32% of 7 years olds are overweight

username123

meeeeh wrote: »

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.

But being overweight is so normal now that people dont think they are overweight.

I was in a shopping centre yesterday and I did a quick mental count in a queue and out of 12 people in the queue, 8 were overweight. None of them were massively obese, but all overweight. Its become a social norm to be overweight so people dont even know that they are.

Its no surprise then that they are making their children overweight.

As a child I got 2 hours of childrens tv on a saturday morning and that was it, I didnt see tv outside of that time and I didnt have any electronic devices. Rain, hail, snow, sun - I was outside running around or on my bike. I played chalk games all over the pavement - when was the last time you saw a hopscotch chalked onto the pavement? When was the last time you saw a group of kids playing Mother May I or Reliev-ee-i-o (sp)?

I do see local young boys kicking a ball about, but I also see them gathered around an electronic device often.

Kids dont move as much as they used to.

meeeeh

I had no complaints about my PHNs. Especially the second one was great. She was breast feeding consultant so she gave me some great help and advice. Both children were also grand on the charts and they were both bf for about six months.

iguana

lazygal wrote: »

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 can kind of see why they don't bring up baby led weaning. I do it with my son and a typical day might see us have home made fruit and porridge bars for breakfast, home made curry for early afternoon dinner, eggs with a little toast for tea and half a dried apricot as a snack/teether during the day. I much prefer that he eats what we eat so meals are a family event that he is a full participant in, I prefer that it's a lot less work than making him his own food and I really like that it means I've had to up my game with regards to how I eat. I always had a pretty good diet and made most things from scratch but now everything has to be due to the salt content, so it's better for me too.

The thing is that some/a lot of people might be tempted by the easy parts of being baby led weaning but not improve their diet, which may be pretty crappy to begin with. So you might have people sharing high salt and sugar content breakfast bars, MacDonalds and frozen wedges and chicken nuggets with their babies all day everyday. And while I agree with MS2011 that treats are ok in moderation and that it may be better to give kids a little chocolate/ice-cream/etc on occasion instead of forbidding them completely and risk making them a highly desirable longed for food, too many people don't practise moderation and baby foods in pouches are probably a little bit better than sharing portions of crappy foods all day everyday.

Though it would be better if they were trained in it and were able to talk about it to the parents who do bring it up but ime they need to be trained better right across the board. So many people I know were advised to start on baby rice and to start at quite a young age. Afair, the HSE booklet that I was given had some nutty advice in there about when a baby can have textured food. The whole thing needs an overhaul before they are going to be able to advise properly on baby led weaning.

lazygal

iguana wrote: »

The thing is that some/a lot of people might be tempted by the easy parts of being baby led weaning but not improve their diet, which may be pretty crappy to begin with. So you might have people sharing high salt and sugar content breakfast bars, MacDonalds and frozen wedges and chicken nuggets with their babies all day everyday. And while I agree with MS2011 that treats are ok in moderation and that it may be better to give kids a little chocolate/ice-cream/etc on occasion instead of forbidding them completely and risk making them a highly desirable longed for food, too many people don't practise moderation and baby foods in pouches are probably a little bit better than sharing portions of crappy foods all day everyday.

Surely that's an ideal time to talk about healthy eating for the entire family? If an overweight parent comes in to dicuss weaning, it should be the proceedure to ask about food at home and healthy eating, and where changes can and should be made, combined with follow up on by the PHN, possibly with a home visit, rather than just leaving parents to it. Maybe it might break the cycle of junk and processed foods. I might be a bit idealistic, but I think the PHN system needs to up its game in this area. This is a serious public health issue, and a bit more proactivity might lead to some better choices being made. I'd go so far as to say a family feeding its children junk all the time should be on the watch list or whatever system is in place, its nutrition abuse to fail to feed your children properly and there should be checks on it. We're all going to pay a very high price for leaving people to their own devices with regard to how they feed their children.

jumbledideas

I wonder if there was a 'class' divide on the survey would it show different results for different socio economic backgrounds?

The reason I wonder is that I have a 7 year old and I know the majority of the children in her class are from a a family where both or one parent are working, and are either a skilled worker/professional or trades- and the vast majority of those children are perfectly fine, in fact probably more on the skinny side.

They are mostly very active, camogie, gymnastics, horseriding, swimming, sailing, you name it. The school has a healthy eating lunch policy and walk to school days too.

I haven't had any contact with a PHN or the HSE in any shape or form for 4 years ( the last time was I was with the PHN for my seven year old she was underweight but there was no follow up- I think she was about 3 at the time or maybe a bit younger) apart from the vaccines given in school and hearing/eye tests. I don't believe they are screened for weight issue at all.

Neyite

lazygal wrote: »

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?

+1

I just found (and still do find) it somehow strange that a food that was manufactured and packaged months before my child was even born could be as healthy and nutritious for him as home cooking from fresh vegetables.

Claire de Lune

I agree, with all of you, that there is an awful lot of junk food in the baby section - mostly marketed as "organic" - and that ultimately it's the parents fault. I agree that wet weather isn't an excuse to stay indoors :-)

It's also true that overweight people become the norm in this country and the clothing industry has changed its sizes to make sure these people still fit in a size 10, but that's another topic :-)

I am from France but I have been in Ireland for 12 years. One of my first impressions is that crisps, chocolate bars and fizzy drinks were everywhere, constantly in your face, at every newsagent, in every corridor in college in a vending machine. And the worst was that the 3 go together for a lot of people!

I had to laugh at the comment about lasagna and chips, the first time I had lasagna in college, I was so shocked when the lady filled my plate with chips as well as lasagna without even asking!

I think as well as the availability of the junk food, there is also an issue with portion size. My experience as a foreigner is that "Irish Mammies", ie the older generation, would overfill your plate and almost take offence if you don't finish it. Could this contribute to an impaired vision of portion sizes, that those who were raised on big portion keep this habit into adulthood and overeat?

I have also noticed that parents here tend to use food as an easy way to solve a lot of things : It is used as a distraction/ a way to keep small children quiet/ reward. Why?

At the playground, if a young child has a little fall/ or get upset and cries, most of the time I hear "awww poor pet, here you go, have a biscuit and you'll be all better". I know the parents are trying to distract the child from what upset them, but that are a lot of different ways to distract a child that don't involve food. What I mean is, that if this is repeated over the years, I'd be afraid that the child would grow into comfort eating and reach for food anytime they are upset as a teenager/adult because that's all they know.

I've also seen in queues, very often if a child gets impatient, he/she get something to eat to keep quiet.

Recently a friend of mine who has a child in JI told me that the teacher was using jellies and chocolate squares as a reward for good behaviour or good work. I know a few jellies or chocolate isn't going to harm any children, but why does the reward has to be something to eat? Why can't it be a couple of stickers or a pencil?

Maybe I am overthinking this. But his is what I observed as a foreigner and these kind of behaviours worry me. I understand that parents/teacher don't do this with the intention of making their child overweight, but I think everybody need to look at the big picture/long term implications and take responsible actions to ensure that their child grows up with a healthy relationship with food.

I had a great experience with my PHN. I was breastfeeding and although my son was on the small side of the charts, she assured me that the charts were for formula fed babies who are usually bigger and that my son would be within a normal range in breastfeeding chart. She was continuously encouraging me to pursue with breastfeeding.

One day she had a rant about hungry baby formula, her point of view was that hungry baby formula overfeeds babies, and they get used to to have their tummies very full and then grow up eating more than average because it's the norm for them. She couldn't understand that hungry baby formula is available in supermarkets in Ireland. In several countries the equivalent of hungry baby formula is on prescription only.

As for weaning, her advice was to make all the purees myself with the threat that if I ever gave him a suermarket jar "he'll never want homemade food again"! And she banned me from giving him Petit Filous, ever! I liked her style. She left our HSE centre since, I miss her :-)

Jessica-Rabbit

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Claire de Lune wrote: »

I agree, with all of you, that there is an awful lot of junk food in the baby section - mostly marketed as "organic" - and that ultimately it's the parents fault. I agree that wet weather isn't an excuse to stay indoors :-)

It's also true that overweight people become the norm in this country and the clothing industry has changed its sizes to make sure these people still fit in a size 10, but that's another topic :-)

I am from France but I have been in Ireland for 12 years. One of my first impressions is that crisps, chocolate bars and fizzy drinks were everywhere, constantly in your face, at every newsagent, in every corridor in college in a vending machine. And the worst was that the 3 go together for a lot of people!

I had to laugh at the comment about lasagna and chips, the first time I had lasagna in college, I was so shocked when the lady filled my plate with chips as well as lasagna without even asking!

I think as well as the availability of the junk food, there is also an issue with portion size. My experience as a foreigner is that "Irish Mammies", ie the older generation, would overfill your plate and almost take offence if you don't finish it. Could this contribute to an impaired vision of portion sizes, that those who were raised on big portion keep this habit into adulthood and overeat?

I have also noticed that parents here tend to use food as an easy way to solve a lot of things : It is used as a distraction/ a way to keep small children quiet/ reward. Why?

At the playground, if a young child has a little fall/ or get upset and cries, most of the time I hear "awww poor pet, here you go, have a biscuit and you'll be all better". I know the parents are trying to distract the child from what upset them, but that are a lot of different ways to distract a child that don't involve food. What I mean is, that if this is repeated over the years, I'd be afraid that the child would grow into comfort eating and reach for food anytime they are upset as a teenager/adult because that's all they know.

I've also seen in queues, very often if a child gets impatient, he/she get something to eat to keep quiet.

Recently a friend of mine who has a child in JI told me that the teacher was using jellies and chocolate squares as a reward for good behaviour or good work. I know a few jellies or chocolate isn't going to harm any children, but why does the reward has to be something to eat? Why can't it be a couple of stickers or a pencil?

Maybe I am overthinking this. But his is what I observed as a foreigner and these kind of behaviours worry me. I understand that parents/teacher don't do this with the intention of making their child overweight, but I think everybody need to look at the big picture/long term implications and take responsible actions to ensure that their child grows up with a healthy relationship with food.

I had a great experience with my PHN. I was breastfeeding and although my son was on the small side of the charts, she assured me that the charts were for formula fed babies who are usually bigger and that my son would be within a normal range in breastfeeding chart. She was continuously encouraging me to pursue with breastfeeding.

One day she had a rant about hungry baby formula, her point of view was that hungry baby formula overfeeds babies, and they get used to to have their tummies very full and then grow up eating more than average because it's the norm for them. She couldn't understand that hungry baby formula is available in supermarkets in Ireland. In several countries the equivalent of hungry baby formula is on prescription only.

As for weaning, her advice was to make all the purees myself with the threat that if I ever gave him a suermarket jar "he'll never want homemade food again"! And she banned me from giving him Petit Filous, ever! I liked her style. She left our HSE centre since, I miss her :-)

I completely agree with everything you have said in your post, when I was 18 I moved to Lyon in France and lived there for two years, I noticed that there was no obese French people and if there were they were maybe one in a 100 if not more, I noticed that the French eat rich food but in moderation and the diet was varied and very healthy and there is no snacking on crips or chocolate between meals, as a result the children and adults were healthy fit and had beautiful skin. I am bringing my daughter up with the same eating habits that the French culture embrace, healthy homecooked meals fresh fruit and veg all in moderation, I think the Irish Mammies concept came from where the men worked on farms doing hard labour from the early hours of the morning to late in the evening and the meals needed to be big in portion size in order for the men to have energy but all the calories were burnt off during the work, the women in the house were cleaning baking cooking caring for their children all day long so they too were kept busy, this culture was past down through the generations and even though the men weren't working at hard labour or the women doing as much house work in the home thanks to new technology the meals continued to remain large even though it was not necessary, this can be part of the reason for obesity but a lot of it stems from ready made high salt and sugar meals, take aways sweets crips becoming the modern day norm, this coupled with little or no exercise and to much tv time etc has lead to an unhealthy culture.

pwurple

Just a couple of small things in this rant against fatties...

There are plenty of chubby frenchies. The time I spent in perigord I don't think I saw a single person who wasn't overweight. They live on duck fat in that region, the french mammies were smiling, ruddy faced, open armed, generous, but not skinny.

Hngry baby formula is the exact same calorie count as normal formula. It's a different consistancy, and a different protein profile.

The description of baby led weaning above is just ordinary weaning! Surely to goodness there is nothing earthshattering about a child eating whatever a fmaily is eating.

I will easily admit to using an ellas pouch occasionally when we were out. 7-10 month old babies eat far more often than I do. I don't have 6 meals a day, but their tummies are tiny, they do need more meals at that age. I am not confining myself to the kitchen all the livelong day, so if i wanted to give her a break from crackers and raisins the odd day when we were at the playground, i brought one of those fruit pouch things along. They are very well packaged, easy to reseal and chuck in a bag. I found them really useful.

Portion sizes I had missed in my original post in this thread... And loads of people have mentioned it. Portion sizes are absolutely mental in some restaurants. Crazy stuff... And yet when they make normal size portions you get people giving out stink that they are too small. The restaurant recommendation threads on boards have people giving out about not enough food on plates in restaurants, and I've even seen a comment on a fastfood place on facebook complaining that their small chips had too few chips. Loads of people vocally want 'a good feed' when they go out, and it's very hard for a restaurant to accomodate that. The normal sized get shouted down.

iguana

lazygal wrote: »

Surely that's an ideal time to talk about healthy eating for the entire family? If an overweight parent comes in to dicuss weaning, it should be the proceedure to ask about food at home and healthy eating, and where changes can and should be made, combined with follow up on by the PHN, possibly with a home visit, rather than just leaving parents to it. Maybe it might break the cycle of junk and processed foods. I might be a bit idealistic, but I think the PHN system needs to up its game in this area. This is a serious public health issue, and a bit more proactivity might lead to some better choices being made. I'd go so far as to say a family feeding its children junk all the time should be on the watch list or whatever system is in place, its nutrition abuse to fail to feed your children properly and there should be checks on it. We're all going to pay a very high price for leaving people to their own devices with regard to how they feed their children.

I agree but did you read the Irish papers over the weekend? The Herald, Times and Indo all had pretty nasty comment pieces about breastfeeders making formaula feeders feel awful because of the EU decision to make it illegal to put a picture of a baby on a tin of follow on milk from 2016. If something that small and innocuous can bring about that backlash can you just imagine the reaction if people were advised to give the baby what you eat but completely change what you eat as your diet is so unhealthy that it's a serious public health issue. Nothing that you are saying is wrong, it's the truth but the level of stink that would be created would be enormous. We need a societal shift much bigger than the public health nurses telling mothers the consequences of a bad diet because that alone would be pissing in the wind.

movingsucks

Well said Pwurple.

And you only need to look at the wedding forum to see more of the attitudes towards food. Talk of burger runs and the like because they don't like what's being served.
Davidth88 made a point about children learning if they don't eat dinner they go hungry but if grown adults won't make do themselves theyre not gonna make their kids do it!
Phns telling parents not to use Ellas pouches is not gonna stop this.

What I can't understand the most is we are meant to be living in the information age.
Now more than ever we have the opportunity to be aware of what we are eating. What's in it, where it came from etc.

WHY do parents since at least 2006 (coz that's when all these overweight 7 year olds were born) give their kids a tube of Pringles and a can of red bull and leave em off when THEY KNOW it's wrong.
We all know it's wrong!
Kids even know it's wrong!
McDonalds feckin has the option of water and fruit now!
Five a day this and whole grain that!
Is there a generation of parents who bitterly remember only getting 5 penny jellys a week or an orange in their stocking at Christmas or those murderous rows over the last Jaffa cake so they make sure their kids have all the Jaffa cakes in the world?

Hannibal Smith

Well aside from odd PHN who doesn't seem to have informed people about making their own food, the official line is to tell people to avoid the jars. What people decide to feed their child after that is out of their hands. It's not only a health issue, but financial, how much do those jars add to your shopping I wonder?

Maybe the option is to continue with a healthy eating subject in school. Get the message through to the kids, who bring it home to the parents. That way you're educating future adults on nutrition and how to avoid being overweight. The same way they show the smoking videos blackening your lungs, show the way fat clogs up your system and kills you.

Hannibal Smith

lazygal wrote: »

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?

White potato can be a bit strong for baby's tummy and cause cramps. But aside from that, as i said, there's no law saying you have to start with baby rice. Start with whatever you want. If you're going down the baby led weaning route you won't have to bother with baby rice because there's no spoon for them to get used to.

movingsucks

On the subject of school what do people think of PE?
Primary was great loads of tearing around, climbing, dancing etc.
I think there was too much of an emphasis on team sports in Secondary - ie standing around bored on a basket ball court while the few girls in the class who played for the school trounced the rest of us.
I don't need to know how to play basketball but I would like to know how to keep fit on a daily basis. I walk all the time but I'm not fit.

lazygal

I loathed PE in primary and secondary. I went to a mixed primary and every single class involved football or basketball, which the boys were allowed to dominate and the girls were left sitting on the sidelines. In my all girls secondary school, again it was basketball or other team sports. I happened to excell in running one of the few times we did that, but it wasn't an ongoing activity. However, I did a lot of dance outside school and other activities as my parents had us out riding bikes, walking and generally being active on the weekends and after school. I hope things have changed, but I think PE in Ireland is too much about the local popular team based sport, like soccer, GAA or rugby, and if that doesn't interest a child or he or she isn't good at it, its a bit of a write off.

It boils down to lack of education and a "couldn't be arsed" attitude on behalf of parents, most of whom with overweight children are overweight themselves.
Relying on PE to keep children moving and interested in activity is a waste of time, parents need to be far more proactive.
I have five nephews and nieces. The lads ate, and still eat, rings around themselves but have been involved in swimming, martial arts, soccer, hurling and basketball since they were 5. None of them are or ever were overweight, despite biscuits at home and the odd pizza for dinner.
Their parents put in huge effort to keep them active and busy, forgoing lie ins at weekends and nights out themselves to make classes.
The girls, while not overweight, just aren't as active, perhaps that's down to being brought up to believe certain sports are only for boys.

My own son is going to be a big boy. He's not yet 2 and 15kgs but is the height of an average 3.5 year old. He is outside running around every day, rain or shine, wind or snow. He will be starting toddler rugby or soccer later this summer and has been swimming twice weekly since he turned 5 months.
That's because my husband and I have never been overweight. I have been a regular gym goer for over 10 years and hold a black belt in martial arts. My husband plays team sports and cycles more than 100kms a week.
It follows then that our son will be a sporty child, he sees us eating well and staying active.
Education begins at home.