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Anonymous wrote:I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.

Schools are a huge part of the problem. Our high poverty school has free breakfast and lunch for all. It’s all garbage food. Considering the high obesity rate-kids aren’t starving, they are overfed. Schools need to keep it simple, have a couple heathy options and that is it. White milk, apples, peanut butter/cold cut sandwich. And no chips/candy as prizes and incentives for everything

You just made it clear you don't actually understand what food insecurity is like. It is not wasting away into thinness. It is the inability to afford healthy food. That can come with a lack of TIME as well. Shopping, cooking and food prep takes time, which many struggling families don't have. Have you ever thought about what the food in your house would look like if you have to take public transportation to collect it?

It is not simply "lazy poor parents feed their kids chips and soda all the time". It's much more complicated than that. But it gets you all off the hook to vote for people who might actually HELP these children if you can just blame their lazy, fat parents.

No, sorry, that is BS. Basics are cheap. Eggs, milk, oatmeal, beans are cheap. Immigrants and poor people in less developed countries manage to cook basic simple food on a tight budget. But American poor people can’t manage this. Easier to hit up the drive thru. It’s easy to eat a lot of junk when using the government money and free school food

I don’t know. I remember around 2008 when the housing crisis hit and my husband lost his company and left with some big debt. I could no longer go to the store and just buy groceries without looking at the prices. One time, and I’ll never forget it, I had $18 and some change to get two or three days worth of food. The generic whole wheat bread was twice as expensive as the generic white bread so I got the cheap white bread. I had to think of food that fills a stomach not quality food. Basic pasta with cheap tomato sauce, they had buy one hot dog pack get one free. No snacks or deserts. No fresh vegetables.

This lasted about three months of a very limited budget. I can’t imagine a lifetime. I suppose there are smart cooks out there who can take the basics and make something appetizing out of it but I couldn’t.

Poor quality low nutrient food can absolutely negatively impact your health in the long term. It will NOT, however, make you obese. Unless you eat TOO MUCH of it. Unless you think that a slice of white bread contains substantially more calories than wheat bread? (Hint: it doesn’t- maybe 10-20 calories per slice depending on the brand.)

There are foods that low income people count on that have a high caloric count. My small example was about poor quality food not excessive calories but I can see how that could happen over a long period of time. I know quite a few families from South America who are living in this country, some illegally, some not. They are all in good shape, not overweight. It’s more of an American problem not a genetic one.

You’ve never seen a fat Mexican ?

I don’t know anyone from Mexico. I’m not saying South Americans are all thin (Mexicans don’t come from South America). I’m just saying that low income doesn't always equal overweight.

How do you not know anyone from Mexico? What kind of rock do you live under?

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Anonymous wrote:In the same boat OP. We don’t withhold much of anything, they get a treat after dinner, and they have very low BMI. I don’t understand how children can become so overweight. It’s tragic and the parents should have to attend mandatory child nutrition classes.

I cook from scratch, don’t stock junk food but don’t withhold healthy food, have occasional treats, etc etc, and I have one 15th %ile kid who eats like a bird and one 90th %ile kid who will have thirds of chicken and rice and salad. It’s complicated.

What is complicated about this?? First off, because your kid is 90th percentile doesn’t mean he has high BMI, it’s how his weight is distributed relative to height. If he has high BMI, he is eating too much and you are responsible for making sure he cools it on the thirds or gets more exercise. Calories in calories out - IT IS NOT COMPLICATED FOR 8 YEAR OLDS

I think many parents don’t understand BMI vs. weight percentile. My teen’s weight percentile is 99% but his BMI is under 20 (and 50th percentile for kids BMI). Because he’s tall - so it makes sense that he’s relatively heavy.

And he also eats a ton compared to his younger siblings, because he NEEDS to eat a ton to support his current size and continued growth. His little sister doesn’t need to eat as much, and if I fed her exact same food in the exact same quantities as him, of course she’d get chunky. But I wouldn’t scratch my head and tell everyone “well I feed both of my kids the same and one is fat and one is thin! This is so darn complicated!”

DP, and I hate to break it to you, but it is in fact complicated.

I’m sorry, I guess I must be dense. Can you break it down for me further, please? What exactly is complicated about the concept of two entirely different people having two entirely different caloric needs?

Dense isn't the word I would have chosen, but your moral certitude could use a little examination. Here's a little tidbit, with the full article linked below.

"In the 2010s, as family doctors and school nurses across the country were instructing larger children to “eat less and exercise more,” clinicians and scientists who specialized in obesity were beginning to understand the phenomenon in a different way. They knew from seeing kids in the clinic that some of them couldn’t lose weight or maintain weight loss no matter how hard they tried. As far back as the early aughts, university hospitals had been performing bariatric surgeries on a small number of these children who fell into an obesity category the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labels “severe.” It was, to a large degree, the study of post-bariatric patients that led doctors to see obesity not as a matter of simple arithmetic but as a “pathophysiological disorder” of the signals among a body’s gut, organs, hormones, fat tissue, and brain. Not all bariatric patients were able to maintain a lower weight, but for those who did, it seemed the operation had reduced their appetite — not only by limiting how much they could eat but also by rewiring their internal system. This new understanding, coupled with a goal of dispelling the belief that an inability to lose weight reflects a failure of will, led the American Medical Association to establish obesity as a disease in 2013.

But insight into obesity’s internal mechanisms did little to shed light on its prevalence. Why were there so many more kids with obesity? And why were so many of them so much more obese? In 2008, 36.5 percent of children ages 2 to 19 were overweight or obese; by 2018, that percentage was 41.5. Prevalence was climbing in children of every racial group, with the highest growth among Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities. By the end of 2020, children who were already obese were gaining weight at an accelerated rate. Pediatricians use growth charts to measure how a child’s size compares with the norm, and as the obesity epidemic escalated, they found themselves plotting more and more patients at the chart’s upper reaches, often above the 95th percentile of BMI, and sometimes off the grid entirely. When a phenomenon becomes so widespread, scientists look for causes beyond individuals and to their environment. The increase in obesity obviously correlated with the food kids ate — addictive, palatable, accessible at all hours — and their lack of physical activity: the phones, yes, but also reduced recess hours, unsafe neighborhoods, and lockdowns. Poverty and hunger correlate with obesity, as do other traumatic childhood experiences such as the death of a parent or sexual abuse. The frontier of obesity research lies here, in understanding how these external factors, as pervasive and variable as the weather, interact with each individual body — disrupting the metabolism, activating genes, or miscuing hunger signals — to produce the condition physicians call “obesity.”

A propensity for obesity is encoded in certain people’s genes. More than 70 genes correlated with obesity are already known, though the presence or absence of an obesity gene does not forecast a child’s future body shape. Nevertheless, the biggest known predictor of whether a child will develop obesity is if her parents have it; there is a 40 percent likelihood with one parent and an 80 percent likelihood with two. The question is which environmental factors (and in which combinations and at what levels of intensity) turn the genes “on.” Then, further into the realm of unknowns: What are the triggers for obesity beyond known genetic predispositions? Toxins in food may modify our DNA, an epigenetic disruption that can be passed to the next generation. Changes in an individual’s gut bacteria, caused by the biochemical composition of food, may have the downstream effect of altering metabolism. “There are many, many, many associations” between the environment and the body that can produce obesity, says Sarah Armstrong, a professor of pediatrics and an obesity specialist at Duke, “but no one smoking gun.”


https://www.thecut.com/article/weight-loss-drugs-ozempic-kids-childhood-obesity.html

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Anonymous wrote:I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.

Its all the cheap food loaded with unhealthy grains and sugar / high fructose corn syrup.

Healthy food is expensive.

No it isn’t. Can we just stop this? It is a cultural shift to eat crap as the majority of your food intake, especially for low income.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.

Its all the cheap food loaded with unhealthy grains and sugar / high fructose corn syrup.

Healthy food is expensive.

No it isn’t. Can we just stop this? It is a cultural shift to eat crap as the majority of your food intake, especially for low income.

Haven’t you been reading thisnthread? It’s very clear that all the little UMC Larlo’s and Larla’s are getting fat because of their extra servings of chicken thighs and soup

I think it is both. Many people eat a lot of crap food, and many people overeat in general.

But wherever. All of your kids are likely to be fat eventually anyhow. It’s projected by 2050 >90% of adults will be overweight

That will certainly not happen with all of the highly effective weight loss medications currently on the market an in the development pipeline. Obesity will become a disease that is almost nonexistent among people that can afford these medications.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.

Its all the cheap food loaded with unhealthy grains and sugar / high fructose corn syrup.

Healthy food is expensive.

No it isn’t. Can we just stop this? It is a cultural shift to eat crap as the majority of your food intake, especially for low income.

Haven’t you been reading thisnthread? It’s very clear that all the little UMC Larlo’s and Larla’s are getting fat because of their extra servings of chicken thighs and soup

I think it is both. Many people eat a lot of crap food, and many people overeat in general.

But wherever. All of your kids are likely to be fat eventually anyhow. It’s projected by 2050 >90% of adults will be overweight

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the same boat OP. We don’t withhold much of anything, they get a treat after dinner, and they have very low BMI. I don’t understand how children can become so overweight. It’s tragic and the parents should have to attend mandatory child nutrition classes.

I cook from scratch, don’t stock junk food but don’t withhold healthy food, have occasional treats, etc etc, and I have one 15th %ile kid who eats like a bird and one 90th %ile kid who will have thirds of chicken and rice and salad. It’s complicated.

What is complicated about this?? First off, because your kid is 90th percentile doesn’t mean he has high BMI, it’s how his weight is distributed relative to height. If he has high BMI, he is eating too much and you are responsible for making sure he cools it on the thirds or gets more exercise. Calories in calories out - IT IS NOT COMPLICATED FOR 8 YEAR OLDS

I think many parents don’t understand BMI vs. weight percentile. My teen’s weight percentile is 99% but his BMI is under 20 (and 50th percentile for kids BMI). Because he’s tall - so it makes sense that he’s relatively heavy.

And he also eats a ton compared to his younger siblings, because he NEEDS to eat a ton to support his current size and continued growth. His little sister doesn’t need to eat as much, and if I fed her exact same food in the exact same quantities as him, of course she’d get chunky. But I wouldn’t scratch my head and tell everyone “well I feed both of my kids the same and one is fat and one is thin! This is so darn complicated!”

DP, and I hate to break it to you, but it is in fact complicated.

I’m sorry, I guess I must be dense. Can you break it down for me further, please? What exactly is complicated about the concept of two entirely different people having two entirely different caloric needs?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.

Its all the cheap food loaded with unhealthy grains and sugar / high fructose corn syrup.

Healthy food is expensive.

No it isn’t. Can we just stop this? It is a cultural shift to eat crap as the majority of your food intake, especially for low income.

Haven’t you been reading thisnthread? It’s very clear that all the little UMC Larlo’s and Larla’s are getting fat because of their extra servings of chicken thighs and soup

I think it is both. Many people eat a lot of crap food, and many people overeat in general.

But wherever. All of your kids are likely to be fat eventually anyhow. It’s projected by 2050 >90% of adults will be overweight

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.

Its all the cheap food loaded with unhealthy grains and sugar / high fructose corn syrup.

Healthy food is expensive.

No it isn’t. Can we just stop this? It is a cultural shift to eat crap as the majority of your food intake, especially for low income.

Haven’t you been reading thisnthread? It’s very clear that all the little UMC Larlo’s and Larla’s are getting fat because of their extra servings of chicken thighs and soup

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.

Its all the cheap food loaded with unhealthy grains and sugar / high fructose corn syrup.

Healthy food is expensive.

No it isn’t. Can we just stop this? It is a cultural shift to eat crap as the majority of your food intake, especially for low income.

Haven’t you been reading thisnthread? It’s very clear that all the little UMC Larlo’s and Larla’s are getting fat because of their extra servings of chicken thighs and soup

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the same boat OP. We don’t withhold much of anything, they get a treat after dinner, and they have very low BMI. I don’t understand how children can become so overweight. It’s tragic and the parents should have to attend mandatory child nutrition classes.

I cook from scratch, don’t stock junk food but don’t withhold healthy food, have occasional treats, etc etc, and I have one 15th %ile kid who eats like a bird and one 90th %ile kid who will have thirds of chicken and rice and salad. It’s complicated.

What is complicated about this?? First off, because your kid is 90th percentile doesn’t mean he has high BMI, it’s how his weight is distributed relative to height. If he has high BMI, he is eating too much and you are responsible for making sure he cools it on the thirds or gets more exercise. Calories in calories out - IT IS NOT COMPLICATED FOR 8 YEAR OLDS

So your advice is that when a child is hungry, I should deny them healthy food? “Sorry honey, you’re fat.”

After two servings of chicken, rice and salad, if he is still hungry, something else is going on. He’s either misreading cues or there is some issue. I’d offer carrot sticks and cucumbers if still hungry after two full servings of dinner.

Yes you have an eating disorder

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.

Its all the cheap food loaded with unhealthy grains and sugar / high fructose corn syrup.

Healthy food is expensive.

No it isn’t. Can we just stop this? It is a cultural shift to eat crap as the majority of your food intake, especially for low income.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the same boat OP. We don’t withhold much of anything, they get a treat after dinner, and they have very low BMI. I don’t understand how children can become so overweight. It’s tragic and the parents should have to attend mandatory child nutrition classes.

I cook from scratch, don’t stock junk food but don’t withhold healthy food, have occasional treats, etc etc, and I have one 15th %ile kid who eats like a bird and one 90th %ile kid who will have thirds of chicken and rice and salad. It’s complicated.

What is complicated about this?? First off, because your kid is 90th percentile doesn’t mean he has high BMI, it’s how his weight is distributed relative to height. If he has high BMI, he is eating too much and you are responsible for making sure he cools it on the thirds or gets more exercise. Calories in calories out - IT IS NOT COMPLICATED FOR 8 YEAR OLDS

I think many parents don’t understand BMI vs. weight percentile. My teen’s weight percentile is 99% but his BMI is under 20 (and 50th percentile for kids BMI). Because he’s tall - so it makes sense that he’s relatively heavy.

And he also eats a ton compared to his younger siblings, because he NEEDS to eat a ton to support his current size and continued growth. His little sister doesn’t need to eat as much, and if I fed her exact same food in the exact same quantities as him, of course she’d get chunky. But I wouldn’t scratch my head and tell everyone “well I feed both of my kids the same and one is fat and one is thin! This is so darn complicated!”

DP, and I hate to break it to you, but it is in fact complicated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a high poverty school and by 5th-6th grade, nearly every student is overweight. It's sad. Some of them stayed overweight as they grew but some of them were a normal weight and then just packed on the pounds.

Its all the cheap food loaded with unhealthy grains and sugar / high fructose corn syrup.

Healthy food is expensive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the same boat OP. We don’t withhold much of anything, they get a treat after dinner, and they have very low BMI. I don’t understand how children can become so overweight. It’s tragic and the parents should have to attend mandatory child nutrition classes.

I cook from scratch, don’t stock junk food but don’t withhold healthy food, have occasional treats, etc etc, and I have one 15th %ile kid who eats like a bird and one 90th %ile kid who will have thirds of chicken and rice and salad. It’s complicated.

So…don’t give them so much food? What’s complicated? No one needs “thirds.”

NP. You are right, but a parent can only control a kid’s intake for so long. Once they move into teen years, you can’t. The best you can do is not buy processed junk and try to cook heathy meals. But you cannot possibly police their serving sizes of everything, how many glasses of milk they have, if they make a PB&J after dinner bc they are still hungry or get a second helping later on, or grab a banana and several slices of cheddar. Then there is all the junk food available and offered at school and sports in middle school. You can feed them a heathy breakfast then they can also grab a free chocolate milk and poptart provided by school when they walk in. They have to be able and willing to say no to the junk on their own accord. If you have a kid that can’t say no to junk and have a tendacy to overeat, once they hit teens, the weight gain moves out of parent control and they need to start being accountable for what they are consuming

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the same boat OP. We don’t withhold much of anything, they get a treat after dinner, and they have very low BMI. I don’t understand how children can become so overweight. It’s tragic and the parents should have to attend mandatory child nutrition classes.

I cook from scratch, don’t stock junk food but don’t withhold healthy food, have occasional treats, etc etc, and I have one 15th %ile kid who eats like a bird and one 90th %ile kid who will have thirds of chicken and rice and salad. It’s complicated.

What is complicated about this?? First off, because your kid is 90th percentile doesn’t mean he has high BMI, it’s how his weight is distributed relative to height. If he has high BMI, he is eating too much and you are responsible for making sure he cools it on the thirds or gets more exercise. Calories in calories out - IT IS NOT COMPLICATED FOR 8 YEAR OLDS

So your advice is that when a child is hungry, I should deny them healthy food? “Sorry honey, you’re fat.”

How bizarre. When a child has had enough to eat, they don't need to eat more. Do you ever tell your DC no? About anything? Do you parent them at all?

And a kid who’s hungry definitionally hasn’t had enough to eat.

Just curious. Do you have pets? Dogs, fish, anything that you feed a controlled amount of food? Why do you control the amount of food? Because otherwise they would overeat and become sick (or worse).

Are children somehow exempt from that rule?

Isn’t dog food ultra processed and full of artificial flavorants and all kinds of stuff that interferes with satiety signals?

I don’t currently have pets, I used to have a dog who would leave food in the bowl all day, and a human being’s relationship with food and body is more complicated than that of an animal.