32% of 7 years olds are overweight

CrazyRabbit

How can parents do this to their child? Not feeding them healthy food and not ensuring some exercise is going to shorten the life of their child, and reduce the quality of life as well.

Another few years of this trend and we'll be like America.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0613/456404-committee-health/

Almost 32% of seven-year-olds in Ireland are overweight or obese, an Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children has heard.
Ireland now ranks fifth in the European Union when it comes to childhood obesity.
Consultant Paediatrician Dr Sinead Murphy told the committee that the situation is failing to stabilise and is getting worse.
She said if the problem is not tackled, 47% of adults in Ireland will be obese by 2030.
Dr Murphy told the committee that the cost of adult obesity, which is currently €1 billion a year, will rise unless the issue of obesity in children is addressed.
President of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute Richelle Flanagan said that the State was not meeting its duty of care to its children.
Ms Flanagan requested that the Department of Health consider the childhood obesity programme in October's budget, as current funding provided by Temple Street Children's Hospital will cease at the end of the year.

bbam

Many parents let it happen as they themselves are overweight. I don't have time now but there is a similar report showing that children of overweight parents are more likely to be overweight.
And contrary to how people often pacify themselves it's nearly never through genetics, hormones nor glands. It's through bad diet and lack of exercise and a generally sedintary lifestyle.

It's bordering on child abuse in some cases !!

pwurple

Don't start me.

Starting point is possibly people wanting the baby to finish a full bottle of formula. I had to pack in the breastfeeding earlier than I wanted, but I never bothered making her finish a bottle of formula after that. When she spat it out, she was done and I chucked the rest away.

Not that breastfeeding prevents it totally either. My niece is an obese 6 year old who was breastfed exclusively as a baby, and on demand later until she was nearly 3. Everytime the child made a squeak she was fed. Food is the fix for everything in her tiny life still. She has a meltdown if we take her somewhere and there isn't a snack on hand.

Next stage is the PHNs and the weight charts. My daughter has always been around the 30th percentile of weight. The public health nurse insisted on telling me she was 'underweight' and telling me to make sure she ate more by offering her more food that she liked, and feed her more often. Gave me 'target' weights to achieve. I promptly ignored her. Seemed like OTT advice for pretty close to average weight.

'Children's cereals' are fairly sugar laden.
Fruit and smoothies. I know fruit is good for you, but they really are natures sweets. Some kids drink no water and have these smoothies or bananas and raisins in their hands constantly. So.. much.. sugar...
Crisps, popcorn, fish fingers, battered chicken or nuggets.

Ingrained fear of going outside. Let's face it, we live in a wet country. If we all stay inside when the skies aren't blue, we will get sod all exercise. Why is everyone so terrified of going outside in the rain? There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear. You can play outside in all weathers. Puddles are the best fun ever!

bbam

My OH had a young teenage mother in at a clinic.. baby was only a few months old.. the mother commented about how the baby loved skips!

Feckin skips !!


There's another obese child in the making already !

movingsucks

Exercise is the main thing.
Too many DSs and Xboxs.
Fear of the outside as Pwurple put it.
It rains, increased traffic, stranger danger.
Plus not to mention this whole attitude of any child outside without a parent standing next to them is a "brat running around".

Food is a factor but I'm from the 80s and had sugar on my Frosties and E numbers in my Smarties.
And crisps were cheaper and there was more in the packet.
I mean its a feckin recession or depression and I still see young lads watlzin down the town eating huge rolls, with 500 mil bottles of coke and flinging potato wedges and chicken wings at each other - whats that about?
Stimulation and Exercise they are the main things I think

turbot

It's very simple, actually.

1) We live in a society where most companies goals are to profit as much as possible, according to what they can get away with.
2) It's more profitable to sell "pseudo-food" manufactured from ultra-low cost unhealthy ingredients, than to sell high quality natural fresh and ideally organic food.
3) Most pseudo-food is "taste designed" to trick our brains into focusing on the taste, not the effect on our health.
4) Most pseudo-food is marketed in very misleading ways that trick our brains and packaged and labelled in ways to promote maximum sales.
5) Because pseudo-food is highly profitable, most companies in society (manufacturers, distributors, retailers, media outlets) are incentivised to profit from it's sale or associated marketing.
6) Most consumers have no idea about nutrition and are easy prey for the marketers who sell to them.
7) Most consumers have very little self control and don't know how to change their behaviour. They just ADHERE to the conditions society has set up for them - i.e. ubiquitous availability and promotion of unhealthy food - that marketing and packaging keeps suggesting is ok.

Of all the classes of people most vulnerable to the above, it's children and often their overworked parents.

Sadly, "Happy Meals" are not really happy at all. Sadly, Coke has little to do with happiness, but a lot to do with imbalanced blood sugar that will lead to heaviness. Sadly, too many comfort foods can lead to a body that is always uncomfortable. A Mars a Day won't help you work rest and play, but if you eat one with this expectation for a decade, instead you might just end up with man-boobs.

And sadly, the FMCG industries are highly funded enough to very effectively outgun the policy makers, who should really tax like crazy all the pseudo foods until organic cucumbers become a rational choice.

What should we do about this:
- Personally, we should each study nutrition so we can make informed choices, and then figure out how to steer our own behaviour so that we stick to healthy eating and living.
- Societically, unhealthy food should be treated like cigarettes, and marketing and packaging should be regulated so that peoples brains aren't confused - i.e. coke ads should only be allowed to feature really obese actors and the only people working in the department of health and other ministries that influence the food supply should look more radiant than the healthiest people in a gym or health food shop.

nikpmup

bbam wrote: »

My OH had a young teenage mother in at a clinic.. baby was only a few months old.. the mother commented about how the baby loved skips!

Feckin skips !!


There's another obese child in the making already !

The amount of times I see stuff like this happening.... I remember sitting in a restaurant, where there was a particularly loud baby screeching.... I glanced over, in time to witness the (I presume) mother tipping the few drops of milk out of the baby's bottle, and filling it with coke, before giving it to the baby. The baby was no more than 9 months old. The coke had been bought for the baby's three or four year old sibling. Sheesh.

Now, I'm no stranger to ice cream or chocolate, but in moderation, and I certainly wouldn't dream of giving any child fizzy stuff (never drink it myself) I detest mc Donald's, Burger King etc and I'm not a fan of Chinese or chipper, so I'm hoping my child won't grow up thinking maccy d's is part of a normal weekday. I'm looking at schools atm, and walking - not driving - distance is one of my deciding factors. I had weight problems for years, now under control, and I will make damn sure my child grows up active... By leading by example.

Jessica-Rabbit

it is totally the parents who are at fault for this, children are driven everywhere instead of walking, at home there is the tv, the wii, the xbox ect, children aren't getting enough outdoor or indoor activities, I have seen on countless occasions children as old a five being pushed around in buggies , its an absolute disgrace and the excuse is " Oh its too far to walk or oh they wont walk" total bull !!! the parents are too lazy to walk anywhere and the children naturally follow suit, fast food and crisps and chocolate are being give to children instead of homemade meals and fruit and veg,. My daughter is only 15 moths and she loves walking she walks everywhere because I love to walk and try to avoid the car wherever possible even when its raining thats what raincoats and umbrellas are for, and if im out for a long walk with my daughter I bring the buggy but stop at a park or somewhere where she can get out a run around for a bit, all her meals a homemade and freshly cooked, lots of fresh fruit and veg, no crisps or chocolate and she is the healthiest happiest little princess as a result, parents need to change their own lifestyle habits before they can change their children's habits

lazygal

I think it starts during pregnancy. Loads of women take the 'eating for two' message way too literally. I did during my first pregnancy, and this time round I'm approaching food and exercise very differently.

I'm also continually baffled by weaning very young babies (four months or even younger) onto rubbish like processed baby rice and ready meals. Adults aren't advised to live on ready meals, so why give them too a baby? Far too many parents think they can't feed a baby, they need Heinz or Ella's pouches to feed their children. My PHN suggested baby rice, when I told her we don't eat white processed rice so what was the alternative, she couldn't answer. The only advice I got was to buy a box of rice, no mention of baby led weaning or making my own purees, buy ready made was the advice.

When I taught I was amazed at some of the rubbish children were given for lunch, processed ham, plastic cheese, white bread - loads of 'he'll only eat this/she won't eat that'. Parents really do fall for the 'health claims' of food companies, even so-called 'educated' ones. We really need to take a lot more responsibility for what our children eat.

movingsucks

When I was a child my lunch in school was a white bread sandwich with some deli (processed) ham or turkey, some Calvita cheese or Easy singles (does that count as plastic?) a Ribena carton or capri sun (sugar sugar sugar!), sometimes a mandarin orange/apple and a fun size chocolate bar.
Most people in my class had similar.
I'm not saying it was the healthiest lunch ever but we weren't obese or even over weight.
Why is that?

MiseryMary

No wonder sure I've seen people buying a trolley full of **** foods OMG!!! and its for a childrens party big fizzy bottles of Pepsi,half of dozen of jelly sweet packs , loads of cadburys bars ,cake ,Buns,Crisps and I even seen people buying Energy drinks for their kids ,people making excuses to get them , as for dinners its all about getting quick in the micro packs nothing made fresh ,proper for them and fast-foods takeaways. This all about getting it for the cheap not thinking about the healthy side .

movingsucks

Party stuff , is that new though?
What did you have at a party when you were a child?
Rice crispy buns, cake, crisps, coke/7up, jelly and ice cream?

Gambas

movingsucks wrote: »

Party stuff , is that new thing?
What did you have at a party when you were a child?
Rice crispy buns, cake, crisps, coke/7up, jelly and ice cream?

I think the volume is different. Sweets and snacks were not really available in mutli-packs (aside from club milks and penguins) - penny sweets being the ultimate extreme. So now instead of buying the minimum, people end up with an excess and that invariably ends up in some child's stomach.

But yeah, a lot of this 'when we were young' nonsense is, well..., nonsense.

Gambas

MiseryMary wrote: »

This all about getting it for the cheap not thinking about the healthy side .

Yes, people rightly consider that the 12 pack of crisps or the 3x2L of Coke is better value than buying single units, but we need to start thinking about how this is coupled with a greater health cost.

movingsucks

Gambas wrote: »

I think the volume is different. Sweets and snacks were not really available in mutli-packs (aside from club milks and penguins) - penny sweets being the ultimate extreme. So now instead of buying the minimum, people end up with an excess and that invariably ends up in some child's stomach.

But yeah, a lot of this 'when we were young' nonsense is, well..., nonsense.

How is what I'm saying nonsense? What did you eat at parties? Or for packed lunch?

I do think you are right with the quantity issue though.
But we definitely had multipacks of fun size milky bar/mars/ dairy milk 20years ago (fook im old) we jusy werent allowed have them whenever.

Gambas

movingsucks wrote: »

How is what I'm saying nonsense? What did you eat at parties? Or for packed lunch?

I do think you are right with the quantity issue though.
But we definitely had multipacks of fun size milky bar/mars/ dairy milk 20years ago (fook im old) we jusy werent allowed have them whenever.

I'm agreeing with you - people ate pretty unhealthily when I was growing up too. I didn't eat many sweets but I lived on white sliced pan.

movingsucks

Gambas wrote: »

I'm agreeing with you - people ate pretty unhealthily when I was growing up too. I didn't eat many sweets but I lived on white sliced pan.

Whoops sorry! I was dreadfully misunderstanding there

Davidth88

I think a lot of it is the culture of ' grazing ' that we now have.

When we were growing up , we got our three meals , and basically not a lot else.

I know of so many families that never sit down for a meal any more . Sitting down for a meal serves so many purposes including

a) Teaching how to have a conversation
b) Teaching table manners
c) Learning that if you don't eat at dinner/lunch/breakfast then you go hungry


and cut out those horrible horrible fizzy drinks , thank god my two hate them !!

CrazyRabbit

In the canteen in work today I confess that I ordered a less-than-healthy meal. It was some beef lasagne and chips. On Friday's I treat myself a little

Anyway...as I was standing at the till waiting to pay, I noticed just how much food was on the plate. It was far more than I would have cooked for myself had it been a home made meal. Usually, I would just eat until it was all gone, but today I ate until I no longer felt hungry. More than a quarter of the food was left.

What I'm getting at, is that the servings seem to be getting bigger in restaurants/fast food outlets which encourages us to eat more than we actually need. It's like in the U.S where everything is 'Super-sized'...often as standard.
So it's not just the unhealthy food, but the quantity we are 'tricked' into eating.

Jessica-Rabbit

movingsucks wrote: »

When I was a child my lunch in school was a white bread sandwich with some deli (processed) ham or turkey, some Calvita cheese or Easy singles (does that count as plastic?) a Ribena carton or capri sun (sugar sugar sugar!), sometimes a mandarin orange/apple and a fun size chocolate bar.
Most people in my class had similar.
I'm not saying it was the healthiest lunch ever but we weren't obese or even over weight.
Why is that?

More than likely because ye were walked instead of driven to and from school, played out doors instead of being stuck in front of the xbox wii or tv, exercise is key to prevention to obesity, im not saying in any means children spend hours on a treadmill but just running around outside with their friends, cycling and indoor activities all keep children fit and healthy.

username123

There is a family round the corner from me, there are 2 children, a girl around 9 and a boy around 7. The girl is so overweight that she has that generic look of a fat person - her features are just "fat". She is purple in the face constantly and bursting out of all her clothes. She actually looks ready to have a stroke. Everytime I see her out playing she is holding an ice cream, a bag of crisps, a fizzy drink, a lollipop or something. Her younger brother is in the same state.

Ive seen the parents. They are morbidly obese. The mother is packing at least 25 stone, the father maybe more.

What I do not understand is this - why, for these childrens entire childhoods so far, has no doctor, nurse, teacher or anyone else, stepped in? Why are these people not being reported to social services for child abuse? Why are these obese creatures allowed to stuff two children full of junk and have them, at 9 and 7, looking ready to collapse? I mean surely at some stage, a doctor or a nurse has seen these kids - how is it just allowed to go on?

skit490

Not suprised ny this survey. Nutrition is to blame. Even seen it in babies. This get them into baby rice crap astounds me. Some of the crap in baby food is terrible rusks have glucose fructose syrup which is puré poison diabetes ensuing crap. I have 8 Month old n people have tired to give her chocolate. N biscuits, like seriously why. Doing blw so baby has varied tastes but i get ah god wud u not just let her have some. In kids older firmly believe empty calories in fizzy drinks are to blame, I would love If they were banned in schools.

Missyelliot2

I work in a school that is in a disadvantaged area......also I am now teaching sons/daughters of people I taught in 5th/6th in the late 90s. Scary to see these kids....all grand, but by third class-lots of lard trying to move around the yard.
We tried a 'walk to school' day - the uptake was abysmal-hate to say, but lots of "he couldn't get out of bed/we didn't think of it" etc....sick to teeth of these parents who don't care less.

We've a Breakfast Club in our school to give these kids a breakfast twice a week......but seriously- it's probably their only guaranteed meal of the day.
Awful.........but what else can we do?
The children have a free lunch at 11 - roll, rice cake, yoghurt, fruit and a drink.

They go home to - their words - TV, PS3 or computer games.

I am not commenting on lifestyle choices - but, having worked in the old 'salt of the earth' schools - there is a noticible shift in attitude,b y the school trying to look out for these kids. It's a DEIS school. Lunches are provided/after school activities..........as a school we will be left to deal with the lardy kids who can't run the length of the playground. They can't! Their mother's can't either.
It's no wonder they are overweight. Some kids near me only walk around Wilton Shopping Centre -they are so overweight at 11, it's frightening
WTF is wrong with people who think it's ok if your child looks like Mr. Blobby?

nesf

Jessica-Rabbit wrote: »

More than likely because ye were walked instead of driven to and from school, played out doors instead of being stuck in front of the xbox wii or tv, exercise is key to prevention to obesity, im not saying in any means children spend hours on a treadmill but just running around outside with their friends, cycling and indoor activities all keep children fit and healthy.

I'm not sure to be honest. I didn't do much exercise when I was in primary school, asthma meant not much running and bad hayfever meant a lot of time indoors during the summer. I also much preferred reading and messing around with computers from a very young age. I was never remotely overweight though before I was 14 or so. Sweets and fast food were unusual for me growing up until I was a teen and then I started putting on some weight (though conversely my asthma got a lot better so I was able to do things like martial arts that helped keep the weight somewhat in check).

Honestly, just as with adults, if you diet is very poor you're going to have to do a hell of a lot of exercise to make up for it. If your diet is good on the other hand relatively little exercise is required to maintain a healthy weight. The biggest issue now compared to my early childhood in the 80s is the availability and cheapness of both processed and junk food that is both calorie heavy and not very nutritious. Living off processed meals and eating a lot of chocolate and sweets was really not financially possible in the 80s for most families. Now it is though.

Hannibal Smith

lazygal wrote: »

I think it starts during pregnancy. Loads of women take the 'eating for two' message way too literally. I did during my first pregnancy, and this time round I'm approaching food and exercise very differently.

I'm also continually baffled by weaning very young babies (four months or even younger) onto rubbish like processed baby rice and ready meals. Adults aren't advised to live on ready meals, so why give them too a baby? Far too many parents think they can't feed a baby, they need Heinz or Ella's pouches to feed their children. My PHN suggested baby rice, when I told her we don't eat white processed rice so what was the alternative, she couldn't answer. The only advice I got was to buy a box of rice, no mention of baby led weaning or making my own purees, buy ready made was the advice.

When I taught I was amazed at some of the rubbish children were given for lunch, processed ham, plastic cheese, white bread - loads of 'he'll only eat this/she won't eat that'. Parents really do fall for the 'health claims' of food companies, even so-called 'educated' ones. We really need to take a lot more responsibility for what our children eat.

Thats the first time ive heard that. Most phns recommend making your own food. Id have a word with them in the health center. As for the baby really rice...the only reason that's suggested is because itw the closest thing to milk to get them used to the spoon...there's no oaw saying you have to start with it.

I dont see anything wrong with ham and cheese for lunch. As movingsucks says...we had all that and we weren't overweight. But we never had a packet of crisps a day or chocolate bqr a day. Every dinner was freshly made....no jars of sauces. Convenience food comes at a price.

Ms2011

I think the key is balance. I make all my sons meals fresh from scratch, organic where possible. That said if he's been good & eaten his dinner or whatever I will treat him to a biscuit or some chocolate buttons.
I'm not going to be able to supervise his eating forever so the best I can do is teach him moderation. The last thing I want is for him to reach 16, 17, 18 years old & start binging on the junk food I had previously denied him.

skit490

Did anyone see jamie olivers school dinners programme, didnt some parents object to him taking chips off the menú or something. I def think junk food being given now too easy but also its bigger portions with higher sugar and fat content. Ive seen children's lunchboxes consisting of a penguin sbar. Kids pack of crisps (u know like meanies ) n sandwhich which was tiny. Child walked up to bin threw away sandwhich n noms rest of lunch. He was maybe 6 or so.

lazygal

Hannibal Smith wrote: »

Thats the first time ive heard that. Most phns recommend making your own food. Id have a word with them in the health center. As for the baby really rice...the only reason that's suggested is because itw the closest thing to milk to get them used to the spoon...there's no oaw saying you have to start with it.

Not any of the ones I or parents I know have spoken to. I got a HSE approved booklet on weaning, which made a one line reference to finger foods, but had no real advice or practical suggestions. I know several mums who attend our local PHN office and the 'box of baby rice' was suggested to all of us. Why not pureed potato or pureed cauliflower, which would be similar in texture to milk, if you're planning on weaning with purees? And getting a baby used to a spoon is also a bit of a red herring, what about other weaning methods, like baby led weaning? I had done my homework on it but got no advice from the PHN when I asked about her thoughts, other than "Yeah, a lot of people are asking about that now". Why don't they look into it if a lot of people are asking about it?

I also stand over what I said about prepared baby food. Its seen as the go-to option when you're weaning, especially if its your first child and you're not particularly confident. I've seen so many babies being spoon feed Ellas pouches, in particular, rather than home made food, and its because they are marketed as organic - its seen as a step up from Heinz jars. I wouldn't eat most of my meals from a foil pouch, so why would a baby?

movingsucks

If all the people you talked to went to the same PHN then surely it makes sense they all got the same advice? Or am I reading that right?

My PHN said start with a pureed apple.
She also mentioned "baby porrige".

At the last check she was concerned the baby doesnt eat enough but I said I wasn't gonna force her.( How would I anyway the child actually closes her mouth eyes and shakes her head while wringing her hands furiously!)
Then she weighed her and conceeded she was fine anyway!!

It is worrying how PHNs give out different info though.
My first one was in my house every other day for five weeks because the baby wasn't gaining enough wait until I gave up breastfeeding and switched to bottle.
When the new phn saw the notes/charts she said it was never that bad.
How are you meant to know whats right or wrong

meeeeh

Every so often I check baby foods in my home country and they are just as bad or even worse than here. Yet there are a lot less obese children. I mostly blame the eating habits in this country. Somebody mentioned lasagna and chips. Proper Italian lasagna is never eaten with chips. Crisps with sandwich at lunch... I'm not saying that I'm perfect but I'd say later life choices are a lot more important than a bit of sugar in breakfast cereal. A bit of common sense and moderation should do it. My son gets sweets, chips or whatever but we don't have deep fat frier at home and he was in McD (or other fast food places ) twice in his life. And we get takeaway once every two months because I don't like it. I make better pizzas or Chinese at home so why bother.

And for me blame is on the parents. I get the better education and evil companies blah blah blah but how dumb do you have to be not to realize that you are doing something wrong if the whole family is overweight.

lazygal

There's a team in our local office, not just one. I also know mums in other parts of the country were given the same advice. I got better information from other parents than the state system.