Fat teenagers

This leaves me lost for words.

It is like the parents of the kids in the school Jamie Oliver was helping to change the menus for... feeding them McD's through the gates because they "don't like healthy food".

Tough luck, eat it or go hungry.

This is how I was brought up.

I think you have to differentiate between "chubby" and "morbidly obese" - as this girl is. I was a chubby teen but wouldn't say I suffered from child abuse! I think the behaviour of this girl's parents is, however, tantamount to child abuse as she will die at a very early age as a result of her size.

I heard this on the radio this morning, when she arrived home all her mam had in was frozen fish so she made her fish and chips. Its simply child abuse to let her get into that state its purely over eating in this case.

I once saw a mother give her fat daughter a sharing pack of malteasers on the train to tide her over til she got in for tea. Is it a lack of education for some people or just greed?

Ridiculously, in the context, I didn't want to offend any parents of obese children, so watered it down to "chubby".

I think education plays a huge part, however I see a lot of parents using food as bribery. E.g. "If you behave, I will give you chocolate". The child then knows how to push the parents buttons!

Meh, I prefer "sturdy".

As a parent, whether you use food as bribery or whatever, when you see your child getting dangerously fat, don't you stop and think "Hang on, this is not right"?

I was chubby all through my teen years.. combination of longterm steroids and love of ice cream. never been obese, though, woohoo!

this story horrifies me. it's like these parents don't care about their children's wellbeing so long as they don't have to hear them complain. Children learn that they can get what they want by kicking up a fuss because bad parents will give in, as they can't be bothered to discipline their children or put up with a tantrum.

I remember as a kid a tried to refuse to eat my peas at dinner and I had to sit at the table for after everyone got up because I hadn't cleared my plate. There was a bit of compromise, though, as my mum eventually caved and told me I could get up if I ate just 10 more peas. DONE! good parenting, I say!

My stepdaughter is "chubby". This has caused her father much distress. I don't like to be judgemental (moi!) but I believe it is through a poor diet (this is the girl who didn't recognise a cauliflower) and the fact that when (if) she moves it is at the pace of an elderly (and possibly disabled) slug.

Sometimes her mum takes her to WW (as mum goes) but she never sticks at it.

I find it enormously frustrating.

I'm not sure if social services could or would get involved. With regards to the GP - their hands are tied unless the parents/child approach them, which I highly doubt they would (especially considering she cannot leave the house).

What's also wrong and tantamount to abuse is that this girl is no longer able to move (I'm guessing) so her mother must be feeding her.

Stupid computer! Duplicate!

Good word ?

Did anyone see the programme a while ago about morbidly obese children in the US? One boy was no older than 18. He couldn't move due to his size, yet his mother still fed him huge meals of junk food and litres upon litres of coke. He even wore an adult nappy which his mother had to change. He eventually had gastric band surgery, only to be greeted from the hospital by his mother with coke and hot dogs. ?

This story horrifies me, saw it this morning and we've been discussing it in the office.

I'm angry at the massive drain on taxpayers funds on her but at the same time I blame the parents, you don't just wake up one morning like this.

If you see an overweight child, usually you'll see an overweight mother. Teenagers are a whole different ball game though. You suddenly go from not being allowed chocolate bars etc at primary school, to not only being allowed them at secondary school, but having them available to purchase, along with burgers, chips etc at the canteen!

This, however, is abuse imo.

Waaahaaaa !! Sorry, I know this is a serious discussion but this just made me spit my diet coke out !

My eldest stepson is chubby, he is 13. When he is with us every weekend he has the occasional mcdonalds or chocolate bar, but generally eats decent food, however at home he eats nothing but processed cr*p or takeaways, their mum never cooks anything I would class as a proper dinner and she does nothing to monitor the amount of sweets or crisps he eats and allows him to have full sugar coke.

Whilst I think she is partially to blame, he is now at an age where I think he should take responsibility for his own actions. As an example, a few weeks ago he had been on a school trip for the day on a Friday when I picked them up for the weekend. H called and said he was going to the shop and did they want some sweets. SS said yes, please could he have a bar of dairy milk, and could it be the king size version. Not only did I say there was no way he was having a the larger bar, I then asked him if he had already had sweets or anything like that during the day (Knowing full well he would have done on a school trip to a theme park) and he happily told me he had eaten 4, yes 4 !!!!!!! bars of dairy milk already that day !

Now don't get me wrong, I am not a skinny minny so in no place to preach, but surely a 13 year old should know that is not a good thing to do ?????? And is she got older the girl in the article should have done the same, and made an effort to change the eating habits her parents had got her in to ?

Waaahaaaa !! Sorry, I know this is a serious discussion but this just made me spit my diet coke out !

My eldest stepson is chubby, he is 13. When he is with us every weekend he has the occasional mcdonalds or chocolate bar, but generally eats decent food, however at home he eats nothing but processed cr*p or takeaways, their mum never cooks anything I would class as a proper dinner and she does nothing to monitor the amount of sweets or crisps he eats and allows him to have full sugar coke.

Whilst I think she is partially to blame, he is now at an age where I think he should take responsibility for his own actions. As an example, a few weeks ago he had been on a school trip for the day on a Friday when I picked them up for the weekend. H called and said he was going to the shop and did they want some sweets. SS said yes, please could he have a bar of dairy milk, and could it be the king size version. Not only did I say there was no way he was having a the larger bar, I then asked him if he had already had sweets or anything like that during the day (Knowing full well he would have done on a school trip to a theme park) and he happily told me he had eaten 4, yes 4 !!!!!!! bars of dairy milk already that day !

Now don't get me wrong, I am not a skinny minny so in no place to preach, but surely a 13 year old should know that is not a good thing to do ?????? And is she got older the girl in the article should have done the same, and made an effort to change the eating habits her parents had got her in to ?

You'd be amazed at the amount of denial. It must be school's fault for not doing enough PE (so buy them a bike instead of an xbox!) or gran/ex-husband/friends fault for feeding them bad food when they're there (this is no doubt true in some cases, but is rarely the sole cause!). Or it MUST be a medical problem and it's just "his genes/glands." The "it's me genes" thing is also easy for parents to reinforce internally if they are overweight too. I am overweight currently and plan to get back down to a normal BMI before TTC, both for my health's sake and to set a good example to the kids.

NB there is a very small number of children who genuinely do have medical conditions which make them put on weight - someone here mentioned long-term steroid use as an example - but the vast majority of really obese kids don't.

Exactly. And they just had a clip of mum on the radio and she pretty much said that if children want food, they are clever and will work out ways to get round you t oget what they want! Uh, no they will not. You are the one in control. You are the one who stops them eating too much.

As for the meal on her return, again they played a clip. It was late when I got home, all there was in the freezer was some froxen fish and mum made some chips.

Why the hell did mum not prepare for her homecoming. If that was my child, the fridge would have been stocked with vegetables and fruit, and I would have opened a bloody recipe book and cooked something healthy! You don't even have to owna recipe book now, it's all online!! Grrrrr

NB, although I said if this were my child....I would never have let it get to that stage! ?

I'm a little torn on this one. Obviously in the case of the girl the OP mentions it has gone ridiculously far but I do know how easy it is to remain in denial. I was always a chunky child and continued to be chunky through my teens and adulthood. At what stage does a parent look at their child and say "actually, that's not puppy fat, that's just fat"? It's not an easy realisation to come to for the parent and for the child, if you've always been bigger than your peers you come to accept that (IME you have to just to survive the bullying) and there's a real danger that you lose any perspective on just how much bigger is ok.

It's only now I've lost a good bit of heft that I've realised that, actually, no I don't have to be big all my life but what I've done to achieve that would have been impossible if I was still living with my mum. Mum always cooked fairly healthy stuff but has a blind spot when it comes to portion control and watching me weigh every ingredient in every meal and diarise every snack in an attempt to educate myself about my own eating habits would have broken her heart. It damn near broke my H's.

I don't know how any parent can sit back and watch their child become so overweight that they can't even get down the stairs.

100% aggree this is child abuse. Teenagers are slightly different to children as they have suddenly got freedom to eat what they like, but, their attitude to food has come from somewhere and if they had been set a good example and been taught about healthy foods, they would be able to make the right choices.

That amount of denial would be bad parenting. End of conversation!

As a slightly overweight teen my mum was insistant that I participate in sports, that I always walk to dog, and always encouraged us to be active. As a parent you should teach your children how to live healthy lives.

We have been discussing this today in the staff room. It is quite common to see whole families that are obese, and we have a few families where we have bigger parents and bigger children. In that situation it is easy to see that there is something wrong within the diet and exercise habits of the family.

In my cousin's case, his mother is slightly overweight due to diabetes and thyroid problems, her eldest son was average, middle son skinny, third son veering on overweight-obese. She has done everything in her power to help him, taken him to a special diet club set up by the hospital, cooks healthy meals for all the family, she never snacks on junk due to her insulin requirements, and will not allow snacks in the house except for rare treat times, encourages him to join sports clubs etc to get exercise.

However her control ends once he is outside the house. She sets a good example, but he has to make choices once he leaves her care. He is 14, and I see him on the way to school eating crisps, pasties, drinking coke and so on. He gets out of PE by 'forgetting' his kit. So I feel like his mum is doing everything right for her son, but he has not yet learned to make the right decisions.

In the case of this girl, I would class it as neglect. The girl may well have made bad decisions once out of her parents care, but didn't her parents notice her getting to such a size and then step in? Surely as a parent you would take action at some stage, like my auntie did taking my cousin to the doctor and then consequently a diet club. If she had already been to fat camp and on a TV show about it, then surely they would be even more vigilent with her eating habits. I can understand letting her have chips as a treat to welcome her home, let her have a little taste of 'bad' things now and again, but that is obviously not what has happened.

Where does he get the money to buy these things though? I'm guessing it's lunch money? Maybe he ought to be having packed lunches instead.

There's a young boy in my class who is obese - he's 9 years old. As a school we have done so much to educate them on healthy lifestyles, they have some form of physical activity everyday whilst at school and then we see his dad great him atte gate with multibags of crisps which he feeds to him as a way to keep him quiet on te walk home. We had both his mum and dad in and his mum seems to be trying to change things- he's reduced his packe lunch do its now a 1/4 of what it was and is now the size it should be for a child his age. But it feels as though his dad is purposely doing this now because the school 'interfered'.

I have a real mix of pity and anger. I think there's enough exposure now about what is and what isn't healthy that feigning ignorance isn't a good enough excuse anymore. make them eat fruit and veg!

She has tried this but he just swaps his stuff for crap off his friends!

I was the other way around, my parents were very strict with what I ate as a child and a young teenager, as so many foods had colourings and flavourings that made me either a) hyperactive or b) come out in rashes. As a result when I finally went out into the big wide world I ate sweets from the ice cream van for lunch and then went crazy for macdonalds when we moved up to college and had to walk through town right past it!

A friend of mine is an RD, and specialises in childhood obesity, and she says part of the problem is parents who don't want to say no to their children, because saying yes is the easy way out.

She says there are parents who will say something like, "but I don't like saying no to Bob, because then Bob gets upset and says he hates me, and I don't want Bob to hate me," or they'll say, "if I say no, Sue throws a tantrum in the supermarket, so I cave in and buy her the sweets/chocolate/cake etc.

My friend will say to them, "but you're their parent, it's your job to say no, not only to protect their health but also to teach them boundaries.

I know she and her colleagues find it very frustrating to deal with parents who say they "can't" say no to their children, when the reality is they don't want to as they can't be bothered to deal with the fallout from it.

Not teenager related, but my brother's ex feeds their daughter McDonalds. She's currently 2 and a half, and she started feeding them to her over a year ago ? I couldn't believe it when I found out - my brother always gives her things with vegetables and fruit, and she gets crisps OR chocolate, not both, as long as she eats the healthy things first, if she's being really stroppy. What's worse is, my brother's a first time father, whereas his ex already has a 9 year old!

It makes me sick, it's just not fair to the poor children ☹️

On the plus side, my niece isn't in her foul mother's care anymore, so she's getting far better meals!

We were also discussing this in the office today. I think to feed a child to this weight is absolutely a form of abuse. If social services can step in in the case of a child that is malnourished, then why can't they step in if a child is grossly over fed?

I am not sure I agree. Why would going into care help? This rarely has a positive outcome for a child - the best option is a sustained, systemic approach to supporting the family to deliver better care to the child. Child abuse (particularly neglect) rarely comes about through cold, unfeeling choice made by a parent who truly wants to harm their child (of course, in some cases it does come about in just this way), it is a consequence of a series of sad and terrible events passed from one person to the next through behaviours, anger and displaced emotional responses.

This poor, poor little girl should have had help years ago, but the very best way to help her is to enable the adults in her life to become role models and to engender positive lifestyle choices.