Why is it normal/OK to be obese in Ireland?.

Zubeneschamali

B0jangles wrote: »

A lot of people would just die because they can't afford to pay

Freedom!

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pilly

Romantic Rose wrote: »

Easily offended because the truth hurts.

I don't know it all but I see it all on a daily basis.

I only have to go to my local play centre and see what kind of food parents serve up to their children.

It's pure and simple the easy option.

My 4 year old has never once being served a chip. I don't feed her highly processed food.

I go to the supermarket and I check labels. If it's processed, it won't be going into my trolley.

Not that hard to do.

If it has a label it's been processed so that part of your post is pure bs.

whoopsadoodles

....... wrote: »

LOL!

I imagine the irony is lost on you?

Go on so. Tell me what irony?

You dug through her history and pulled personal posts from other threads to get nasty. That results in cnutish posts.

Nettle Soup

osarusan wrote: »

Indeed.

I know in my case, the only way you could get me to eat anything in school as a kid was for it to be fairly 'junky'. Otherwise I'd just go out and play. I would have eaten a lot of jam sandwiches, peanut butter, and that Panda chocolate spread.

But at home there were always loads of vegetables, loads of them, as my mother could ensure we actually ate them, which she couldn't when we were at school.

Of course, healthier is better, but the content of a child's lunchbox at school isn't necessarily an insight into their overall diet.

Obesity is about Food + Activity levels.

McCrack

Romantic Rose wrote: »

Too many things to mention that is making us fat.

I don't think it's just the carbs because we grew up on carbs and none of us were fat.

I just find that everything is an excuse to eat and eat crap at that.

Have a cup of tea/coffee biscuits and cake.

Parents are so bad for feeding their children chips, nuggets, burgers. It's like a broken record. Developing poor habits early.

Birthday parties on a near weekly basis with mountains of sweets, crisps, pizza, chocolate, fizzy drinks. Pure saturated fat everywhere.

Junk junk and more junk. No such thing as a treat, just food to fill up with.

Also, food companies pump far too much crap into our food and are being allowed to get away with it. Processed to maximise profit and get us addicted.

Agree about the fizzy drinks. Why the fook are there 14 or whatever teaspoons of sugar in a bottle of Lucozade. Absolute disgrace that a company can get away with that and market it in anyway healthy.

Where are the government here.

Need more companies like Chopped to balance out the Fatty Fast Food Outlets that are on every street corner these days.

I agree with your general sentiments except for the "government".



I think people need to take responsibility for their own diet - education is essential here



I think a good start for a lot of people might be the nutrition forum here on boards.

SusieBlue

WhiteRoses wrote: »

What would be your suggestion for someone like my brother, who has autism and will only eat white solid foods, and will gag, vomit and have a meltdown if food of another colour (aka fruit, veg, and any meat besides chicken) goes near his plate?

I take it if you saw his daily diet you'd be straight on to social services?

Quoting myself here, I'm still waiting for a reply Rose? Genuinely interested to hear what you would do in the situation my mum finds herself with her now almost adult child on a daily basis.

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whoopsadoodles

....... wrote: »

If youre not smart enough to understand it thats your own problem.

Google irony. Reread your own post.

You can't explain your own accusation then.

I understand

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pilly

osarusan wrote: »

Indeed.

I know in my case, the only way you could get me to eat anything in school as a kid was for it to be fairly 'junky'. Otherwise I'd just go out and play. I would have eaten a lot of jam sandwiches, peanut butter, and that Panda chocolate spread.

But at home there were always loads of vegetables, loads of them, as my mother could ensure we actually ate them, which she couldn't when we were at school.

Of course, healthier is better, but the content of a child's lunchbox at school isn't necessarily an insight into their overall diet.

When I went to school our sandwiches were provided free and they were absolutely thick with the butter, ham one day, corn-beef another day and jam another. On a Friday we got a currant bun. Can't remember what the other day was, might have had 2 corn-beef days.

whoopsadoodles

....... wrote: »

Do you actually have anything to contribute to the discussion or are you just trolling for the craic?

Now who is the irony lost on

Romantic Rose

WhiteRoses wrote: »

I think it might be because she is implying that children who she sees eating junk food have parents who neither care nor love them, even though that might have been the only bit of junk food they've had for weeks, even though the child may have a behavioural or health issue which impacts what the parent can get the child to consume, and a variety of other reasons.

Granted some parents feed their children rubbish out of convenience but to say that every child she sees eating a chicken nugget has parents who don't give a sh*t is obviously gonna get peoples backs up.

She seems to do a great job of feeding her own kids a healthy diet and instead of offering advice and tips to other parents, she's making snide comments and insinuating they don't care about their kids. There are kinder ways of going about things than the way she has.

My posts are out of frustration.

It's very sad seeing a child with poor health who needs to be referred to a nutritionist. I have seen so many cases like this in the last 5 years in particular.

You said I didn't offer tips but I did say that I spent a lot of time preparing food for them. I also said that I didn't feed them junk.

Everything my baby ate up to one year, was made from scratch by me. The Annabel Karmel recipe book was never far away.

I did not feed them anything premade in any way like bread, La Liga biscuits.

The fact that he government has to bring in so many initiatives like Food Dudes in schools says a lot about the health of our nation.

Hammer89

Romantic Rose wrote: »

Easily offended because the truth hurts.

I don't know it all but I see it all on a daily basis.

I only have to go to my local play centre and see what kind of food parents serve up to their children.

It's pure and simple the easy option.

My 4 year old has never once being served a chip. I don't feed her highly processed food.

I go to the supermarket and I check labels. If it's processed, it won't be going into my trolley.

Not that hard to do.

Here's something you won't like, but a woman on her high horse as much as you deserves to know:

Children born to authoritarian parents are MORE likely to become obese. Google it.

You're making unhealthy food the forbidden fruit and they will always view those foods with more temptation than others as a result of your great parenting. I'm not saying you're a bad parent, but you an ignorant, judgmental one and that needs to stop.

Nettle Soup

Childhood Obesity. The Facts.

About childhood obesity

• 1 in 4 children is overweight or obese
• Obese children are likely to become obese adults
• Parent's find it difficult to recognise that their child's weight is not healthy

About physical activity

• 3/4 children in Northern Ireland do not meet Government Physical Activity Guidelines
• 4/5 children in the Republic of Ireland do not meet Government Physical Activity Guidelines
• Preschool children on the island of Ireland watch an average of 2 hours 9 minutes television a day
• 34% of preschool children have a TV in their bedroom

About children's diets

• Many children do not meet the dietary recommendations for fruit and vegetables, saturated fat or sugar
• 1/5 of the energy intake from a child's diet comes from sugary drinks, biscuits, confectionary, chocolate and cake

What are the consequences?

Short term effects

• Problems with bone heath
• Breathing difficulties
• Psychological and social issues

Long term effects

• Cancer
• Heart disease
• Type 2 diabetes

pwurple

No-one putting it together with smoking yet then?

My friends who smoke, do so because it suppresses their appetite. Or as they put it, to keep them thin.

Irish smoking has massively decreased. Which I think is a good thing in general, but it has probably impacted a generation of non-smokers in terms of weight.

People are talking about looks in here, which is highly subjective. But what is the actual impact of weight on health.

I don't see any huge problem with being in the 25-27 BMI bracket, aka mildly overweight. I'm at around 24.5, within the range of a normal BMI, but I have been up to 26 after pregnancies etc. The "Sweet spot" for longevity is apparently a BMI of 27. A little bit of excess to get you through a serious illness, but not enough that your own weight impacts knees, hips or other joints/organs.

And there's huge difference between that and needing a motorised wheelchair to get around under your own weight. But honestly, I don't think I've even seen once person this year in Ireland in that category. Plenty in the US though.

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LirW

Jaysus, just picked the nipper up and like 4 pages more.

Anyway I just know with mine that he goes through phases, at the moment it's the "Did I eat it before and did I like it"-phase?
Frozen stuff is only an exception really and I'm a cooking Nazi anyway.

Food with kids is such a double-edged sword though. Pressure can backfire horribly, not doing anything and feed them what they want too.
When I was a kid, my sister ate tiny portions and she was always very petite while I was a tall girl that could eat a lot. I got more comments for eating a lot (and I never was anywhere near chubby), it got constantly brought up in all parts of the family and some was really nasty. The worst was my grandfather calling me fat because I wanted to borrow his bike to cycle somewhere and he simply didn't want to give it away and wanted me to walk.
I developed a full blown eating disorder at the age of 12. I had my ways of hiding it, whenever a big occasion was coming up I didn't eat in days and would eat a lot while there. I recovered when I was 17 and had a year of falling back into these horrible patterns again in my early 20s after my boy was here resulting in going very skinny again.
My eating habits are horrible.

And I certainly don't want my kid to pick any of that up. I want him to eat well and healthy but I know what too much pressure can create as well as too little involvement in your kids diet. But he's a healthy and fit kids, who does competitive sport and is out and about the whole afternoon with his friends.

I know another girl that has two little daughters and she's like North Korea military with healthy diet, I'm quite sure she only cooks vegan food. Nothing wrong with it but the kids have to pray permanently how bad sugar is, salt and pretty much anything to the point where the kids start to patronize and smartarse strangers in supermarkets (she's very proud of that). No clue how she'll handle when the kids get older, invited to parties.

Food and kids can be fought in many ways and you need to be so wary how you act. My mom never realised I had such problems eating until it was too late and I needed professional help.

Romantic Rose

Hammer89 wrote: »

Here's something you won't like, but a woman on her high horse as much as you deserves to know:

Children born to authoritarian parents are MORE likely to become obese. Google it.

You're making unhealthy food the forbidden fruit and they will always view those foods with more temptation than others as a result of your great parenting. I'm not saying you're a bad parent, but you an ignorant, judgmental one and that needs to stop.

At least my horse will be fit and healthy and able to move

You can still give your children treats without being processed. Ever try homemade baking. Treats are not banned in my house but I will make them from scratch myself.

Nettle Soup

pwurple wrote: »

No-one putting it together with smoking yet then?

My friends who smoke, do so because it suppresses their appetite. Or as they put it, to keep them thin.

Irish smoking has massively decreased. Which I think is a good thing in general, but it has probably impacted a generation of non-smokers in terms of weight.

People are talking about looks in here, which is highly subjective. But what is the actual impact of weight on health.

I don't see any huge problem with being in the 25-27 BMI bracket, aka mildly overweight. I'm at around 24.5, within the range of a normal BMI, but I have been up to 26 after pregnancies etc. The "Sweet spot" for longevity is apparently a BMI of 27. A little bit of excess to get you through a serious illness, but not enough that your own weight impacts knees, hips or other joints/organs.

And there's huge difference between that and needing a motorised wheelchair to get around under your own weight. But honestly, I don't think I've even seen once person this year in Ireland in that category. Plenty in the US though.

We are catching up with the US at an alarming rate.

Even developing countries in South America are astounded at how they went from 0-60 in the child obesity stakes. The likes of Nestle and Coca Cola to blame.

Zubeneschamali

....... wrote: »

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Well, it is also possible that if you were as fat as a lot of people are now and smoked 40 a day (as used to be common) you'd be dead already instead of waddling about with boardsies pointing at you.

Romantic Rose

Nettle Soup wrote: »

We are catching up with the US at an alarming rate.

Even developing countries in South America are astounded at how they went from 0-60 in the child obesity stakes. The likes of Nestle and Coca Cola to blame.

I did the sugar experiment in fizzy drinks with a class one year. They were truely shocked at the sugar content of each drink. I think it actually put a lot of them off fizzy drinks altogether.

ceadaoin.

Romantic Rose wrote: »

My posts are out of frustration.

It's very sad seeing a child with poor health who needs to be referred to a nutritionist. I have seen so many cases like this in the last 5 years in particular.

You said I didn't offer tips but I did say that I spent a lot of time preparing food for them. I also said that I didn't feed them junk.

Everything my baby ate up to one year, was made from scratch by me. The Annabel Karmel recipe book was never far away.

I did not feed them anything premade in any way like bread, La Liga biscuits.

The fact that he government has to bring in so many initiatives like Food Dudes in schools says a lot about the health of our nation.

Great, your medal will be out in the post shortly

Annabel karmel you say? That's processing the food too much and basically mush. I just did baby led weaning. Studies show that babies weaned this way eat healthier and are less likely to be obese. Do I win the mother of the year award?

Or maybe you should just be a bit less judgemental. Your child isn't going to gain a stone if they eat a chip or a slice of pizza. A balanced diet is key, everything in moderation and all that. By making it forbidden it will only be more attractive to them when they are older.

Nettle Soup

LirW wrote: »

I know another girl that has two little daughters and she's like North Korea military with healthy diet, I'm quite sure she only cooks vegan food. Nothing wrong with it but the kids have to pray permanently how bad sugar is, salt and pretty much anything to the point where the kids start to patronize and smartarse strangers in supermarkets (she's very proud of that). No clue how she'll handle when the kids get older, invited to parties.

A lot of Irish parents will spend a lot of time and money on communions and confessions when they know it's a nonsense. Yet they wont address obesity problems which will affect a child for life. The education is there (think Operation Transformation) but it's ignored. Why?

pilly

Romantic Rose wrote: »

At least my horse will be fit and healthy and able to move

You can still give your children treats without being processed. Ever try homemade baking. Treats are not banned in my house but I will make them from scratch myself.

You're obviously a full-time professional mother, that's great for you.

Romantic Rose

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Great, your medal will be out in the post shortly

Annabel karmel you say? That's processing the food too much and basically mush. I just did baby led weaning. Studies show that babies weaned this way are less likely to be obese. Do I win the mother of the year award?

It worked for me. Have two great eaters. Thanks.

Zubeneschamali

Romantic Rose wrote: »

I did not feed them anything premade in any way like bread, La Liga biscuits.

I know a family where there are 3 girls - for the oldest the mother was a total food nazi like you, for the younger ones she gave up.

The oldest is the only one that is overweight as an adult.

Romantic Rose

pilly wrote: »

You're obviously a full-time professional mother, that's great for you.

Hahahaha.

Nah I'm going to knock off for the weekend now. The children will feed themselves. They know where the freezer, oven and condiments press is.

givyjoe

Romantic Rose wrote: »

Hahahaha.

Nah I'm going to knock off for the weekend now. The children will feed themselves. They know where the freezer, oven and condiments press is.

I think she meant that you don't work full time, but that sailed right over your head.

Nettle Soup

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I know a family where there are 3 girls - for the oldest the mother was a total food nazi like you, for the younger ones she gave up.

The oldest is the only one that is overweight as an adult.

I think that kind of whataboutery and Third Reich references are unhelpful to this epidemic.

Electric Sheep

givyjoe wrote: »

If boards is just about quoting peer reviewed studies to back up every observation/post, we may as well shut down all AH threads now and not come back.

I noticed precisely the same thing in America last week. Long Island = drives everywhere due to large distances, driving door to door and a very, very noticeable obese population. In Manhattan, most people you see are doing lots of walking in between subway journeys etc, far less incidences of morbidly obese people.

It makes a lot of sense that this would be replicated here, but perhaps not necessarily limited to the west.. but anywhere remote where most transport was by car alone.

I've often noticed that when people move from the city to the suburbs the weight tends to pile on, especially suburban areas with no sidewalks. I've always found the concept of driving to the gym pretty funny.

Romantic Rose

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I know a family where there are 3 girls - for the oldest the mother was a total food nazi like you, for the younger ones she gave up.

The oldest is the only one that is overweight as an adult.

I'm not a food Nazi in any way. I must be a traditionalist though.

Cooking from scratch and promoting health is becoming a lost art.

Hitman3000

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lol.

Hammer89

Romantic Rose wrote: »

At least my horse will be fit and healthy and able to move

Your horse and kids are probably on the same diet: hay. "Yah there's only 0.4 calories per straw, so little Martin gets five straws a day and a drop of water in his beaker. If he's good, I drive past the window at our local McDonalds and let him smell it."

LirW

Why is it always an either/or? Yes some people feed their kids crap to no end, others are especially particular about the food for their children. These are two extreme groups. But what about the people in between that do cook a lot, pack the kids nice lunchboxes yet on occasions give them a glass of sprite or a plate with chips and sausages. I don't like either extreme and I think with either kids can't learn a healthy approach to what's an exception, what's good for them and what they like and what to avoid on a regular base.
Kids are ridiculously good at eating what they want in secret, especially once they start getting pocket money.

B0jangles

I remember another poster here who described how with her first child she had an incredibly easy time of it; child slept well, ate a good and balanced diet easily, got on well with other kids - was basically the dream child. As a result she thought that other parents were just making excuses to be lazy when they talked about how hard it was to feed their kids or to do X Y or Z; basically she awarded herself a great big gold star as Mother of the Year.

Then her second child came along - identical parenting approach, same family, same everything but he/she was just a very difficult and very different child to feed, to get to sleep, to get to interact easily with other children. Suddenly she became That Parent, you know, the one who had to give her child cheese strings to get some milk into them (imagine seeing that Junk in a child's lunchbox!)

The moral of the story is that every child is different, just because yours was happy to feast upon everything you gave them doesn't mean other parents are failing because their children are hard to feed.


I'm going by memory of course, so if the original poster is here to read this, apologies for any (all) inaccuracies in the retelling

Zubeneschamali

Electric Sheep wrote: »

I've often noticed that when people move from the city to the suburbs the weight tends to pile on, especially suburban areas with no sidewalks.

There are no sidewalks anywhere in Ireland.

We have footpaths.

Nettle Soup

Hammer89 wrote: »

Your horse and kids are probably on the same diet: hay. "Yah there's only 0.4 calories per straw, so little Martin gets five straws a day and a drop of water in his beaker. If he's good, I drive past the window at our local McDonalds and let him smell it."

Wow, bullying a mother and her kids...stay classy.

LirW

Haha, mine were both easy as baby and the only thing I'm fearing is that they one day wake up and become little sh1ts :pac:
Pardon me, the big one is already, telling me one morning how stressed he is because I'm waking him up at 8am :rolleyes:

Romantic Rose

Hammer89 wrote: »

Your horse and kids are probably on the same diet: hay. "Yah there's only 0.4 calories per straw, so little Martin gets five straws a day and a drop of water in his beaker. If he's good, I drive past the window at our local McDonalds and let him smell it."

Don't forget the carrots.

givyjoe

Nettle Soup wrote: »

Wow, bullying a mother and her kids...stay classy.

I can't help commenting on the bizarrely frequent and inaccurate claims of abuse in this thread.. now it's bullying. How on earth is that sarcastic comment bullying the poster, never mind her kids who don't know what boards.ie is, never mind this specific thread!

ceadaoin.

LirW wrote: »

Why is it always an either/or? Yes some people feed their kids crap to no end, others are especially particular about the food for their children. These are two extreme groups. But what about the people in between that do cook a lot, pack the kids nice lunchboxes yet on occasions give them a glass of sprite or a plate with chips and sausages. I don't like either extreme and I think with either kids can't learn a healthy approach to what's an exception, what's good for them and what they like and what to avoid on a regular base.
Kids are ridiculously good at eating what they want in secret, especially once they start getting pocket money.

Exactly. I cook from scratch, my child has fruit and veg in her lunch box every day. She also eats McDonald's once a week after her swimming class, pizza if we go out to eat, ice cream, chocolate and *gasp* the occasional fish finger. The only thing I don't let her have is fizzy drinks, besides sparkling water.

She eats until she is full, I don't force her to finish her plate and she is perfectly healthy and even a bit on the skinny side.

pilly

LirW wrote: »

Why is it always an either/or? Yes some people feed their kids crap to no end, others are especially particular about the food for their children. These are two extreme groups. But what about the people in between that do cook a lot, pack the kids nice lunchboxes yet on occasions give them a glass of sprite or a plate with chips and sausages. I don't like either extreme and I think with either kids can't learn a healthy approach to what's an exception, what's good for them and what they like and what to avoid on a regular base.
Kids are ridiculously good at eating what they want in secret, especially once they start getting pocket money.

Or go to parties or friends houses.

Hammer89

Nettle Soup wrote: »

Wow, bullying a mother and her kids...stay classy.

I'm no bully - and I'm certainly not bullying her kids. Do me a favour. This woman has been taking subtle jabs at parents of overweight children and suggesting she is the superior parent. "My four-year-old has never even seen a chip and won't until he's 18 and old enough to know the dangers of them." As I said, certain strict parenting styles are utterly counter-productive when it comes to combating obesity.

LirW

pilly wrote: »

Or go to parties or friends houses.

This, they either eat in secret or won't have friends at all because kids are fairly unforgiving when other kids are obnoxious as hell.

My MIL was a foodnazi with my partner, he ended up putting a fair bit of weight on in his late teens because he ate in secret.
I know, anecdotal evidence.

My point is, having food as a meta topic at home can have unknown effects on your kid and seriously make them sick. It can turn out well or backfire. I hope for no-one ever to backfire because it's nasty.

meeeeh

People really are their most obnoxious selves in obesity threads.

Anyway someone call social services I'm currently putting some pizza into the oven for the kids.

whoopsadoodles

LirW wrote: »

Why is it always an either/or? Yes some people feed their kids crap to no end, others are especially particular about the food for their children. These are two extreme groups. But what about the people in between that do cook a lot, pack the kids nice lunchboxes yet on occasions give them a glass of sprite or a plate with chips and sausages. I don't like either extreme and I think with either kids can't learn a healthy approach to what's an exception, what's good for them and what they like and what to avoid on a regular base.
Kids are ridiculously good at eating what they want in secret, especially once they start getting pocket money.

Yeh definitely there has to be a balance.

I do think educating kids on why healthy food is better is the biggest thing though. Not simply putting broccoli on their plate but telling them why broccoli is so good for them and explaining to them why sugar should be kept to a minimum but not to be completely excluded either because kids definitely should enjoy the odd curly wurly!

Romantic Rose

pilly wrote: »

Or go to parties or friends houses.

This is sad because it has become the norm here.

Shock horror, I was at a birthday party where most of the food was made from scratch including the cake and chicken nuggets. There was also fruit there unbelievably.

I also saw a friend who had the coolest cake I've ever seen for a 1st birthday party. A watermelon volcano cake.

Could have taken the easy option and just opened another 24 bag of crisps.

We really need to re programme our attitudes to food and diet in this country.

Demonised for promoting health and balance.

whisky_galore

Nettle Soup wrote: »

You were much more active.

You did not have an XBox, tablet, phone, Ipod, 100 TV channels etc etc

Yep, only 2 channels, small boys in the park...jumpers for goalposts.

Walked/cycled to friends' houses, not shuttled around the place in Mummy's troop carrier.

givyjoe

Romantic Rose wrote: »

This is sad because it has become the norm here.

Shock horror, I was at a birthday party where most of the food was made from scratch including the cake and chicken nuggets. There was also fruit there unbelievably.

I also saw a friend who had the coolest cake I've ever seen for a 1st birthday party. A watermelon volcano cake.

Could have taken the easy option and just opened another 24 bag of crisps.

We really need to re programme our attitudes to food and diet in this country.

Demonised for promoting health and balance.

Where are you being demonised for promoting health and balance..? Definitely not here.

As for balance, I really don't think balanced would be the best way to describe your attitude to diet.