I'm solidly middle class and can afford groceries pretty easily. My kids reject my healthy meals on the regular. It drives me absolutely nuts.

I swear my kids live on raw veggies and fruit. I can afford to buy these in huge quantities.

If I were poor, I wouldn't have the budget available for my kids to reject healthy foods. I would buy what I know they would eat. Studies have born this fact out. It's a huge barrier.

Michelle Obama gave fixing school lunches her best shot and got nothing but hate for it. The government plays a big role in what it chooses to subsidize.

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.

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.

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.

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

you are wrong. Lean protein is very expensive. How did you miss all of the complaining about cost of eggs over the last three years?

DP.

More than 2/3 of American adults are overweight or obese. This is not about food insecurity or the cost of food. That is just more excuse-making.

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.

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 think eating healthy requires either $ OR time. I fully agree with what you’ve said (eating healthy is MUCH cheaper if you know what you are doing) but a lot of times lower income homes also have a lot of family problems/instability and other issues such as lack of a car to transport groceries home, no fully functioning kitchen/storage, cooking knowledge etc. So, it is easier to just get frozen pizza, microwave stuff, snack food or whatever.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming at the pool this year and have really noticed a lot of chunky kids. I know a lot of kids are overweight and obese now but it still surprises me every time I see kids who are clearly overweight at a young age.

DH and I had the opposite problem growing up and our kids are sharing our genetics. No matter how much they eat they can’t really gain weight. Our 9.5 year old only weighs 66 pounds and eats like a horse!

A friend of mine said her 8 year old weighed 100 pounds!

My kids don’t eat perfectly healthy all the time and do eat junk food so it’s not like they aren’t also consuming the highly processed food. I just feel bad for kids having to go through this at such a young age.

You must live in a poor area. We’re sorry about that

Who is this WE that is sorry? Speak for yourself when you’re posting a stupid useless comment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's weird how much energy you are putting into judging children's bodies.

It’s not about an individual child, it’s evidence of a societal problem.

Agreed. I’ve noticed tons of huge toddlers/babies recently because thats the age of kids I’m around the most with all my nieces/nephews. One of my nieces is clearly overweight and she’s only 2.5.

my SIL has to get special shoes for her because her feet are so chubby. On our vacation last year the 1.5 year old (at the time) ate FOUR CROISSANTS from costco in the car on the roadtrip (why her parents would allow that, idk). I was pregnant so I was paying attention to calories at the time and those have 400-600 calories each. That’s enough calories for a full grown adult man for an entire day and she ate more that day too. It’s crazy to me because SIL and BIL are both fairly tall and thin. The 2.5
yo weighs quite a bit more than my 3.5 yo niece. Even doctors won’t say anything about overweight/obese children because parents get offended. The 99th percentile is considered obese.

Anonymous wrote:I rarely see genuinely overweight kids in my UMC area. Maybe a few teens. Most kids eat a ton of junk, too- especially by the time they hit middle school or so. It’s kind of surprising actually. Most do play a sport so I’m sure that is a factor.

A lot of kids do seem to get a bit soft looking/filled out looking before puberty growth spurt but I don’t think that is anything new. Usually temporary.

My kids eat a ton and can’t gain weight no matter what they do. Much skinnier than DH and I were at their ages.

Just signing up for a sport as an elementary school kid is not enough to keep healthy. There is still plenty of time to be active with kids. We walked to the playground on free afternoons or the local public tennis courts to play or just being outside moving around.

We never bring food or drinks with us but we seem to be the minority because so many people bring practically a picnic of food just to go play outside. Snacks at the library, snacks at the playground, constant snacks and water breaks. Too much emphasis on snacks.

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.

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

you are wrong. Lean protein is very expensive. How did you miss all of the complaining about cost of eggs over the last three years?

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.

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

Anonymous wrote:Obesity epidemic.

Obesity has been an epidemic in this country for years but as we now know, people cannot handle the concept of "epidemic" and either go overboard or deny everything. And in both cases, attack everyone.

Obesity epidemic.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimming at the pool this year and have really noticed a lot of chunky kids. I know a lot of kids are overweight and obese now but it still surprises me every time I see kids who are clearly overweight at a young age.

DH and I had the opposite problem growing up and our kids are sharing our genetics. No matter how much they eat they can’t really gain weight. Our 9.5 year old only weighs 66 pounds and eats like a horse!

A friend of mine said her 8 year old weighed 100 pounds!

My kids don’t eat perfectly healthy all the time and do eat junk food so it’s not like they aren’t also consuming the highly processed food. I just feel bad for kids having to go through this at such a young age.

You must live in a poor area. We’re sorry about that

DP here. I’m not sure why you are trying to poor shame here (just as bad as body shaming), but you are plain wrong. The townhouses in my neighborhood are $700-800k and the homes are $1M+. Still see plenty of chubby kids.

Anonymous wrote:Swimming at the pool this year and have really noticed a lot of chunky kids. I know a lot of kids are overweight and obese now but it still surprises me every time I see kids who are clearly overweight at a young age.

DH and I had the opposite problem growing up and our kids are sharing our genetics. No matter how much they eat they can’t really gain weight. Our 9.5 year old only weighs 66 pounds and eats like a horse!

A friend of mine said her 8 year old weighed 100 pounds!

My kids don’t eat perfectly healthy all the time and do eat junk food so it’s not like they aren’t also consuming the highly processed food. I just feel bad for kids having to go through this at such a young age.

You must live in a poor area. We’re sorry about that

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids, one has always been slim despite eating a ton (and she’s a girl), and the other (a boy) packed on a ton of weight between ages 9-12 and finally is slimming down by 14. Both kids eat healthy foods, not picky, we don’t drink soda or eat out a lot. His metabolism is just more like mine (sorry, son).

Some of his friends pound soda and spend all their money eating junk at the snack bar all summer and after school and are stick thin. He’s my kid who happily snacks on cucumbers after school.

You can judge all you want, but you have zero clue how everyone is actually eating.

No, we don't know how everyone is eating. We do know there is no obesity in POW camps, so it definitely is linked to eating, no matter what you believe about genetics.

It’s obviously calories in calories out, because of physics, but how many calories actually go out is incredibly complicated because the metabolism is not an engine. And how many calories go in depends on large powder on how hungry the kid is, which owes a great deal to hormones, not just activity level. All of these things can be influenced by genetics (though they’re definitely not entirely heritable — one reason physical activity is healthy is because it can alter those hormone levels even if it doesn’t burn a lot of calories.)

Its obviously part of the equation but its not a 1+1=2 when insulin resistance and other factors come into play. What lowers one persons response to glucose wont reduce anothers. Some people respond best to weights others to walking. I have to track my sugars and walking for 20min after every meal has insignificant reduction but weight training for 20-30 min 1x causes a 16-18-hour reduction across the board when compared to the same meals in a previous day where I didnt weight train.

But I would have never known that if I didnt have to track and record and look at data.

And obese children are already on the path of an impaired metabolism and glucose response. Which is why it's a concern, rather than "fat-shaming".

Youre still shaming children commenting about something out of their control. They dont control their food or the chemicals they ingest or the lack of education and research on placenta/pregnancy. Thats society.

The problem is our food and chemicals etc etc. But please continue to share your "concern" about the overweight kids. Its much easier than having corporations held responsible and our government having any teeth whatsoever when it comes to population-level health.

Do you need a dictionary? Do you not know what the word "concern ' means?