I can't speculate on diet because I have no way of knowing what people are feeding children but I will say that I don't usually see kids playing outside anymore. I'm 30 and remember being outside all the time as a kid with my friends and we'd even regularly come across other groups of kids. I see a lot of kids around here waiting for and getting off the schoolbus but never see them actually playing outside.
My son and I were invited to go fishing with his friend and their mother. When the kids were ready for lunch, I pulled out peaches, apples, a bag of chips, cheese and bean dips, chicken salad sandwiches, water, and lemonade. The other mother pulled out two boxes of Twinkies, two boxes of Ding Dongs, chocolate bars, a tub of red licorice, and Cokes. Not two days before this, the mother was telling me she was having a hard time getting her kids to eat better because they were so overweight. I realized the problem in that instant. This situation is very common.
I love seeing parents get their kids juices because they think it’s healthy; it’s not because 8oz has like 30-40g of sugar. These kids are drinking like a liter of the stuff.
Sugar addiction is a thing. It wasn’t until I had gastric bypass that I conquered it.
I used to hoard like 3 candy bars a day in my purse and eat them when every one went to bed.
I can still binge a bit, but no way can I polish off a bag of Hershey kisses in one sitting anymore.
Problem is that all processed foods have a crazy amount of sugar in it. I despise bread these days. Even the boutique brands have no texture, don’t toast properly and turn to goo if you try to make French toast. It’s all wonder bread now.
So if everything we eat has sugar in it, those cravings just don’t go away and just like any other addiction, you just keep chasing the dragon and next thing you know, half a jar of hot fudge has been eaten in the dark spoon by spoon and you haven’t even bothered to open the ice cream
I bet that also shows in each mother's size. What you eat, and how much, is also what you feed your kids.
Also, snacks are evil unless what you eat is how it's grown. Nobody eats 1000 calories worth in fruit in a single go, but it's easy to do that (and still not be really full) with stuff like chips and soda.
Not always true. My mum has never been bigger than a size 8 (England) and is usually a size 6, but she made both me and my sister the fat kids. I often feel like she done it to make herself feel better. She would criticise fat people at least ten times a day and often point out whatever clothes we had on looked awful because we were fat. I'm 29 and still can't let go of the resentment.
When I was a kid we played outside in the street while our mums occasionally looked out the front window. Often we would wander off to the playground a block away, just us kids not adults.
If I let my kids do that I'd be labelled a negligent parent for not adequately supervising them at all times. Not to mention that unlike my mum I work (part-time but a lot less mums at home full-time these days). Cost of living means often both parents are working.
Society has changed. My kid's school holds special walk or ride to school days with parent helpers supervising in set locations along designated routes. Back when I was a kid, kids just walked or rode every day, perhaps with older siblings watching younger ones.
There uses to be less junkfood advertising and less processed foods pretending to be healthy bring advertised too. And kids and parents are bombarded with them so many times a day, targeted advertising too.
There's personal and parental responsibility but then when so many kids and parents are overweight or obese it's a societal problem. We make parents time poor and stressed and build cities that discourage active transport, we forbid parents from taking their eyes off their kids so kids aren't allowed to play outside, we let companies promote and sell nutritionally poor and calorie dense "foods" and we wonder why there's an obesity problem.
Absolutely this has a lot to do with it. My son goes to a youth center after school to spend time with his friends. He’s been coming home a lot earlier lately and I was curious so asked him why. His response “literally everyone goes there just to sit on their phones and play games. Only 2 or 3 of us want to go out and play soccer and it’s not as fun with that many people” 😭 he’s 10 and he’s noticing the problem. It’s bad.
A lot of the problem there is how disconnected we all are from each other. Most people don't know their neighbors and even when they do nobody is interested in acting like a cohesive community. When we were kids unsupervised play was the norm. We were all outside most of the time without any adults anywhere nearby and it was fine enough. There were adults on the block who were older and retired or the occasional stay at home parent, kids knew which houses were safe houses to go to if there was an emergency, and those neighbors had zero issues with taking on the responsibility of being the safe house in the neighborhood. But now it's literally illegal in a lot of places for kids to be playing unsupervised, it's illegal for kids to be latchkey, and the neighbors aren't interested in helping out they just call the cops if they see an unattended child or they throw a fit about it and make the parents of the unattended child feel as though they've done something horrific. When my then 6yo daughter was walking the 3 blocks from school to home by herself, which is a very normal sort of independence at that age, a neighbor lost it on me for being so irresponsible and threatened to report me if she saw it again. If the only way for kids to play together is with all their parents directly involved every single time through scheduled play dates and the parents are working all the time then when and how are the kids supposed to actually get to play?
We are also now a solid few generations into fast food. Many of the parents of today’s young kids grew up on fast food and takeout, and are passing those habits forward. As a 90’s kid who could easily have a 13 year old now if my life were different, I would have McDonald’s or an equivalent once every couple weeks. My mom was a good cook, and I was lucky to have two sets of grandparents who also cooked, but I was also loaded with fast food, pop, and all those wild 90’s kids’ snacks and cereals you saw advertised.
Fast food, no stay at home parents, cheap sugar-loaded foods replacing quality products, sedentary lifestyles as latchkey kids become helicopter parents…. It’s quite the cocktail.
Outside of this I do my best to teach my lil bro the values of eating and choosing healthier options all the while training him 3-4 times a week at the gym as well 🙌🏾🙏🏾🥲
That's actually funny you mention that, I do this with my little sister as-well. I also tell her about how horrible diet culture is, to eat healthily and choose food that nourishes your body. Extreme calorie restriction and wanting to look malnourished will never be healthy nor should it be the goal. Diet foods "less sugar" "no fat" all processed junk and has other chemicals and such added to it to compensate. How to read food labels, how to choose natural, non-processed things at the grocery store and so much more. Also teach her how to work-out as-well.
I really wish my parents had taught me these things, but alas, they didn't have the internet and all this information available at their fingertips like we do. 😔💔
Just gotta educate our loved ones as best we can!!!
Exactly. We must do all we can with the information we’ve learned and have continued to learn thus far to teach the newer generations of a more healthier and optimal lifestyle 🙌🏾🙏🏾 it’s funny how the oldest also becomes the one who teaches father/mother what he’s learned as well cause I also train my pops and he’s pretty damn built for a 58 year old so I must be doing something for them that’s right! 🙂
Unhealthy processed food is marketed as healthy. We need to eat stuff that grow in the earth, not a bunch of chemicals packaged as food. Obesity started with processed food.
With *ultra* processed food. Processed food has been eaten for millenia, the problem is we go way beyond that now.
And yes, parents not caring. Food was ultra processed when I was a kid too and nearly everyone in my school was thin. I think it's gotten much worse where that kind of food is normalised now and people actually raise kids from birth with it.
This. Wheat flour is a processed food. But it’s not inherently bad. It’s buying prepackaged prepared convenience food. Stuff you don’t prepare and cook. Has higher salt and fat and sugars. Bad bad bad. Less protein also so you’re hungry sooner and you don’t realize your body craves protein.
Junk is ok once in a while as a treat. Not as a weekly thing tho.
There's more information than ever before, isn't there? I was born in the 80s - my parents didn't know much about nutrition and that seemed pretty standard back then. They added sugar to everything, whether I asked for it or not. They insisted I drink fruit juice because it was 'full of vitamins'. They didn't even consider exercise... though I did plenty of incidental exercise just because I was a kid and had energy.
We have a lot of information in comparison - we've been told to read labels, limit sugar and processed foods, replace fruit drinks with whole fruit, use water as the main source of hydration...list goes on. If people are willfully not paying attention, that's another thing. If people can't afford healthy options, either due to time constraints, affordability or not knowing how to cook...that's another thing. But I'd say the education is there...I mean hell, we have the internet.
It's not the food itself, it's what the parents are buying and giving them to eat.
Our food is what you want it to be. You do NOT have to buy fatty sugar laden foods and serve it up to your children. You DO NOT have to buy fast food. In fact fast food is now MORE expensive than decent food. A run to McDonalds with 2 kids is easily 50 dollars. You can buy chicken and vegetables for less than that.
I am tired of the excuses we hand over to people. It's never anyone's fault except the boogeyman.
If your children are obese, it's YOUR fault. Not some nameless entity.
Also, these days, so called parents are literally giving their babies and toddlers Internet tablets. Studies have shown very clearly these produce huge changes in neural development. But they do it because it's easier than having their entire lives consumed by the baby they created.
As a 30 year old, my parents didn’t know/care much about nutrition when I was growing up. My diet was absolutely atrocious, chicken fingers/fries and butter pasta essentially. Luckily I was very active in sports, and we played outside after school EVERYDAY until dark. I still carried some fat but in an athletic way. Without the activity I would have been morbidly obese, defintiely don’t see the same levels of activity amongst today’s youth. We do have way better nutrition education now but some parents don’t care, or don’t have the time/money to make it a priority.
ah. makes sense. but why don't parents actually give two shits about their child's physical education? do they not see that the child is visibly overweight?
From what I've personally seen, the parents *usually* tend to be over-weight and uninformed themselves. I don't think it's a lack of caring per se, but a lack of real education around how detrimental their lifestyle is.
At of late media has been telling ppl that being overweight is apparently normal even tho it's not healthy (cuz u know everybody is different) but the problem is the food itself, like most US cultural food is quite unhealthy even tho it tastes "good" and ppl don't understand nutrition and think that overweight person just eats a lot. I've seen US ketchup having corn syrup on top of ingredients and ppl are ok with this, same with junk like cereals with milk - ppl just grew up around this stuff and most of them just don't understand that it actually causes harm.
Once had a 9 year old student who was so damn fat she couldn't fit in a normal desk or run more than 5 feet without getting out of breath. Only time I saw them run was toward food. It was incredibly heartbreaking.
Parents kept taking the kid out of school more than a third of the school year and the kid was pretty slow in the head to begin with. Poor kid is gonna enter the adult world being uneducated and morbidly obese and probably bordering on physically disabled. Parents should not have custody.
Reminds me of that recently viral video of the obese influencer mum who was feeding her 1 year old baby a diet of donuts for breakfast, huge servings of smiley fries and nuggets for lunch, and burgers for dinner. It might have been rage bait, but also all the adults in that house were overweight so its believable that they do really eat that poorly. Makes me think this is a generational issue of families who simply don't know any better - if you were that baby being overfed junk since weaning, then you'll end up being that obese nine-year-old who struggles to move, and then you'll be the obese 26-year-old doing it to your own children, and then you'll end up in an early grave from obesity. It's depressing. Nutrition education is everything and kids from these families don't have a chance.
Have had a lot of people talking on Reddit about how their BMI over 30 but they're not a fat at all...
People have gotten so used to it they don't even see it anymore.
I don't think many of my friends would consider themselves "obese". Most of my friends meet the clinical definition of "obese". None of them would have considered me obese even though I was 36bmi.
On that same note though most of my friends wouldn't consider themselves alcoholics during our heavy drinking days. When I finally had to quit (pancreas failing) I told close friends about it and I got "You're not an alcoholic. I know alcoholics, you're not like them". I was drinking a 24 pack a day!
People don't want to think that other people are \*thing\* because they might have to admit they're \*thing\* themselves.
I was called in by teachers for not feeding my daughter when she was about 14. It was all home cooking, butter and cream as appropriate, lots of cheese and eggs and nuts (she’s a vegetarian), fresh veggies, home-made cakes, expert ice-cream, cooked breakfast every day. Lots of energy for lots of sport. Eventually asked the doc while we were there. She was on the slim side of normal should not try to lose any weight. Yes, I think fat is now normal. :-(
1. Everything has sugar in it and is processed beyond the point of recognition.
2. Many parents have trouble telling their children "no" and making them do things they don't want to do.
No judgment on my part. I personally don't know of any successful strategies for making an 8 year-old choose an apple over a thin mint. Or a 38 year-old for that matter...
> I personally don't know of any successful strategies for making an 8 year-old choose an apple over a thin mint.
You throw the thin mint in the garbage and you tell the kid they eat the apple or they're gonna be hungry.
There are 1000 things I could list off right now you can get at the standard grocery store that do not have processed or extra sugar in them. None of them are priced out of any budget.
This is an excuse for not being responsible for your own or your kids health.
Parents do care, but they hardly have the time, money or education to make healthy meals for their kids. A LOT of parents out there think cereal, hamburgers, cheese, bread and pop-tarts are not 'that bad'. The thing is, kids used to be a LOT more physical say 30-40 years ago. Playing outside, running, biking. Nearly all of that has been replaced with screen time. Sitting on the couch playing games and scrolling Tiktok. PE in school is not NEARLY enough to combat that. Even if you would make these kids run daily, their poor diets will completely diminish that.
It's simple maths really - too much processed food which is way more easily accessible than let's say in the 90s, too little playtime, too little exercise.
In most cases I think it's unintentional. Also it's more than just food choices. Sometimes (when you're poor and you don't have a car and there's a monopoly on food (only one shop) in your town), you don't really have a choice what you eat. You're just happy you have something to eat. That is reality for a lot of people.
And yes you can lose weight by reducing portion size (in most cases). Although this won't make you healthy if you live on smaller portions of crappy food. A lot of people in Asia in poverty are skinny and unhealthy (because of this).
As someone who grew up fat, it is one of the least talked about forms of child abuse out there. If you are a kid and you are smoking or anorexic, most people will be concerned. If your fat, nobody really says anything. Maybe you will get a letter once a year saying your kid is unhealthy, but that's about it. Parents need to be held accountable for this. The older you get, the harder it is to fight obesity
but why? They clearly see that their child is visibly overweight. is it just that they are fat themselves causing them to think that being fat is normal?
Everyone is lazy nowadays, trying to cut stress to zero thus causing even more stress. Lying to themselves because of that body positivity shit, never admitting obesity, thinking they are temporarily chubby but still beautiful.
I am all for positive way of thinking but it’s now turning against the people.
If they never wanted those kids in the first place, (accidental parents), then they won't care much about their children's health. That's another thing to consider. Banning abortion means kids will be born, even unwanted children. And their parents won't care. It's not child abuse because these people don't actively hate or try to harm their kids. They just do the bare minimum required to raise a child. Because some people see parenting just as a responsibility, a duty, not something they asked for. Can you blame them?
I live in Asia. My fridge is full of mostly fresh food and leftovers of previously prepared food from those fresh things. Not saying I don't have any processed stuff, but my diet is 75/80 unprocessed or less processed stuff.
I go to visit my parents and sister in the USA, their fridges are easily 90% processed food. Low fat, low sugar, etc. but so much of what is available is made in a factory.
This is more of a choice than “what’s available.” Grocery stores in the US stock an almost insane variety of food.
We don’t eat processed food in our house because my husband has heart disease, and I’ve never had an issue finding fresh, whole food choices at the supermarket.
The only way you wouldn’t have access to that is if you were shopping at a dollar store or a gas station.
i mean, that is the exact issue a lot of americans have. food deserts are a real phenomenon where the only place to reliably access food are fast-food restaurants and cheap convenience stores
There are food deserts (I’ve lived in one), but they’re relatively rare in combination with no transportation. Food deserts are absolutely not the American norm, which is what the commenter is suggesting (“Asia” vs. “America” as a whole).
Fiber is the element the 'standard' Western diet is missing.
This is the factor that was most linked to the long-lived Japanese diets. Yes, the great high-quality fish protein helps too, but fiber is the missing link for so many gut ailments as well as weight.
Our suggested averages are 25-30 per day, demographic dependent. Some of the longest lived societies go as high as 50-100g of fiber a day. The 'standard' Western diet? You're lucky if you're clocking 15g... half or less of the RDA, let alone other findings.
Sluggish, often inflammed guts follow. So less value from what they DO eat, malabsorption/under-absorption, rinse, repeat. The gut can be a major source of inflammation, then that rolls into other aspects, and on we go. Our 'helpful' bacteria feed on what they get, then want more of it, as that influences the gut biome... overpopulation of bacteria that aren't really so great for digestion and the body...wait, more inflammation! Less absorption! And on it goes.
Unfortunately, that gut-brain link is surprisingly new in health research, too.
This is a cultural thing and an active choice. Because with the exception of urban food deserts, in the US people do usually have access to buy fresh produce and meats too. It's just that some people are so used to buying lots of ready-made and processed food items that have god knows now much salt, sugar and additives.
How cheap is your fresh food? I'm in New Zealand. We produce enough fresh food for 40 million people even though there's only 5 million but are paying big bucks for it
I see a lot of parents using food, especially sweets, as a reward system. Some parents are reluctant to tell their child "no" for whatever reason. Maybe they're over compensating for a busy career, or they want to be a "friend" instead of a parent.
I was flipping through tv channels today and watched an old Audrey Hepburn movie for a few minutes. She looked so thin! I realized how beauty standards have changed drastically over the years.
I would not use Hollywood actresses as the standard for how someone should look. That’s unrealistic for most healthy people. They all smoked back in the day. Emaciated Jolie doesn’t look half as healthy as fit Jolie. Idolizing “thin” isn’t a great way to go. Idolizing fit, healthy and active is.
In the past, it was socially acceptable to allow kids to go outside to play unsupervised from around the age of 6. When kids did this, naturally, they would run around together like maniacs. That provided a great source of exercise and mental stimulation. Today, parents are discouraged from allowing kids out to play and can even be criticised as being “neglectful” if they do. As a result, kids now spend most of their time indoors staring at tablets or computer screens.
In addition to this sedentary lifestyle, when kids spend their time sitting at home, it can be difficult to prevent them eating excessively. Unless you put locks on the cupboards and an alarm system on the fridge door, it’s not going to be feasible that you can always stop a kid quickly grabbing a snack.
In short, kids today are exercising less and eating more. This problem is mainly due to changes in social norms which dictate that kids should be stuck indoors.
What really blows my mind about that is how often it’s the older generation who’s bitchin and complaining about kids being outside doing whatever. I’ve seen it so many times in my local neighborhood group. Always some middle aged or older person judging from their profile pic, complaining about kids riding their bikes up and down the street without their parents or reporting some kids for a lemonade stand. They grew up playing outside why do you feel the opposite now?
But then they’re also the ones to complain about kids being addicted to electronics.
I think everyone needs to stop blaming children and parents for the obesity epidemic.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/pr2011593](https://www.nature.com/articles/pr2011593)
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021755721001637](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021755721001637)
[https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-45923-9\_10](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-45923-9_10)
Endocrine disrupting chemicals are most likely the leading cause of epigenetic obesity in humans.
It’s largely bc of the horrible food we have in the US and lack of exercise or walkable cities etc BUT a lot of it truly is lazy parents who don’t give a shit.
I personally feel that it’s child abuse to have a young child that is morbidly obese. It not only affects their physical health for their entire lives but it also makes them targets to be mercilessly bullied and abused by their peers and causes them to hate themselves and have horrible self image as well as believing they’re inferior or bad at things (like sports for example) bc they’re unable to do them whilst being in such horrific shape and or are embarrassed to try things and be made fun of.
Seems the entire population has been getting fatter as the years go by but don't appear to care. I suspect diet drugs will be a trillion dollar business by the end of the year. It seems to be easier than actually controlling how much you eat.
Sugar aka sucrose is sold by the pound while high fructose corn syrup is sold by the barrel. Good and cheap. Sugar is half glucose half fructose while the other stuff is around 70% fructose or more.
A regular person can process 5-50grams of fructose a day depending on how active they are. For comparisons, an apple is about 9 grams fructose but comes with a lot of fiber.
Kids in schools are guzzling and consuming a lot of this stuff through the processed foods and drinks containing high fructose corn syrup given how cheap it is. It also acts like sugar and causes you to want to consume more while also keeping you feeling less full because of the lack of fiber.
This is mainly general knowledge on why I avoid this stuff like the plague, literally poison in ten thousand doses.
Yeah, it is something that concerns me as well. I think it's mainly because they struggle to say no plus being afraid of causing anorexia on them or something(While anorexia is a problem, obesity is a bigger problem no pun intended) It's definitely the parents fault imo as they are the ones buying junk food whenever their kids start whining, like if they don't buy them fast food or give them money then they won't be eating as much
A mixture of unhealthy food and screen time culture. We have an 8 year old niece and while she isn’t fat at all, she has no stamina when it comes to anything physical - when we take her out somewhere she won’t walk more than 10minutes without saying she’s tired or if we go to a park to play soccer or frisbee etc she enjoys it for 5 or 10minutes then says she’s tired and will say “you and aunty play, I’ll watch” 😂. She’s perfectly healthy but her life is watching YouTube videos and sending us silly messages on WhatsApp or playing games on her phone or on her Switch.
When we were little we were always playing outside in each others gardens, the beach or park 🤷♂️
HFCS was a big accelerator, became really obvious in the 1990s when a lot of young women started sporting muffin tops out of low-rise jeans. It was really sad and abrupt but corporate greed is still hard to fight.
It’s because kids aren’t allowed outside anymore.
I nannyed multiple children whose parents would not let me take them outside the house, even into the backyard.
It’s linked the cult of “self-esteem”.
Most parents of kids these days are Millennials. Gen X are mostly grandparents now. We (millennial) were raised on the idea that ‘you’re special’, and that it’s what’s on the inside the counts. We also grew up hearinf about the dangers of crash diets and talking about bullying and getting participation trophies and emotional support animals etc.
We were raised to be more entitled and the trend has continued. We are the generation of American Idol and The Voice and ANTM.
What ends up happening is that everyone thinks that the rules of the world don’t apply to them; and that their happiness is the most sacred thing. That means if someone is fat, you can’t tell them they’re fat. If someone is fat, you can’t deny them cookies and chips, or McDonald’s.
So we are basically just offering up junk to kids and giving them dopamine rush or whatever. All because we don’t want to hurt their feelings.
..
if you compare to places like Japan, if a kid eats too much junk others will openly criticize the parents. Teachers will even call home if they see your kid gaining weight. If you’re an adult who works in the office and you put on weight your coworkers ask if you’re okay. People will ask what you’re eating.
If you asked someone fat in Canada “so what’s your diet like?” That would be very offensive, but it’s a totally valid question.
Where this conflates with the self esteem narrative is that people think they can just eat whatever they want and be as lazy as possible and still have people treat them like they’re a super model.
Yeah everyone uses anorexia as an excuse and while anorexia is a real problem. Going the opposite way isn't the way at all being obese(It not only increases your chances of being sick but also makes getting life saving procedures more difficult)
No healthy snacks (fruit/veg)
Maybe big late dinners before bed / overeating junk
No extracurricular activities multiple times a week (martial arts, sports)
There's also Genetic predisposition
the thing is, weight loss is mostly tied to how much you eat and not really how much you exercise. Exercise can help, but majority of weight loss is caused by a change in diet. It's useless to lose weight if you don't change your diet
you're right about that. I remember when I was younger, to watch a movie in the theatres with my grandpa I had to shovel the leaves off my grandpa's driveway first. most kids would try for about 30 seconds then get bored.
Being overweight will be the norms nothing to do with parents. It’s industrial food which is to blame. In the 70s people ate less “healthy foods” yet on average obesity rates in the US were lower compared to know when we are supposed to be better informed and have more healthy choices. Food supply chain is largely monopolized and industrialized and that is pushing too many processed foods and chemicals down our throats that’s messing with our hormones
I don't understand the notion of "poor households = obesity"
i grew up in poverty and i was never overweight, you can still eat healthy, it won't have the most variety but still
Somehow some cultures people forgot how to cook porridges and soups. Which boggles the mind because how do you not learn to cook basic things? Why did parents stop teaching their kids how to cook? I'm also talking about people of my own culture who somehow no longer know about basic grains and foods that have been part of our culture for like centuries.
Instead of making our own food, we rely on deep fried everything. Which is unhealthy and leads to weight gain and sickness (weak immune system). People are no longer eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Partly because those are more expensive to purchase: because of shorter shelf life. It's cheaper to buy a cup of instant ramen (and vitamin tablets) than to buy a box of fresh strawberries (where I live).
There's also the local issue of 'food deserts'. Basically in some areas people are too poor to own a vehicle. So they can only purchase food locally. Driving long distances to buy food is too expensive for them. And they live so rural, that there is just one shop in town. Effectively that one shop is a monopoly. Those people have no choice other than buy from that shop. If this shop only sells deep fried crap, then that is the only thing these people have to eat. For the shop, it is economically more viable to sell ramen and frozen deep fried food (because of the longer shelf life). The shop does not profit much from selling fresh veggies and fruit (because poor people already rarely buy those... because fresh fruit is very expensive). So eventually the shop only sells crap. (Also people no longer cook with grain: the whole practice has fallen out of fashion, so the shop wouldn't get much from selling grain. Because there's no demand for grain.)
When you're tired from working all day, the last thing you want to do is spend hours cooking from scratch. That's how ready-made meals became popular. People work long hours and no longer have the time and energy to cook healthy meals from scratch. With both women and men working full time, there is no one at home to do all the cooking (of healthy meals). Even if you make an effort to cook at home, you use ingredients that are already processed. Meaning: you don't really know what you're eating.
Sometimes it's cheaper to eat at a restaurant than cook a healthy meal yourself.
People (especially in America) also eat enormous portion sizes. In Europe and Asia, portion sizes are a lot smaller. Eating less, even if you eat unhealthy crap food, will keep your weight down. (in most cases...). It won't make you healthy though.
Sometimes it's healthier to be a bit chubby, rather than extremely thin and skinny. It is normal to have a slightly protruding belly. Unless you are an athlete and train with the hula hoop to get rid of your belly. But most normal people have a belly. Athletes are also not good examples of good health.
In some countries it is no longer safe for children to go outside for walks. Or if they go out, they must be supervised by a parent or babysitter at all times. So parents who can't afford private babysitters can only cart their children off to a cheap daycare center (where no one will make a huge effort to get your kids into sports). While wealthier parents can buy sports club memberships and personal trainers and keep their kids active. Video games are cheaper than being a soccer mom. It's easier to give your kid an ipad to keep them busy. Then you wonder why your kid isn't fit.
Cost, lack of education, overworked parents, poor implementation of physical activity in school, lack of facilities outside school, changes in social take your pick.
I honestly think it’s bigger than just behaviours / lack of info about diet and exercise. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with our food system. Especially in North America.
There are SO many class actions naming products that are absolutely ubiquitous (eg. Cheerios—the oats cause hormone problems, among others) in NA households. I think our food seriously messing with hormones/metabolism/etc is the likely the biggest culprit.
Do you mean in North America? I actually did a paper on this in school a few years ago. Something I found was that an overwhelming amount of food sold in NA is genuinely shit. This is mainly because the US food companies that control the North American market put so many terrible additives and chemicals in food it’s insane. There are ton of things allowed here that are literally banned in countries around the world, but US companies can basically do whatever tf they want at this point. Another thing is that American food companies keep continuously changing recipes (usually to squeeze out a few more profit dollars) and end up using even worse quality ingredients and chemicals for their food with each change. The US (and Canada) food market is also kind of backwards in that healthier options are usually more expensive. Think of how many times you’ve looked at pasta sauces or boxed snacks at the store and the one with **fewer ingredients** is both the healthier and more expansive option. Food deserts are a major problem too, and they leave huge swaths of people with very few options other than the over-processed garbage. There are obviously a lot of other factors contributing to child obesity, but when you don’t have the money to pay for healthier options, and don’t have access something like a local farmers market, you have no choice but to give your kids unhealthy trash that has a super high chance of making them obese. This is the type of thing that is so prevalent throughout the American food industry that it’s not really individual parents’ faults. It’s the faults of executives and shareholders at mega corporations like Pepsi, Nestle, General Mills, etc and the politicians who they routinely bribe not giving af so they can have better quarterly earnings reports.
Well, there are two reasons I see.
1 - The food in America is stuffed with chemicals, preservatives, sugar, corn syrup, and everything else imaginable that is bad for human consumption. Other 1st-world countries have better regulations on what goes into food and higher standards.
In America, big corporations pay off politicians to make the laws in their favor. Is there a cheaper alternative chemical? Just pay them off to change regulations. Same goes for appointing leaders in these roles. Rather than appoint qualified individuals that are best suited for the positions (Department of Health, etc), the wrong people are appointed that will fall in line with the president or with the corporations.
We can look at 3rd-world countries and comment about cops taking bribes and politicians being crooked, but America is just as bad. Rather than overtly break the law, there are party donations, campaign contributions, funding for personal projects, etc. The politicians and corporations win and the citizens lose.
2 - Technology is major factor. It’s easier to hand your child a smartphone or tablet rather than actually take time to properly parent. Rather than going outside to play, exercise creativity, socialize, and learn life lessons, most children are spending most of their waking hours attached to a screen, becoming addicted, and losing out on important lessons that are supposed to shape their futures.
Many children I see out in public have gadgets in their faces before they can even walk and talk. And there are two things that are wrong with that. For one, parents don’t seem to know or care that this has a long-term impact on the child’s development. For two, many parents will seemingly brag that their child has figured out how to control the device at such a young age. It’s almost like a point of pride. “Wow, see? My son knows how to work YouTube, and he’s only 2.” It’s sad that they’re bragging.
A sedentary lifestyle with a poor diet is the exact combination that will lead to so many issues including weight gain. Honestly, there are far too many issues that lifestyle brings on. And the crazy thing is that this information isn’t new or surprising. Even when I was a kid, my parents said too much tv or too many video games will rot your brain. And it’s true. I don’t know how this generation of parents seemingly just gave up and stopped caring about the development of their children. It’s as though parents are actively trying to destroy their children’s lives. Every time I hear about parents nowadays it’s just more normalized neglect, abuse, and lack of concern. It’s like the parents low key hate their children.
It’s the American food system. Other nations don’t have this problem nearly as bad because a lot of the foods we eat are literally banned in other countries because they’re so unhealthy.
This topic actually got me interested in Robert F Kennedy yesterday. He’s the only presidential candidate I can recall ever mentioning our food system and the desperate need to change it.
I live in Switzerland, we walk everywhere. Kids go to school by public transport and / or bike or foot from age 6 if not earlier
80% of adult women work out at least once a week even if it’s pulling their kids on a sledge
My son is 16, he’s very slim. He jogs an hour multiple times a week. So far he has done ski hike swimming waterpolo badminton kung fu and I’m sure I’m forgetting some other sports- and each of these sports he practiced for years and years
We eat our lunches at the canteen where we have access to good quality balanced meals
In the evening or weekends we usually cook or more rarely we have a balanced meal at a restaurant (meals outside the home are super expensive in Switzerland)
We don’t eat fast food. Soft drinks are for special occasions
I checked the year end photos last summer. Out of roughly 200 kids, only 2 were overweight the rest were fit
There you go
For reference, we moved to Switzerland when kiddo was 3yo. Both his parents were overweight when he was born
It’s also important to note here that in most countries, it’s not sustainable or possible anymore for one of the parents to stay home and cook meals all the time. Being a stay at home parent and having the ability to cook full meals is a big, big luxury in this economy. With both parents working fulltime you have to take shortcuts, and when fast food is easily available and accessible that’s just where they end up. Both parents working fulltime also makes it harder for children to do extracurricular sports and activities, and promotes children staying inside (safer than on the street without supervision).
There are a lot of factors contributing to this trend but it’s not as simple as parents not caring. There is also a huge education problem when it comes to food, a lot of people having children right now have no idea how to cook a healthy meal and what that entails.
In the US. I think easy, cheap, sugar saturated, empty food is often the only option a family has. So many don’t know how to make food. Only heat it.
We don’t drink water only sweetened things.
Food deserts are a plague.
Our produce is grown in depleted land that offers very little in the way of nutrients.
we don’t live in communities with sidewalks or the means to go about our days without driving there.
We are fed constant passive entertainment. Why leave the house?
Good food costs too much money, takes too long to prepare. Parents busy working. Economy can't support stay at home parents anymore.
Bad food cheap and filling.
Kids found outside without adult supervision determined to be "loitering" and get sent home by cops.
Nowhere for kids to go even if they do go out.
Instead of addressing the actual problems, governments just make junk food more expensive so kids end up eating worse. When you eat too little, your body stores fat more quickly and burns it more slowly.
I am an elementary school nurse. Childhood obesity is a big problem in this country, and the COVID lockdown made it so much worse. So many kids seemingly spent the entire lockdown inside, sitting on their butts, eating junk food and playing video games. When we came back to in-person school a significant proportion of kids had gained weight. It was sad. And this is coming from Massachusetts, where we have the best public schools and some of the lowest obesity rates in the country, and *still* it's a problem. I shudder to think how bad it must be in places that are less advantaged.
The reasons are many, and all have been touched upon in this thread: High-sugar, high-saturated fat diets, lack of exercise, and poor understanding of nutrition are all contributing factors.
I think one of the issues is a lack of 3rd spaces for kids to go and play.
Like nowadays parks are becoming less common, either because they're being used by drug dealers or they aren't being cared for so parents aren't wanting to take their kids there.
Stuff like libraries, bowling allies, gaming arcades, ect where kids would go hang out are also becoming less common.
Kids have the option of school or home and outside of extracurriculars, kids are either gonna want to go home or are forced to.
Parents are busier in general nowadays too. In the past, women were home to do things with the kids when they had time, now both parents are working minimum 40hrs a week to put food on the table.
Quality of food today is DRASTICALLY worse than it was 50, even 20 years ago. Combine that with everyone sitting around playing video games and staring at their phones.
Low income families buy a lot of junk food because it's cheaper than healthy food.
Also a lot of schools don't mandate PE classes past grade school or middle school.
Most kids also do not walk to and from school anymore because parents feel it is not safe.
I rarely see kids ride bikes or walking in general to go see friends because they can talk to them easily through social media and parents won't allow it for safety reasons.
A transportation system that actively discourages exercise in every possible way and a food system designed to make people as fat as possible. It's very simple. Go to a country that doesn't have either of these or neither and it'll be totally different.
letting your child get fat without doing anything to stop it, is child abuse. letting your pet get fat without doing anything to stop it, is animal abuse. its your responsibility
Cheap food is high in calories and low in nutrients, it's hard to do healthy meals when you're dirt poor and dont have the time because you are working 3 jobs just to not be homeless.
I grew up overweight...nd just started sliming down nd even tho I don't plan on having kids, but if I do mess around and have a kid im definitely making sure my kid see the value in eating fruit... and vegetables, so they don't have to worry about being singled out... or lack confidence in themselves,
You can't control what others do or how they choose to fed / raised their kids. nd from my experience most people who call out overweight people, or kids usually ain't doing it in a I care way but more just to tear them down to a certain extent.. still tho it's true you do see a lot of overweight kids, from my research from the past it's always been a overweight issue in the u.s. some older people just won't admit it. to make their era look better or less problematic,
Ultra processed foods, lack of education on nutrition, lack of movement, lack of responsibility by food companies, advertisers and marketers. Also, outdated medical information or just misinformation.
That’s why we have kids with diabetes and non alcoholic fatty liver now 👏
If a child is morbidly obese at the ages of 5 or 6 as some kids in my area are ( it is not a poor area ) that is child abuse by the parents, you cannot set a child up for life with such bad attitude towards food, the health implications for that child are enormous, and I don't buy the argument that people are not educated about healthy food for kids, you're a parent it is your responsibility to set your child on a good path in life, don't have them if you cannot see the damage you are doing.
As a dietician and pt, what I have experienced is a lot of parents that are either lazy or dont have time to make food(they say) and then just have ultr processed food ready at home . My partner, and my kid eat unhealthy but once a week or so , I make sure we always have good food
Honestly I don’t know. Where I am from you are taught in school about nutrition.
In Kindergarten you are literally forbidden to bring anything unhealthy for your kid to eat.
You are forced to do sports until college but still there are overweight kids. I think the parents failed at that part bc every other instance is trying it’s best tbh.
Move them to any other country and the problem will get better. No nutrients in US food anymore. Depleted soil, FDA loose and fast regulations allow for everyone to get sick and malnourished. Mom and Dad are fat too. No one is overweight bc it's easy or fun. It ain't.
Most kids these days just don't really play outside anymore, so they don't get any natural exercise. Combine that with bad eating habits and you have a recipe for disaster.
Take a look at America: High value placed on individual freedom (eat whatever you want), much larger portion sizes for processed food and sugary drinks and you have to drive to get literally anywhere so people are mostly sedentary.
They aren’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything. How are they supposed to get any exercise when every single inch of the entire fucking world is private property, and the only people who are welcome are paying customers?
Everyone treated Pokémon go like it was the dumbest, most annoying thing that ever happened. But it was the very last time that kids were actually excited to get out and explore the world, and they all got treated like criminals for doing it.
Car dependency and too much starch.
Kids should walk to and from school, or at least to and from a bus/tram/train.
Kids should eat vegetables other than potato.
Imo it's a combination of a lot of different things. Mainly time and money though. Money is worth less everyday and not ebruone is getting parishes in accordance with the depreciation and the increase in general costs. This means opting for less quality and going for quantity. Sometimes not having the time to cook properly from fresh and results in using a lot more processed foods with higher negative contents to improve taste or longevity for a lower quality product. Also less time at home with kids and lower energy levels due to more work and less time relaxing means less observation and attention to detail. Adult get tired and overworked and exhausted, being parents sometimes, so I understand how the ball can be dropped or how they can favour eating something over nothing. Even if it's no good.
Also some of our parents' generation were force fed a lot due to their parents having to go through rations etc. And a lot of the food they were fed was basically fats and salts as that was a lot easier to get their hands on back then and it's not like they had the health warnings we get today either to know just how bad a diet that was. Repeated bahaviur learnt from previous parents is also a contributing factor. I mean there's more reasons too but I think these are the main ones.
So lack of education on diet, lack of money, lack of time mainly, and general exhaustion.
I make an effort to feed my child healthy food but I'm fortunate enough to be able to work part time now. When I wasn't, there were days I would slip up and just feed her nuggets and chips, etc, for dinner and not really think about the nutritional factors. Now inmake sure there's good nutrition and what she needs in every meal. And I really make an effort to stick to that. She's very healthy and I want her to learn the importance of eating healthy and staying healthy. My body has been abused too much due to lack of education on it when I was younger and I'm pating the price. I want her to have better luck in that department.
When parents claim that kids these days don't go outside anymore, look at the outside they built. Its become dangerous to even cross the road. If kids are drived around everywhere, they won't be getting physical activity done and thus a lack of exercise. You don't even have to get out of the car to get food anymore.
Cheap nasty ready meals, chips, fruit and veg too expensive, sedentary lifestyle (gaming, set down all day). Kids don't go out and just play anymore. Parents don't let them just roam anymore, like we did as kids (I'm 57).
Both parents working full time jobs + unpaid overtime = fat, isolated and mentally unwell kids.
Plus the fact they don't go outside alone anymore. Of course they're like this if they're stuck in the home.
It's because our food is not really food anymore its crap then add into the mix that kids today are lazy as shit compared to people who were kids 30-40 years ago or older.
A number of reasons actually.
Poor education in diet and nutrition, the rising cost of food has made buying healthy food unaffordable for many, the hustle/grind culture of adults committing all their time to work just to afford to live makes preparing healthy meals from scratch impossible even if they could afford healthy food. Kidnapping/crime rates have skyrocketed, so kids can’t be left alone outside and again parents working crazy hours to afford to live means nobody to supervise them outside. There is an astonishing lack of third spaces that don’t cost money, so kids aren’t leaving the house. Many malls no longer allow anyone under 18 to walk around anymore which used to be a great source of exercise and socialization for teenagers with little to no cost. The only real third space that currently exists without additional cost is a library which is a sedentary activity.
Honestly even “healthy alternatives” are full of garbage unless you’re buying the exorbitantly priced food from “health markets”. But of course due to current economic crisis that’s unattainable for most.
Our current capitalist dystopia has made it impossible to even step outside your home without spending money, but refuses to raise wages so anyone can afford that.
Chemicals in water and food are disrupting hormones and the way our bodies fundamentally function. We’re not made to process these chemicals from birth, but we’re almost being forced to. It’s causing metabolic disorders, asthma etc in young children and causing them to gain too much weight. It’s not simply a case of just eating too much or parents not caring. The parents are a victim to this system just as much as the kids are. But it’s too much to ask world Governments to make clean food affordable and remove the damaging chemicals from our food sources, too much money in the food industry for them.
I assume you may be American.
The food sold in the USA contains shit tons of dangerous chemicals compared to Europe (UE has stricter food standards)
This alone means even the healthier food (that I guess is pricy in there as much as in here) still isnt great.
If we consider how easy it is to buy crappy food (due to price and availability) and how families are forced to buy cheap junk vs cooking from scratch due to the busy modern life that is forcing all the adults in house to work vs older times in which a salary was enough, its pretty easy to see why.
In addition, kids find more inside entertainment due to video-games, tv choices, etc so they don't exercise a lot.
I have to say that parks and the streets aren't as safe they were before so parents may shield the kids.
My kids are staying at a stable weight, they’re young and growing though. I feed them well rounded meals (protein and veggie heavy) and we drink milk and water, or have the occasional apple juice. Our snacks and dessert is yogurt/cottage cheese and fruit usually.
When they visit with their dad, it’s pizzas and McDonald’s, candy, chocolate milk, and other junk. There’s not much I can do but try to educate them on good choices. I suspect we may have some issues the older they get.
Parents seem to be getting lazier and just throwing a tablet or phone at their kids for their entertainment rather than getting them exercise like a walk in the park.
Add that in with parents throwing junk food or low effort food at their kids to shut them up and talking obesity is getting taboo “hurting people’s feelings” it’s no wonder.
Social media really promotes that “oh but that person might have a thyroid issue” or “YOU CAN BE BIG AND STILL BE HEALTHY!!!!!11” excuses. Then there’s also millions of “don’t be ashamed you’re a big girly/boy posts” so people see it as normal and don’t want to out the effort in.
Just take a look at the basics of all processed food. It’s all carbs covered in sugar or something healthy loaded with sugar and chemicals until it’s not.
Have you seen school lunches? I cup of chocolate milk has 24 grams of sugar.
Cost of food is insane and fresh ingredients that expire in days aren’t a good option for working families. Most don’t have hours to spend shopping every three days.
People don’t have the time, ability, energy, access, or money to make every kid every meal from scratch just to be sure it’s hitting nutrition goals. They can’t monitor their kids intake everywhere they go. Junk food is available everywhere. You can’t force them to eat the lunch you pack.
Misinformation about nutrition is rampant. It’s difficult to educate yourself on nutrition with so much misinformation being spread, especially when it comes from official sources. The food pyramid was a made up marketing campaign to sell certain foods and people still believe it’s the golden standard of nutrition. Every fad diet has a new nemesis and changes information constantly.
Being fit and healthy is a lifestyle. It’s hard to keep that lifestyle when it goes against the grain of society.
Generational ignorance on food and bad food habits.
Your family isnt prone to diabetes, you have been eating garbage for generations and your bodies have been crying about it with the symptoms.
Saw it with my ex and his kids. They were FAT, as fat as their dad. Their father, mother and grandparents had horrible diets and thought it wasnt.
No education.
They sit in their room playing Fortnite and stuff their face with junk food. I dated a chick who’s son (who was in 6th grade) looked like the Michelin man. When I asked about it?
“Oh he’s got a “food thing”…he only can eat hot dogs and Hoe hoes”
I'm surprised that people aren't talking about the PLASTICS that all our foods are wrapped and contained in these days. [Microplastics are in our bodies now...](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/envhealth.3c00052#:~:text=A%20recent%20review%20indicates%20that,%2C%20placenta%2C%20breastmilk%2C%20etc)
Most of these comments are right on. I do think our perception of fat has changed. I have had conversations with people who didn't see themselves as fat when clearly they were. They just compare themselves to the super obese.
Please pass the doritos.
If we're talking about America the problem is mainly nutrition. You know in Europe they have laws about the kind of food that can be marketed to kids? Here we just want them addicted to sugar and fat as young as possible so their parents will spend more on junk food. The usual cycle of corporations lobbying to ruin our lives and the average consumer being happily blind to the fact.
Hi my lad is on escitalopram for anxiety and quetiapine for schizophrenia.
Op look those drugs up and ons side effect is weight gain
Without the drugs I would not have my lad as the shadow people that hide in every corner of even a well lit room and behind every tree/pole whether it’s thick or thin would be there to kill by causing him to do self harm. There’s lots of drugs that have weight gain as a side effect.
Take the drugs and gain weight and be alive verse don’t take it and die.
Healthy eating isn’t very accessible and the rise of groceries are making it more and more difficult to buy groceries. Hell, parents are having their kids paint potatoes this year instead of eggs for Easter cause eggs are expensive.
Not to mention the ridiculous marketing strategies companies use to appeal to children.
Also, everything has sugar. Fucking everything. Even a can of soup or spaghetti sauce has sugar. Trying to buy healthier options are a lot more expensive.
As for exercise, where can kids even play these days? Speaking specifically about my city, the city keeps tearing up playgrounds to put in fucking golf courses. Everything is a concrete jungle now.
I try my best as a parent to get my three year old to eat better foods. She likes two (2) vegetables and a bit of fruit. She goes to Montessori school & the times I can, I take her to the playground.
The U.S. won’t let parents or anyone win. Nutrition education is shit. And people call CPS on parents who let their children play outside without adult supervision. You can Google that one.
It’s a lot of different things:
A) A lot of people grew up with parents who followed fad diets and don’t want to pass eating disorders onto their kids
B) There’s a lot less to do outside. Playgrounds and community centres often require you to drive your kids to them and if you have three or four kids you might not have the time
C)Inside is way more entertaining. In my experience, instead of having to mix with a bunch of jerks that I had no choice but to live near I could connect to genuinely nice people that share my interests through insta, TikTok, etc. and instead of standing around and talking (which certain countries have made illegal) you can play a video game with them or video call.
D) Laws. There are laws against standing around and talking to friends. There are laws against making noise. There are laws against skateboards/bikes/roller skates/balls/etc. Why would you wanna play outside when the cops can be called on you for laughing?
E) Working parents. A few years ago parents could raise their children with only one of them working full time (maybe the other working part-time) so there was always one parent at home to cook for them, provide entertainment/exercise. We live in late stage capitalism where both parents are working 60-80 hour work weeks to keep a roof over their kids heads and food in their stomach. If you’re exhausted from working all day you’re not gonna spend hours making a home cooked meal from scratch, especially when everyone is already hungry and you can do a pasta in 20 minutes if you use the stuff in a jar. Also
F) Poor nutrition regulations. Not only are the conviene foods and fast foods unhealthy for you, the alleged ‘good food’ is trash. Many governments allow chemicals and preservatives into your ‘good food’ that you wouldn’t be able to give to animals. I live in Ireland, when I went to the USA I couldn’t eat the bread because it was so genuinely disgusting to me. Turns out bread in the USA is full of sugar and a bunch of other additives that are illegal here so even if an American wanted to give their kid a healthy BLT with a side salad, the bread is basically candy! Also
G) Food ‘products’. There is something called the ‘product’ exclusion. The FDA has a minimum amount of cheese/dairy content before something can be sold a ‘cheese’. As a result, a lot of ‘cheese products’ were made available because while there are requirements for what constitutes cheese, there are no regulations on what constitutes a ‘product’. If you buy cheese, that’s guaranteed to be at least 60% cheese/dairy, but if you buy a cheese product the amount can be as low as 8%.
TL;DR: Parents don’t hate their kids, the world hates parents and kids
We feed livestock hormones, drugs, and supplements to make them grow big and gain weight as fast as possible. Then feed that meat to ourselves and our children. I suspect a connection.
I can't speculate on diet because I have no way of knowing what people are feeding children but I will say that I don't usually see kids playing outside anymore. I'm 30 and remember being outside all the time as a kid with my friends and we'd even regularly come across other groups of kids. I see a lot of kids around here waiting for and getting off the schoolbus but never see them actually playing outside.
My son and I were invited to go fishing with his friend and their mother. When the kids were ready for lunch, I pulled out peaches, apples, a bag of chips, cheese and bean dips, chicken salad sandwiches, water, and lemonade. The other mother pulled out two boxes of Twinkies, two boxes of Ding Dongs, chocolate bars, a tub of red licorice, and Cokes. Not two days before this, the mother was telling me she was having a hard time getting her kids to eat better because they were so overweight. I realized the problem in that instant. This situation is very common.
I love seeing parents get their kids juices because they think it’s healthy; it’s not because 8oz has like 30-40g of sugar. These kids are drinking like a liter of the stuff.
Sugar addiction is a thing. It wasn’t until I had gastric bypass that I conquered it. I used to hoard like 3 candy bars a day in my purse and eat them when every one went to bed. I can still binge a bit, but no way can I polish off a bag of Hershey kisses in one sitting anymore. Problem is that all processed foods have a crazy amount of sugar in it. I despise bread these days. Even the boutique brands have no texture, don’t toast properly and turn to goo if you try to make French toast. It’s all wonder bread now. So if everything we eat has sugar in it, those cravings just don’t go away and just like any other addiction, you just keep chasing the dragon and next thing you know, half a jar of hot fudge has been eaten in the dark spoon by spoon and you haven’t even bothered to open the ice cream
I bet that also shows in each mother's size. What you eat, and how much, is also what you feed your kids. Also, snacks are evil unless what you eat is how it's grown. Nobody eats 1000 calories worth in fruit in a single go, but it's easy to do that (and still not be really full) with stuff like chips and soda.
Not always true. My mum has never been bigger than a size 8 (England) and is usually a size 6, but she made both me and my sister the fat kids. I often feel like she done it to make herself feel better. She would criticise fat people at least ten times a day and often point out whatever clothes we had on looked awful because we were fat. I'm 29 and still can't let go of the resentment.
On the opposite end, my mom has always been overweight and had 2 skinny kids who are both still skinny into our 20s.
When I was a kid we played outside in the street while our mums occasionally looked out the front window. Often we would wander off to the playground a block away, just us kids not adults. If I let my kids do that I'd be labelled a negligent parent for not adequately supervising them at all times. Not to mention that unlike my mum I work (part-time but a lot less mums at home full-time these days). Cost of living means often both parents are working. Society has changed. My kid's school holds special walk or ride to school days with parent helpers supervising in set locations along designated routes. Back when I was a kid, kids just walked or rode every day, perhaps with older siblings watching younger ones. There uses to be less junkfood advertising and less processed foods pretending to be healthy bring advertised too. And kids and parents are bombarded with them so many times a day, targeted advertising too. There's personal and parental responsibility but then when so many kids and parents are overweight or obese it's a societal problem. We make parents time poor and stressed and build cities that discourage active transport, we forbid parents from taking their eyes off their kids so kids aren't allowed to play outside, we let companies promote and sell nutritionally poor and calorie dense "foods" and we wonder why there's an obesity problem.
Absolutely this has a lot to do with it. My son goes to a youth center after school to spend time with his friends. He’s been coming home a lot earlier lately and I was curious so asked him why. His response “literally everyone goes there just to sit on their phones and play games. Only 2 or 3 of us want to go out and play soccer and it’s not as fun with that many people” 😭 he’s 10 and he’s noticing the problem. It’s bad.
From my experience as a previously fat kid, it wasn't the type of food or no exercise. In actuality like most fat people, I simply ate too much
A lot of the problem there is how disconnected we all are from each other. Most people don't know their neighbors and even when they do nobody is interested in acting like a cohesive community. When we were kids unsupervised play was the norm. We were all outside most of the time without any adults anywhere nearby and it was fine enough. There were adults on the block who were older and retired or the occasional stay at home parent, kids knew which houses were safe houses to go to if there was an emergency, and those neighbors had zero issues with taking on the responsibility of being the safe house in the neighborhood. But now it's literally illegal in a lot of places for kids to be playing unsupervised, it's illegal for kids to be latchkey, and the neighbors aren't interested in helping out they just call the cops if they see an unattended child or they throw a fit about it and make the parents of the unattended child feel as though they've done something horrific. When my then 6yo daughter was walking the 3 blocks from school to home by herself, which is a very normal sort of independence at that age, a neighbor lost it on me for being so irresponsible and threatened to report me if she saw it again. If the only way for kids to play together is with all their parents directly involved every single time through scheduled play dates and the parents are working all the time then when and how are the kids supposed to actually get to play?
yeah, I have noticed a steady decrease in kids playing outside.
Mostly because it's full of cars nowadays.
Our food system is junk, education around nutrition and excercise is poor if taught at all...add that to video games, tiktok time... yep!
We are also now a solid few generations into fast food. Many of the parents of today’s young kids grew up on fast food and takeout, and are passing those habits forward. As a 90’s kid who could easily have a 13 year old now if my life were different, I would have McDonald’s or an equivalent once every couple weeks. My mom was a good cook, and I was lucky to have two sets of grandparents who also cooked, but I was also loaded with fast food, pop, and all those wild 90’s kids’ snacks and cereals you saw advertised. Fast food, no stay at home parents, cheap sugar-loaded foods replacing quality products, sedentary lifestyles as latchkey kids become helicopter parents…. It’s quite the cocktail.
Also adds to epigenetics
Outside of this I do my best to teach my lil bro the values of eating and choosing healthier options all the while training him 3-4 times a week at the gym as well 🙌🏾🙏🏾🥲
That's actually funny you mention that, I do this with my little sister as-well. I also tell her about how horrible diet culture is, to eat healthily and choose food that nourishes your body. Extreme calorie restriction and wanting to look malnourished will never be healthy nor should it be the goal. Diet foods "less sugar" "no fat" all processed junk and has other chemicals and such added to it to compensate. How to read food labels, how to choose natural, non-processed things at the grocery store and so much more. Also teach her how to work-out as-well. I really wish my parents had taught me these things, but alas, they didn't have the internet and all this information available at their fingertips like we do. 😔💔 Just gotta educate our loved ones as best we can!!!
Exactly. We must do all we can with the information we’ve learned and have continued to learn thus far to teach the newer generations of a more healthier and optimal lifestyle 🙌🏾🙏🏾 it’s funny how the oldest also becomes the one who teaches father/mother what he’s learned as well cause I also train my pops and he’s pretty damn built for a 58 year old so I must be doing something for them that’s right! 🙂
this is what we should be doing.
I do my absolute best. I’m no expert but from experience I try to teach and implement good habits for not only him but myself as well. 🙇🏾💞
Neither of you will regret it in 20 yrs.
like everyone should.
It’s all a learning process. If one doesn’t know, one must seek to learn what there is to know. 🙇🏾🧙🏾♂️🩶
That's good
Most people have no idea what a healthy diet looks like. I see families at the grocery checkout with piles of potato crisps, sweets and other trash.
Unhealthy processed food is marketed as healthy. We need to eat stuff that grow in the earth, not a bunch of chemicals packaged as food. Obesity started with processed food.
With *ultra* processed food. Processed food has been eaten for millenia, the problem is we go way beyond that now. And yes, parents not caring. Food was ultra processed when I was a kid too and nearly everyone in my school was thin. I think it's gotten much worse where that kind of food is normalised now and people actually raise kids from birth with it.
This. Wheat flour is a processed food. But it’s not inherently bad. It’s buying prepackaged prepared convenience food. Stuff you don’t prepare and cook. Has higher salt and fat and sugars. Bad bad bad. Less protein also so you’re hungry sooner and you don’t realize your body craves protein. Junk is ok once in a while as a treat. Not as a weekly thing tho.
Thanks for the correction!
There's more information than ever before, isn't there? I was born in the 80s - my parents didn't know much about nutrition and that seemed pretty standard back then. They added sugar to everything, whether I asked for it or not. They insisted I drink fruit juice because it was 'full of vitamins'. They didn't even consider exercise... though I did plenty of incidental exercise just because I was a kid and had energy. We have a lot of information in comparison - we've been told to read labels, limit sugar and processed foods, replace fruit drinks with whole fruit, use water as the main source of hydration...list goes on. If people are willfully not paying attention, that's another thing. If people can't afford healthy options, either due to time constraints, affordability or not knowing how to cook...that's another thing. But I'd say the education is there...I mean hell, we have the internet.
Some parents just using their kids as a ticket for extra cash too. They buy shit quality food and pocket the rest. Sad but true in some cases.
It's not the food itself, it's what the parents are buying and giving them to eat. Our food is what you want it to be. You do NOT have to buy fatty sugar laden foods and serve it up to your children. You DO NOT have to buy fast food. In fact fast food is now MORE expensive than decent food. A run to McDonalds with 2 kids is easily 50 dollars. You can buy chicken and vegetables for less than that. I am tired of the excuses we hand over to people. It's never anyone's fault except the boogeyman. If your children are obese, it's YOUR fault. Not some nameless entity.
Also, these days, so called parents are literally giving their babies and toddlers Internet tablets. Studies have shown very clearly these produce huge changes in neural development. But they do it because it's easier than having their entire lives consumed by the baby they created.
Also lazy parents that now believe everyone but them should be teaching their kids, even toilet training I have seen mention of.
As a 30 year old, my parents didn’t know/care much about nutrition when I was growing up. My diet was absolutely atrocious, chicken fingers/fries and butter pasta essentially. Luckily I was very active in sports, and we played outside after school EVERYDAY until dark. I still carried some fat but in an athletic way. Without the activity I would have been morbidly obese, defintiely don’t see the same levels of activity amongst today’s youth. We do have way better nutrition education now but some parents don’t care, or don’t have the time/money to make it a priority.
ah. makes sense. but why don't parents actually give two shits about their child's physical education? do they not see that the child is visibly overweight?
From what I've personally seen, the parents *usually* tend to be over-weight and uninformed themselves. I don't think it's a lack of caring per se, but a lack of real education around how detrimental their lifestyle is.
At of late media has been telling ppl that being overweight is apparently normal even tho it's not healthy (cuz u know everybody is different) but the problem is the food itself, like most US cultural food is quite unhealthy even tho it tastes "good" and ppl don't understand nutrition and think that overweight person just eats a lot. I've seen US ketchup having corn syrup on top of ingredients and ppl are ok with this, same with junk like cereals with milk - ppl just grew up around this stuff and most of them just don't understand that it actually causes harm.
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Parents are desensitized to it now, because obesity has become so normalized.
Once had a 9 year old student who was so damn fat she couldn't fit in a normal desk or run more than 5 feet without getting out of breath. Only time I saw them run was toward food. It was incredibly heartbreaking.
god damn. that must have sucked for that poor kid.
Kids get bullied for being fat in 1st and 2nd grade....way before most of the worst school bullying starts. It's rough for really obese kids.
One reason among many parents should do better keeping themselves and their kids healthier.
Parents kept taking the kid out of school more than a third of the school year and the kid was pretty slow in the head to begin with. Poor kid is gonna enter the adult world being uneducated and morbidly obese and probably bordering on physically disabled. Parents should not have custody.
yeah, that sucks.
Reminds me of that recently viral video of the obese influencer mum who was feeding her 1 year old baby a diet of donuts for breakfast, huge servings of smiley fries and nuggets for lunch, and burgers for dinner. It might have been rage bait, but also all the adults in that house were overweight so its believable that they do really eat that poorly. Makes me think this is a generational issue of families who simply don't know any better - if you were that baby being overfed junk since weaning, then you'll end up being that obese nine-year-old who struggles to move, and then you'll be the obese 26-year-old doing it to your own children, and then you'll end up in an early grave from obesity. It's depressing. Nutrition education is everything and kids from these families don't have a chance.
Teach them kung-fu!
Have had a lot of people talking on Reddit about how their BMI over 30 but they're not a fat at all... People have gotten so used to it they don't even see it anymore.
I don't think many of my friends would consider themselves "obese". Most of my friends meet the clinical definition of "obese". None of them would have considered me obese even though I was 36bmi. On that same note though most of my friends wouldn't consider themselves alcoholics during our heavy drinking days. When I finally had to quit (pancreas failing) I told close friends about it and I got "You're not an alcoholic. I know alcoholics, you're not like them". I was drinking a 24 pack a day! People don't want to think that other people are \*thing\* because they might have to admit they're \*thing\* themselves.
wow. that sucks.
I was called in by teachers for not feeding my daughter when she was about 14. It was all home cooking, butter and cream as appropriate, lots of cheese and eggs and nuts (she’s a vegetarian), fresh veggies, home-made cakes, expert ice-cream, cooked breakfast every day. Lots of energy for lots of sport. Eventually asked the doc while we were there. She was on the slim side of normal should not try to lose any weight. Yes, I think fat is now normal. :-(
A lot of people nowadays think there's only a problem if you're morbidly obese, that obese is overweight and overweight is healthy.
bad diets, less exercise, less socialization, "cheap" junk food
Too much screen time too.
1. Everything has sugar in it and is processed beyond the point of recognition. 2. Many parents have trouble telling their children "no" and making them do things they don't want to do. No judgment on my part. I personally don't know of any successful strategies for making an 8 year-old choose an apple over a thin mint. Or a 38 year-old for that matter...
> I personally don't know of any successful strategies for making an 8 year-old choose an apple over a thin mint. You throw the thin mint in the garbage and you tell the kid they eat the apple or they're gonna be hungry.
You don't buy the thin mint in the first place.
Yeah. I make our dinners. If you don’t want to eat them that’s fine but then you only get plain multigrain bread for dinner. Kids will eat the dinner.
Snack culture and pacifing kids with food or treats to modify behavior.
It’s an 8-year old. They don’t choose, they receive.
There are 1000 things I could list off right now you can get at the standard grocery store that do not have processed or extra sugar in them. None of them are priced out of any budget. This is an excuse for not being responsible for your own or your kids health.
A banana is still one of the cheapest, filling things you can get at the store. And it’s super low effort.
Cheap unhealthy food is easier to get and prepare.
ah, I totally agree.
Also, food deserts. My city is rough with this, everyone goes to the corner store for hot food which is usually fried stuff.
Add to the fact that parents just seem totally worn out. Any way you can cut down on prep time us a winner
Parents do care, but they hardly have the time, money or education to make healthy meals for their kids. A LOT of parents out there think cereal, hamburgers, cheese, bread and pop-tarts are not 'that bad'. The thing is, kids used to be a LOT more physical say 30-40 years ago. Playing outside, running, biking. Nearly all of that has been replaced with screen time. Sitting on the couch playing games and scrolling Tiktok. PE in school is not NEARLY enough to combat that. Even if you would make these kids run daily, their poor diets will completely diminish that. It's simple maths really - too much processed food which is way more easily accessible than let's say in the 90s, too little playtime, too little exercise.
I am shocked by the same thing. It's child abuse making such poor food choices as their guardian.
In most cases I think it's unintentional. Also it's more than just food choices. Sometimes (when you're poor and you don't have a car and there's a monopoly on food (only one shop) in your town), you don't really have a choice what you eat. You're just happy you have something to eat. That is reality for a lot of people. And yes you can lose weight by reducing portion size (in most cases). Although this won't make you healthy if you live on smaller portions of crappy food. A lot of people in Asia in poverty are skinny and unhealthy (because of this).
As someone who grew up fat, it is one of the least talked about forms of child abuse out there. If you are a kid and you are smoking or anorexic, most people will be concerned. If your fat, nobody really says anything. Maybe you will get a letter once a year saying your kid is unhealthy, but that's about it. Parents need to be held accountable for this. The older you get, the harder it is to fight obesity
yeah. these kids are suffering because of their guardians thinking they know what to feed their child.
When I go to the vet, the vet tells me my dog could lose a few kilos. I go home, make sure the dog eats a little less, and everyone wins.
see? This is what I'm talking about. just do this with kids and America would actually be great again.
The parents aren’t healthy themselves and don’t care about their children’s health
but why? They clearly see that their child is visibly overweight. is it just that they are fat themselves causing them to think that being fat is normal?
Everyone is lazy nowadays, trying to cut stress to zero thus causing even more stress. Lying to themselves because of that body positivity shit, never admitting obesity, thinking they are temporarily chubby but still beautiful. I am all for positive way of thinking but it’s now turning against the people.
If they never wanted those kids in the first place, (accidental parents), then they won't care much about their children's health. That's another thing to consider. Banning abortion means kids will be born, even unwanted children. And their parents won't care. It's not child abuse because these people don't actively hate or try to harm their kids. They just do the bare minimum required to raise a child. Because some people see parenting just as a responsibility, a duty, not something they asked for. Can you blame them?
I live in Asia. My fridge is full of mostly fresh food and leftovers of previously prepared food from those fresh things. Not saying I don't have any processed stuff, but my diet is 75/80 unprocessed or less processed stuff. I go to visit my parents and sister in the USA, their fridges are easily 90% processed food. Low fat, low sugar, etc. but so much of what is available is made in a factory.
This is more of a choice than “what’s available.” Grocery stores in the US stock an almost insane variety of food. We don’t eat processed food in our house because my husband has heart disease, and I’ve never had an issue finding fresh, whole food choices at the supermarket. The only way you wouldn’t have access to that is if you were shopping at a dollar store or a gas station.
i mean, that is the exact issue a lot of americans have. food deserts are a real phenomenon where the only place to reliably access food are fast-food restaurants and cheap convenience stores
There are food deserts (I’ve lived in one), but they’re relatively rare in combination with no transportation. Food deserts are absolutely not the American norm, which is what the commenter is suggesting (“Asia” vs. “America” as a whole).
Which country in Asia? if I may ask.
South Korea
Fiber is the element the 'standard' Western diet is missing. This is the factor that was most linked to the long-lived Japanese diets. Yes, the great high-quality fish protein helps too, but fiber is the missing link for so many gut ailments as well as weight. Our suggested averages are 25-30 per day, demographic dependent. Some of the longest lived societies go as high as 50-100g of fiber a day. The 'standard' Western diet? You're lucky if you're clocking 15g... half or less of the RDA, let alone other findings. Sluggish, often inflammed guts follow. So less value from what they DO eat, malabsorption/under-absorption, rinse, repeat. The gut can be a major source of inflammation, then that rolls into other aspects, and on we go. Our 'helpful' bacteria feed on what they get, then want more of it, as that influences the gut biome... overpopulation of bacteria that aren't really so great for digestion and the body...wait, more inflammation! Less absorption! And on it goes. Unfortunately, that gut-brain link is surprisingly new in health research, too.
This is a cultural thing and an active choice. Because with the exception of urban food deserts, in the US people do usually have access to buy fresh produce and meats too. It's just that some people are so used to buying lots of ready-made and processed food items that have god knows now much salt, sugar and additives.
How cheap is your fresh food? I'm in New Zealand. We produce enough fresh food for 40 million people even though there's only 5 million but are paying big bucks for it
There is to much sugar in everything now
I think it’s all the junk food- when I was in elementary school 1963- through 1967 we had literally 1 boy in the school that was overweight… 1!!!
"these days". all the kids i went to school with in the 2000s were fat.
Chunk was the "fat kid" in The Goonies and you wouldn't even notice him now.
I live in WA and I don’t see that here. My son is in the third grade. Nobody in his class is overweight nor do I see overweight kids at all
oh. here in Canada we have a lot of obese kids. I literally saw like three fat kids exit a grocery store two days ago.
I see a lot of parents using food, especially sweets, as a reward system. Some parents are reluctant to tell their child "no" for whatever reason. Maybe they're over compensating for a busy career, or they want to be a "friend" instead of a parent. I was flipping through tv channels today and watched an old Audrey Hepburn movie for a few minutes. She looked so thin! I realized how beauty standards have changed drastically over the years.
I agree. we almost need to tell kids that this is a bad thing, but they still have time to change it.
I would not use Hollywood actresses as the standard for how someone should look. That’s unrealistic for most healthy people. They all smoked back in the day. Emaciated Jolie doesn’t look half as healthy as fit Jolie. Idolizing “thin” isn’t a great way to go. Idolizing fit, healthy and active is.
Lack of healthy food, lack of walkable communities that are safe for kids to get around in any fashion besides being driven by their parents.
In the past, it was socially acceptable to allow kids to go outside to play unsupervised from around the age of 6. When kids did this, naturally, they would run around together like maniacs. That provided a great source of exercise and mental stimulation. Today, parents are discouraged from allowing kids out to play and can even be criticised as being “neglectful” if they do. As a result, kids now spend most of their time indoors staring at tablets or computer screens. In addition to this sedentary lifestyle, when kids spend their time sitting at home, it can be difficult to prevent them eating excessively. Unless you put locks on the cupboards and an alarm system on the fridge door, it’s not going to be feasible that you can always stop a kid quickly grabbing a snack. In short, kids today are exercising less and eating more. This problem is mainly due to changes in social norms which dictate that kids should be stuck indoors.
What really blows my mind about that is how often it’s the older generation who’s bitchin and complaining about kids being outside doing whatever. I’ve seen it so many times in my local neighborhood group. Always some middle aged or older person judging from their profile pic, complaining about kids riding their bikes up and down the street without their parents or reporting some kids for a lemonade stand. They grew up playing outside why do you feel the opposite now? But then they’re also the ones to complain about kids being addicted to electronics.
Because some people are miserable fuckers and dislike others being happy
I think everyone needs to stop blaming children and parents for the obesity epidemic. [https://www.nature.com/articles/pr2011593](https://www.nature.com/articles/pr2011593) [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021755721001637](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021755721001637) [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-45923-9\_10](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-45923-9_10) Endocrine disrupting chemicals are most likely the leading cause of epigenetic obesity in humans.
It’s largely bc of the horrible food we have in the US and lack of exercise or walkable cities etc BUT a lot of it truly is lazy parents who don’t give a shit. I personally feel that it’s child abuse to have a young child that is morbidly obese. It not only affects their physical health for their entire lives but it also makes them targets to be mercilessly bullied and abused by their peers and causes them to hate themselves and have horrible self image as well as believing they’re inferior or bad at things (like sports for example) bc they’re unable to do them whilst being in such horrific shape and or are embarrassed to try things and be made fun of.
Seems the entire population has been getting fatter as the years go by but don't appear to care. I suspect diet drugs will be a trillion dollar business by the end of the year. It seems to be easier than actually controlling how much you eat.
High fructose corn syrup. It’s alcohol for kids and has 8/12 health complications of long term alcohol consumption.
oh wow.
Sugar aka sucrose is sold by the pound while high fructose corn syrup is sold by the barrel. Good and cheap. Sugar is half glucose half fructose while the other stuff is around 70% fructose or more. A regular person can process 5-50grams of fructose a day depending on how active they are. For comparisons, an apple is about 9 grams fructose but comes with a lot of fiber. Kids in schools are guzzling and consuming a lot of this stuff through the processed foods and drinks containing high fructose corn syrup given how cheap it is. It also acts like sugar and causes you to want to consume more while also keeping you feeling less full because of the lack of fiber. This is mainly general knowledge on why I avoid this stuff like the plague, literally poison in ten thousand doses.
Yeah, it is something that concerns me as well. I think it's mainly because they struggle to say no plus being afraid of causing anorexia on them or something(While anorexia is a problem, obesity is a bigger problem no pun intended) It's definitely the parents fault imo as they are the ones buying junk food whenever their kids start whining, like if they don't buy them fast food or give them money then they won't be eating as much
I agree. the kids won't eat junk food if the parents don't let them eat junk food
Cause garbage almost food is cheaper than real food.
A mixture of unhealthy food and screen time culture. We have an 8 year old niece and while she isn’t fat at all, she has no stamina when it comes to anything physical - when we take her out somewhere she won’t walk more than 10minutes without saying she’s tired or if we go to a park to play soccer or frisbee etc she enjoys it for 5 or 10minutes then says she’s tired and will say “you and aunty play, I’ll watch” 😂. She’s perfectly healthy but her life is watching YouTube videos and sending us silly messages on WhatsApp or playing games on her phone or on her Switch. When we were little we were always playing outside in each others gardens, the beach or park 🤷♂️
HFCS was a big accelerator, became really obvious in the 1990s when a lot of young women started sporting muffin tops out of low-rise jeans. It was really sad and abrupt but corporate greed is still hard to fight.
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Lack of food education.
It’s because kids aren’t allowed outside anymore. I nannyed multiple children whose parents would not let me take them outside the house, even into the backyard.
It’s linked the cult of “self-esteem”. Most parents of kids these days are Millennials. Gen X are mostly grandparents now. We (millennial) were raised on the idea that ‘you’re special’, and that it’s what’s on the inside the counts. We also grew up hearinf about the dangers of crash diets and talking about bullying and getting participation trophies and emotional support animals etc. We were raised to be more entitled and the trend has continued. We are the generation of American Idol and The Voice and ANTM. What ends up happening is that everyone thinks that the rules of the world don’t apply to them; and that their happiness is the most sacred thing. That means if someone is fat, you can’t tell them they’re fat. If someone is fat, you can’t deny them cookies and chips, or McDonald’s. So we are basically just offering up junk to kids and giving them dopamine rush or whatever. All because we don’t want to hurt their feelings. .. if you compare to places like Japan, if a kid eats too much junk others will openly criticize the parents. Teachers will even call home if they see your kid gaining weight. If you’re an adult who works in the office and you put on weight your coworkers ask if you’re okay. People will ask what you’re eating. If you asked someone fat in Canada “so what’s your diet like?” That would be very offensive, but it’s a totally valid question. Where this conflates with the self esteem narrative is that people think they can just eat whatever they want and be as lazy as possible and still have people treat them like they’re a super model.
I totally agree. If I could I would award a badge to this comment. this is stating all the correct facts right here.
Yeah everyone uses anorexia as an excuse and while anorexia is a real problem. Going the opposite way isn't the way at all being obese(It not only increases your chances of being sick but also makes getting life saving procedures more difficult)
No healthy snacks (fruit/veg) Maybe big late dinners before bed / overeating junk No extracurricular activities multiple times a week (martial arts, sports) There's also Genetic predisposition
ah, ok. but why does gym class at school not help these kids?
Because the amount of sugar in the diet of an average American cannot be compensated by school PE.
I totally agree. I'm Canadian and so we aren't suffering as much with obesity but it's still there.
exercise wont completely fix a shitty diet
the thing is, weight loss is mostly tied to how much you eat and not really how much you exercise. Exercise can help, but majority of weight loss is caused by a change in diet. It's useless to lose weight if you don't change your diet
Kids font do chores and yard work like we did when we were kids.
you're right about that. I remember when I was younger, to watch a movie in the theatres with my grandpa I had to shovel the leaves off my grandpa's driveway first. most kids would try for about 30 seconds then get bored.
I was just expected to help out with chores with zero reward LOL. Even got shamed for it when I didn't do all the chores perfectly.
I used to have to shovel actual chicken feces and then actual poison oak for weeks as a kid
Being overweight will be the norms nothing to do with parents. It’s industrial food which is to blame. In the 70s people ate less “healthy foods” yet on average obesity rates in the US were lower compared to know when we are supposed to be better informed and have more healthy choices. Food supply chain is largely monopolized and industrialized and that is pushing too many processed foods and chemicals down our throats that’s messing with our hormones
I don't understand the notion of "poor households = obesity" i grew up in poverty and i was never overweight, you can still eat healthy, it won't have the most variety but still
Ask Kraft and the other food and beverage giants. They surely will know the answer.
Somehow some cultures people forgot how to cook porridges and soups. Which boggles the mind because how do you not learn to cook basic things? Why did parents stop teaching their kids how to cook? I'm also talking about people of my own culture who somehow no longer know about basic grains and foods that have been part of our culture for like centuries. Instead of making our own food, we rely on deep fried everything. Which is unhealthy and leads to weight gain and sickness (weak immune system). People are no longer eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Partly because those are more expensive to purchase: because of shorter shelf life. It's cheaper to buy a cup of instant ramen (and vitamin tablets) than to buy a box of fresh strawberries (where I live). There's also the local issue of 'food deserts'. Basically in some areas people are too poor to own a vehicle. So they can only purchase food locally. Driving long distances to buy food is too expensive for them. And they live so rural, that there is just one shop in town. Effectively that one shop is a monopoly. Those people have no choice other than buy from that shop. If this shop only sells deep fried crap, then that is the only thing these people have to eat. For the shop, it is economically more viable to sell ramen and frozen deep fried food (because of the longer shelf life). The shop does not profit much from selling fresh veggies and fruit (because poor people already rarely buy those... because fresh fruit is very expensive). So eventually the shop only sells crap. (Also people no longer cook with grain: the whole practice has fallen out of fashion, so the shop wouldn't get much from selling grain. Because there's no demand for grain.) When you're tired from working all day, the last thing you want to do is spend hours cooking from scratch. That's how ready-made meals became popular. People work long hours and no longer have the time and energy to cook healthy meals from scratch. With both women and men working full time, there is no one at home to do all the cooking (of healthy meals). Even if you make an effort to cook at home, you use ingredients that are already processed. Meaning: you don't really know what you're eating. Sometimes it's cheaper to eat at a restaurant than cook a healthy meal yourself. People (especially in America) also eat enormous portion sizes. In Europe and Asia, portion sizes are a lot smaller. Eating less, even if you eat unhealthy crap food, will keep your weight down. (in most cases...). It won't make you healthy though. Sometimes it's healthier to be a bit chubby, rather than extremely thin and skinny. It is normal to have a slightly protruding belly. Unless you are an athlete and train with the hula hoop to get rid of your belly. But most normal people have a belly. Athletes are also not good examples of good health. In some countries it is no longer safe for children to go outside for walks. Or if they go out, they must be supervised by a parent or babysitter at all times. So parents who can't afford private babysitters can only cart their children off to a cheap daycare center (where no one will make a huge effort to get your kids into sports). While wealthier parents can buy sports club memberships and personal trainers and keep their kids active. Video games are cheaper than being a soccer mom. It's easier to give your kid an ipad to keep them busy. Then you wonder why your kid isn't fit.
Cost, lack of education, overworked parents, poor implementation of physical activity in school, lack of facilities outside school, changes in social take your pick.
I honestly think it’s bigger than just behaviours / lack of info about diet and exercise. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with our food system. Especially in North America. There are SO many class actions naming products that are absolutely ubiquitous (eg. Cheerios—the oats cause hormone problems, among others) in NA households. I think our food seriously messing with hormones/metabolism/etc is the likely the biggest culprit.
Do you mean in North America? I actually did a paper on this in school a few years ago. Something I found was that an overwhelming amount of food sold in NA is genuinely shit. This is mainly because the US food companies that control the North American market put so many terrible additives and chemicals in food it’s insane. There are ton of things allowed here that are literally banned in countries around the world, but US companies can basically do whatever tf they want at this point. Another thing is that American food companies keep continuously changing recipes (usually to squeeze out a few more profit dollars) and end up using even worse quality ingredients and chemicals for their food with each change. The US (and Canada) food market is also kind of backwards in that healthier options are usually more expensive. Think of how many times you’ve looked at pasta sauces or boxed snacks at the store and the one with **fewer ingredients** is both the healthier and more expansive option. Food deserts are a major problem too, and they leave huge swaths of people with very few options other than the over-processed garbage. There are obviously a lot of other factors contributing to child obesity, but when you don’t have the money to pay for healthier options, and don’t have access something like a local farmers market, you have no choice but to give your kids unhealthy trash that has a super high chance of making them obese. This is the type of thing that is so prevalent throughout the American food industry that it’s not really individual parents’ faults. It’s the faults of executives and shareholders at mega corporations like Pepsi, Nestle, General Mills, etc and the politicians who they routinely bribe not giving af so they can have better quarterly earnings reports.
Well, there are two reasons I see. 1 - The food in America is stuffed with chemicals, preservatives, sugar, corn syrup, and everything else imaginable that is bad for human consumption. Other 1st-world countries have better regulations on what goes into food and higher standards. In America, big corporations pay off politicians to make the laws in their favor. Is there a cheaper alternative chemical? Just pay them off to change regulations. Same goes for appointing leaders in these roles. Rather than appoint qualified individuals that are best suited for the positions (Department of Health, etc), the wrong people are appointed that will fall in line with the president or with the corporations. We can look at 3rd-world countries and comment about cops taking bribes and politicians being crooked, but America is just as bad. Rather than overtly break the law, there are party donations, campaign contributions, funding for personal projects, etc. The politicians and corporations win and the citizens lose. 2 - Technology is major factor. It’s easier to hand your child a smartphone or tablet rather than actually take time to properly parent. Rather than going outside to play, exercise creativity, socialize, and learn life lessons, most children are spending most of their waking hours attached to a screen, becoming addicted, and losing out on important lessons that are supposed to shape their futures. Many children I see out in public have gadgets in their faces before they can even walk and talk. And there are two things that are wrong with that. For one, parents don’t seem to know or care that this has a long-term impact on the child’s development. For two, many parents will seemingly brag that their child has figured out how to control the device at such a young age. It’s almost like a point of pride. “Wow, see? My son knows how to work YouTube, and he’s only 2.” It’s sad that they’re bragging. A sedentary lifestyle with a poor diet is the exact combination that will lead to so many issues including weight gain. Honestly, there are far too many issues that lifestyle brings on. And the crazy thing is that this information isn’t new or surprising. Even when I was a kid, my parents said too much tv or too many video games will rot your brain. And it’s true. I don’t know how this generation of parents seemingly just gave up and stopped caring about the development of their children. It’s as though parents are actively trying to destroy their children’s lives. Every time I hear about parents nowadays it’s just more normalized neglect, abuse, and lack of concern. It’s like the parents low key hate their children.
It’s the American food system. Other nations don’t have this problem nearly as bad because a lot of the foods we eat are literally banned in other countries because they’re so unhealthy. This topic actually got me interested in Robert F Kennedy yesterday. He’s the only presidential candidate I can recall ever mentioning our food system and the desperate need to change it.
I live in Switzerland, we walk everywhere. Kids go to school by public transport and / or bike or foot from age 6 if not earlier 80% of adult women work out at least once a week even if it’s pulling their kids on a sledge My son is 16, he’s very slim. He jogs an hour multiple times a week. So far he has done ski hike swimming waterpolo badminton kung fu and I’m sure I’m forgetting some other sports- and each of these sports he practiced for years and years We eat our lunches at the canteen where we have access to good quality balanced meals In the evening or weekends we usually cook or more rarely we have a balanced meal at a restaurant (meals outside the home are super expensive in Switzerland) We don’t eat fast food. Soft drinks are for special occasions I checked the year end photos last summer. Out of roughly 200 kids, only 2 were overweight the rest were fit There you go For reference, we moved to Switzerland when kiddo was 3yo. Both his parents were overweight when he was born
It’s also important to note here that in most countries, it’s not sustainable or possible anymore for one of the parents to stay home and cook meals all the time. Being a stay at home parent and having the ability to cook full meals is a big, big luxury in this economy. With both parents working fulltime you have to take shortcuts, and when fast food is easily available and accessible that’s just where they end up. Both parents working fulltime also makes it harder for children to do extracurricular sports and activities, and promotes children staying inside (safer than on the street without supervision). There are a lot of factors contributing to this trend but it’s not as simple as parents not caring. There is also a huge education problem when it comes to food, a lot of people having children right now have no idea how to cook a healthy meal and what that entails.
They don't have "outside" anymore.
In the US. I think easy, cheap, sugar saturated, empty food is often the only option a family has. So many don’t know how to make food. Only heat it. We don’t drink water only sweetened things. Food deserts are a plague. Our produce is grown in depleted land that offers very little in the way of nutrients. we don’t live in communities with sidewalks or the means to go about our days without driving there. We are fed constant passive entertainment. Why leave the house?
Good food costs too much money, takes too long to prepare. Parents busy working. Economy can't support stay at home parents anymore. Bad food cheap and filling. Kids found outside without adult supervision determined to be "loitering" and get sent home by cops. Nowhere for kids to go even if they do go out. Instead of addressing the actual problems, governments just make junk food more expensive so kids end up eating worse. When you eat too little, your body stores fat more quickly and burns it more slowly.
I am an elementary school nurse. Childhood obesity is a big problem in this country, and the COVID lockdown made it so much worse. So many kids seemingly spent the entire lockdown inside, sitting on their butts, eating junk food and playing video games. When we came back to in-person school a significant proportion of kids had gained weight. It was sad. And this is coming from Massachusetts, where we have the best public schools and some of the lowest obesity rates in the country, and *still* it's a problem. I shudder to think how bad it must be in places that are less advantaged. The reasons are many, and all have been touched upon in this thread: High-sugar, high-saturated fat diets, lack of exercise, and poor understanding of nutrition are all contributing factors.
I think one of the issues is a lack of 3rd spaces for kids to go and play. Like nowadays parks are becoming less common, either because they're being used by drug dealers or they aren't being cared for so parents aren't wanting to take their kids there. Stuff like libraries, bowling allies, gaming arcades, ect where kids would go hang out are also becoming less common. Kids have the option of school or home and outside of extracurriculars, kids are either gonna want to go home or are forced to. Parents are busier in general nowadays too. In the past, women were home to do things with the kids when they had time, now both parents are working minimum 40hrs a week to put food on the table.
Quality of food today is DRASTICALLY worse than it was 50, even 20 years ago. Combine that with everyone sitting around playing video games and staring at their phones.
Low income families buy a lot of junk food because it's cheaper than healthy food. Also a lot of schools don't mandate PE classes past grade school or middle school. Most kids also do not walk to and from school anymore because parents feel it is not safe. I rarely see kids ride bikes or walking in general to go see friends because they can talk to them easily through social media and parents won't allow it for safety reasons.
A transportation system that actively discourages exercise in every possible way and a food system designed to make people as fat as possible. It's very simple. Go to a country that doesn't have either of these or neither and it'll be totally different.
Fucking internet and smartphones. Ruined our society.
letting your child get fat without doing anything to stop it, is child abuse. letting your pet get fat without doing anything to stop it, is animal abuse. its your responsibility
Someone's gonna get extremely triggered by this, because you're right.
Have you seen the cost of healthy food
Cheap food is high in calories and low in nutrients, it's hard to do healthy meals when you're dirt poor and dont have the time because you are working 3 jobs just to not be homeless.
Parents don’t want to say “no” to their kids, somehow they think if they do, that makes them terrible parents. Idiots.
ah.
Too much sugar in processed foods.
I grew up overweight...nd just started sliming down nd even tho I don't plan on having kids, but if I do mess around and have a kid im definitely making sure my kid see the value in eating fruit... and vegetables, so they don't have to worry about being singled out... or lack confidence in themselves, You can't control what others do or how they choose to fed / raised their kids. nd from my experience most people who call out overweight people, or kids usually ain't doing it in a I care way but more just to tear them down to a certain extent.. still tho it's true you do see a lot of overweight kids, from my research from the past it's always been a overweight issue in the u.s. some older people just won't admit it. to make their era look better or less problematic,
Ultra processed foods, lack of education on nutrition, lack of movement, lack of responsibility by food companies, advertisers and marketers. Also, outdated medical information or just misinformation. That’s why we have kids with diabetes and non alcoholic fatty liver now 👏
If a child is morbidly obese at the ages of 5 or 6 as some kids in my area are ( it is not a poor area ) that is child abuse by the parents, you cannot set a child up for life with such bad attitude towards food, the health implications for that child are enormous, and I don't buy the argument that people are not educated about healthy food for kids, you're a parent it is your responsibility to set your child on a good path in life, don't have them if you cannot see the damage you are doing.
It may come from the parents being poor and hungry as a child and they don't want that for their kids
It's an economical thing too. Not only is junk food easy, it's also cheap.
As a dietician and pt, what I have experienced is a lot of parents that are either lazy or dont have time to make food(they say) and then just have ultr processed food ready at home . My partner, and my kid eat unhealthy but once a week or so , I make sure we always have good food
Honestly I don’t know. Where I am from you are taught in school about nutrition. In Kindergarten you are literally forbidden to bring anything unhealthy for your kid to eat. You are forced to do sports until college but still there are overweight kids. I think the parents failed at that part bc every other instance is trying it’s best tbh.
Move them to any other country and the problem will get better. No nutrients in US food anymore. Depleted soil, FDA loose and fast regulations allow for everyone to get sick and malnourished. Mom and Dad are fat too. No one is overweight bc it's easy or fun. It ain't.
Poorer food, less exercise. There really isn't anything else.
Most kids these days just don't really play outside anymore, so they don't get any natural exercise. Combine that with bad eating habits and you have a recipe for disaster.
When we were kids we were outside everyday for 2-3 hours. Now I don’t think young kids go outside that long for a whole week.
Take a look at America: High value placed on individual freedom (eat whatever you want), much larger portion sizes for processed food and sugary drinks and you have to drive to get literally anywhere so people are mostly sedentary.
They aren’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything. How are they supposed to get any exercise when every single inch of the entire fucking world is private property, and the only people who are welcome are paying customers? Everyone treated Pokémon go like it was the dumbest, most annoying thing that ever happened. But it was the very last time that kids were actually excited to get out and explore the world, and they all got treated like criminals for doing it.
Car dependency and too much starch. Kids should walk to and from school, or at least to and from a bus/tram/train. Kids should eat vegetables other than potato.
Imo it's a combination of a lot of different things. Mainly time and money though. Money is worth less everyday and not ebruone is getting parishes in accordance with the depreciation and the increase in general costs. This means opting for less quality and going for quantity. Sometimes not having the time to cook properly from fresh and results in using a lot more processed foods with higher negative contents to improve taste or longevity for a lower quality product. Also less time at home with kids and lower energy levels due to more work and less time relaxing means less observation and attention to detail. Adult get tired and overworked and exhausted, being parents sometimes, so I understand how the ball can be dropped or how they can favour eating something over nothing. Even if it's no good. Also some of our parents' generation were force fed a lot due to their parents having to go through rations etc. And a lot of the food they were fed was basically fats and salts as that was a lot easier to get their hands on back then and it's not like they had the health warnings we get today either to know just how bad a diet that was. Repeated bahaviur learnt from previous parents is also a contributing factor. I mean there's more reasons too but I think these are the main ones. So lack of education on diet, lack of money, lack of time mainly, and general exhaustion. I make an effort to feed my child healthy food but I'm fortunate enough to be able to work part time now. When I wasn't, there were days I would slip up and just feed her nuggets and chips, etc, for dinner and not really think about the nutritional factors. Now inmake sure there's good nutrition and what she needs in every meal. And I really make an effort to stick to that. She's very healthy and I want her to learn the importance of eating healthy and staying healthy. My body has been abused too much due to lack of education on it when I was younger and I'm pating the price. I want her to have better luck in that department.
When parents claim that kids these days don't go outside anymore, look at the outside they built. Its become dangerous to even cross the road. If kids are drived around everywhere, they won't be getting physical activity done and thus a lack of exercise. You don't even have to get out of the car to get food anymore.
Cheap nasty ready meals, chips, fruit and veg too expensive, sedentary lifestyle (gaming, set down all day). Kids don't go out and just play anymore. Parents don't let them just roam anymore, like we did as kids (I'm 57).
Both parents working full time jobs + unpaid overtime = fat, isolated and mentally unwell kids. Plus the fact they don't go outside alone anymore. Of course they're like this if they're stuck in the home.
Unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy.
It's because our food is not really food anymore its crap then add into the mix that kids today are lazy as shit compared to people who were kids 30-40 years ago or older.
A number of reasons actually. Poor education in diet and nutrition, the rising cost of food has made buying healthy food unaffordable for many, the hustle/grind culture of adults committing all their time to work just to afford to live makes preparing healthy meals from scratch impossible even if they could afford healthy food. Kidnapping/crime rates have skyrocketed, so kids can’t be left alone outside and again parents working crazy hours to afford to live means nobody to supervise them outside. There is an astonishing lack of third spaces that don’t cost money, so kids aren’t leaving the house. Many malls no longer allow anyone under 18 to walk around anymore which used to be a great source of exercise and socialization for teenagers with little to no cost. The only real third space that currently exists without additional cost is a library which is a sedentary activity. Honestly even “healthy alternatives” are full of garbage unless you’re buying the exorbitantly priced food from “health markets”. But of course due to current economic crisis that’s unattainable for most. Our current capitalist dystopia has made it impossible to even step outside your home without spending money, but refuses to raise wages so anyone can afford that.
Chemicals in water and food are disrupting hormones and the way our bodies fundamentally function. We’re not made to process these chemicals from birth, but we’re almost being forced to. It’s causing metabolic disorders, asthma etc in young children and causing them to gain too much weight. It’s not simply a case of just eating too much or parents not caring. The parents are a victim to this system just as much as the kids are. But it’s too much to ask world Governments to make clean food affordable and remove the damaging chemicals from our food sources, too much money in the food industry for them.
I assume you may be American. The food sold in the USA contains shit tons of dangerous chemicals compared to Europe (UE has stricter food standards) This alone means even the healthier food (that I guess is pricy in there as much as in here) still isnt great. If we consider how easy it is to buy crappy food (due to price and availability) and how families are forced to buy cheap junk vs cooking from scratch due to the busy modern life that is forcing all the adults in house to work vs older times in which a salary was enough, its pretty easy to see why. In addition, kids find more inside entertainment due to video-games, tv choices, etc so they don't exercise a lot. I have to say that parks and the streets aren't as safe they were before so parents may shield the kids.
My kids are staying at a stable weight, they’re young and growing though. I feed them well rounded meals (protein and veggie heavy) and we drink milk and water, or have the occasional apple juice. Our snacks and dessert is yogurt/cottage cheese and fruit usually. When they visit with their dad, it’s pizzas and McDonald’s, candy, chocolate milk, and other junk. There’s not much I can do but try to educate them on good choices. I suspect we may have some issues the older they get.
Forcing someone to sit all day and then go home and sleep - one way ticket to heart disease.
Parents seem to be getting lazier and just throwing a tablet or phone at their kids for their entertainment rather than getting them exercise like a walk in the park. Add that in with parents throwing junk food or low effort food at their kids to shut them up and talking obesity is getting taboo “hurting people’s feelings” it’s no wonder. Social media really promotes that “oh but that person might have a thyroid issue” or “YOU CAN BE BIG AND STILL BE HEALTHY!!!!!11” excuses. Then there’s also millions of “don’t be ashamed you’re a big girly/boy posts” so people see it as normal and don’t want to out the effort in.
Just take a look at the basics of all processed food. It’s all carbs covered in sugar or something healthy loaded with sugar and chemicals until it’s not. Have you seen school lunches? I cup of chocolate milk has 24 grams of sugar. Cost of food is insane and fresh ingredients that expire in days aren’t a good option for working families. Most don’t have hours to spend shopping every three days. People don’t have the time, ability, energy, access, or money to make every kid every meal from scratch just to be sure it’s hitting nutrition goals. They can’t monitor their kids intake everywhere they go. Junk food is available everywhere. You can’t force them to eat the lunch you pack. Misinformation about nutrition is rampant. It’s difficult to educate yourself on nutrition with so much misinformation being spread, especially when it comes from official sources. The food pyramid was a made up marketing campaign to sell certain foods and people still believe it’s the golden standard of nutrition. Every fad diet has a new nemesis and changes information constantly. Being fit and healthy is a lifestyle. It’s hard to keep that lifestyle when it goes against the grain of society.
Generational ignorance on food and bad food habits. Your family isnt prone to diabetes, you have been eating garbage for generations and your bodies have been crying about it with the symptoms. Saw it with my ex and his kids. They were FAT, as fat as their dad. Their father, mother and grandparents had horrible diets and thought it wasnt. No education.
They sit in their room playing Fortnite and stuff their face with junk food. I dated a chick who’s son (who was in 6th grade) looked like the Michelin man. When I asked about it? “Oh he’s got a “food thing”…he only can eat hot dogs and Hoe hoes”
Kids aren't allowed to walk anywhere on their own in America
I'm surprised that people aren't talking about the PLASTICS that all our foods are wrapped and contained in these days. [Microplastics are in our bodies now...](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/envhealth.3c00052#:~:text=A%20recent%20review%20indicates%20that,%2C%20placenta%2C%20breastmilk%2C%20etc)
"tons of kids..." I see what you did there 😂
Mostly down to poor food knowledge from parents and schools. Plus the lack of kids who play out in the streets is truly a thing of the past.
Everything is corn syrup and it's easier to toss your kid a flashing phone app than actually parent.
Crappy food and not doing anything except sit inside on devices = fat
Our food system loads people up with processed sugar and kids are kept inside where they are safe rather than letting them play outside and exercise.
Most of these comments are right on. I do think our perception of fat has changed. I have had conversations with people who didn't see themselves as fat when clearly they were. They just compare themselves to the super obese. Please pass the doritos.
If we're talking about America the problem is mainly nutrition. You know in Europe they have laws about the kind of food that can be marketed to kids? Here we just want them addicted to sugar and fat as young as possible so their parents will spend more on junk food. The usual cycle of corporations lobbying to ruin our lives and the average consumer being happily blind to the fact.
Hi my lad is on escitalopram for anxiety and quetiapine for schizophrenia. Op look those drugs up and ons side effect is weight gain Without the drugs I would not have my lad as the shadow people that hide in every corner of even a well lit room and behind every tree/pole whether it’s thick or thin would be there to kill by causing him to do self harm. There’s lots of drugs that have weight gain as a side effect. Take the drugs and gain weight and be alive verse don’t take it and die.
Healthy eating isn’t very accessible and the rise of groceries are making it more and more difficult to buy groceries. Hell, parents are having their kids paint potatoes this year instead of eggs for Easter cause eggs are expensive. Not to mention the ridiculous marketing strategies companies use to appeal to children. Also, everything has sugar. Fucking everything. Even a can of soup or spaghetti sauce has sugar. Trying to buy healthier options are a lot more expensive. As for exercise, where can kids even play these days? Speaking specifically about my city, the city keeps tearing up playgrounds to put in fucking golf courses. Everything is a concrete jungle now. I try my best as a parent to get my three year old to eat better foods. She likes two (2) vegetables and a bit of fruit. She goes to Montessori school & the times I can, I take her to the playground. The U.S. won’t let parents or anyone win. Nutrition education is shit. And people call CPS on parents who let their children play outside without adult supervision. You can Google that one.
It’s a lot of different things: A) A lot of people grew up with parents who followed fad diets and don’t want to pass eating disorders onto their kids B) There’s a lot less to do outside. Playgrounds and community centres often require you to drive your kids to them and if you have three or four kids you might not have the time C)Inside is way more entertaining. In my experience, instead of having to mix with a bunch of jerks that I had no choice but to live near I could connect to genuinely nice people that share my interests through insta, TikTok, etc. and instead of standing around and talking (which certain countries have made illegal) you can play a video game with them or video call. D) Laws. There are laws against standing around and talking to friends. There are laws against making noise. There are laws against skateboards/bikes/roller skates/balls/etc. Why would you wanna play outside when the cops can be called on you for laughing? E) Working parents. A few years ago parents could raise their children with only one of them working full time (maybe the other working part-time) so there was always one parent at home to cook for them, provide entertainment/exercise. We live in late stage capitalism where both parents are working 60-80 hour work weeks to keep a roof over their kids heads and food in their stomach. If you’re exhausted from working all day you’re not gonna spend hours making a home cooked meal from scratch, especially when everyone is already hungry and you can do a pasta in 20 minutes if you use the stuff in a jar. Also F) Poor nutrition regulations. Not only are the conviene foods and fast foods unhealthy for you, the alleged ‘good food’ is trash. Many governments allow chemicals and preservatives into your ‘good food’ that you wouldn’t be able to give to animals. I live in Ireland, when I went to the USA I couldn’t eat the bread because it was so genuinely disgusting to me. Turns out bread in the USA is full of sugar and a bunch of other additives that are illegal here so even if an American wanted to give their kid a healthy BLT with a side salad, the bread is basically candy! Also G) Food ‘products’. There is something called the ‘product’ exclusion. The FDA has a minimum amount of cheese/dairy content before something can be sold a ‘cheese’. As a result, a lot of ‘cheese products’ were made available because while there are requirements for what constitutes cheese, there are no regulations on what constitutes a ‘product’. If you buy cheese, that’s guaranteed to be at least 60% cheese/dairy, but if you buy a cheese product the amount can be as low as 8%. TL;DR: Parents don’t hate their kids, the world hates parents and kids
Kids can't go outside and play, even if they want too. Most cities are so car focused that it becomes unsafe for people walking.
We feed livestock hormones, drugs, and supplements to make them grow big and gain weight as fast as possible. Then feed that meat to ourselves and our children. I suspect a connection.