of obese people (friends, neighbors, people at church, etc) and almost NONE of them have overweight kids. Now, that doesn't mean they won't be overweight adults, only time will tell there.

I was NOT an overweight kid! Ooh wait, my parents aren't overweight at all! Yet my siblings and I are all very overweight. Yet all my aunts and uncles are obese and none of their kids are. Our family is completely the opposite when it comes to kids and their parents. The fat adults have thin kids, the thin adults have the fat kids.

All the chubby kids running around here have thin parents. But again, maybe when all these kids are adults, they will be just the opposite of what they are today. But I think 80% is way too high!

 

[scottishduffy]

If you saw my THIN, assumably heathly friend, with this same cart of junk...as her cart always looks this way, would that make you a little angry too? Just curious, not trying to be snarky at all. She takes that crap home to her fairly overweight kids! But by looking at her, most wouldn't think a thing of her cart full of fun snacks!

Actually it does. I have a super skinny friend who eats nothing but fast food and CRAP. Tons of freezer taquitos and chips. Claims to hate all fruit. I think just as poorly of her and get a bit peeved at her too. Just because her metabolism may be fast enough to keep up with her caloric intake that does not mean her arteries aren't suffering. Her health may be just as crappy as an obese person for the way she eats. Because she is a friend, I love her and worry.

Saw a super skinny lady at pyblix the other day. She had two thin school age kids with her and I heard them talking about what to buy the kids for their lunches at school everyday. In the shopping cart: Lunchables (horrible calorically and salt content), Chef Boyardee, chips ahoy cookies, small bags of doritos, those kool-aid drinks with the plastic tops, cheese crackers, little debbie snacks, nuttella (Tasty, but another poor choice), and the most humongous bagels I think I haver ever seen. Super skinny mom was in a fruit section asking the kids if they wanted anything healthier in their lunch. Both kiddos made scrunched up nasty faces and said No. I was mad at mom for just saying 'OK' instead of trying to force some healtheir options into the lunches... as one kid ran off saying something about forgetting the bagel bites. Sure, they are young and skinny now. But those eating habits will haunt them for life.

I was a young, skinny, runt of a kid who ate crappy and it sure came back to bite me in my butt.

BTW, I don't stalk people at the grocery store. I hope my posts don't make me out to be some sort of Grocery Store Stalker.