Obese children

[Jazzy]

Are obese children a form of child abuse and why?

 

[Stravinsk]

Using the term "child abuse" seems excessive for childhood obesity because of the term's other, more deliberate and nasty, associations.

Most children's eating habits are formed, at least in part, by the example of their parents. Then by television and advertisements and the society in which they reside. Obese children do not make the parents abusers in the purposeful inclination of the word necessarily (unless they are purposefully doing it), because these parents are often subject to the same family and societal influences and are just passing them on from habit and lack of knowledge.

 

[Lamb]

Using the term "child abuse" seems excessive for childhood obesity because of the term's other, more deliberate and nasty, associations.

Most children's eating habits are formed, at least in part, by the example of their parents. Then by television and advertisements and the society in which they reside. Obese children do not make the parents abusers in the purposeful inclination of the word necessarily (unless they are purposefully doing it), because these parents are often subject to the same family and societal influences and are just passing them on from habit and lack of knowledge.

I wrote on Jazzy's board about thyroid issues and children. My parents were not fat when I was growing up, but I was the fat one in the family...and also one with a bad thyroid. Testing showed that I was in range so doctors did nothing but now that I've had my thyroid removed and have kept track of things, I know that at a certain point, that even if I'm in range, I get to a point where I'm too low on thyroid hormone.

I wish that the doctors had tried to give me thyroid hormone when I was little. It would have made my life so much easier.

My sister and I ate the same foods except she would go back into the kitchen at night for a second dinner! We did the same activities of acrobats and games outside with our friends and she was the rail thin one and I was the fat one. It's not always about food intake when the thyroid isn't doing its job to metabolize it.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

No. The use of BMI to categorize children (or anyone) as obese does more damage to one's psyche. Use of medical models to categorize has become out of control. The idea of diagnose and fix is "abuse" in the larger context (imo) as it creates a culture that says something is wrong with one's child. As we are willing to learn I think we can shatter some of these myths.

 

[tango]

No. The use of BMI to categorize children (or anyone) as obese does more damage to one's psyche. Use of medical models to categorize has become out of control. The idea of diagnose and fix is "abuse" in the larger context (imo) as it creates a culture that says something is wrong with one's child. As we are willing to learn I think we can shatter some of these myths.

I struggle to see why BMI has any credibility at all. When I at my heaviest my BMI was something like 34.6 which put me well into the "obese" band and I'd only need to gain a few extra pounds to count as "morbidly obese". I don't dispute I was fat but the label "morbidly obese" just costs credibility.

Now my BMI is somewhere around 28 which lands me firmly in the middle of "overweight". I could still lose a few pounds around my middle but I do enough walking and running that people tell me my leg muscles are ripped. I don't see it so much myself, given I don't spend a lot of time looking at them, but when I'm walking towards a large glass storefront and see my reflection I can see they are pretty hefty. Muscle is heavy, but BMI doesn't differentiate.

According to BMI figures my "ideal weight" is something like 60 pounds less than my current weight. I don't honestly think I could lose that much weight and still be healthy. I know we've come to regard overweight people as being normal but I think losing 60 pounds would leave me looking literally anorexic.


As for obese kids it comes back to definitions, which get blurred by useless metrics. It is bizarre to think that letting a child play without standing over them watching their every move is considered all but abandonment, while letting a kid sit in front of the TV and feeding them pizzas and chips until they are spherical is considered safe. But then most things about kids and rules these days don't make much sense.

 

[Stravinsk]

I wrote on Jazzy's board about thyroid issues and children. My parents were not fat when I was growing up, but I was the fat one in the family...and also one with a bad thyroid. Testing showed that I was in range so doctors did nothing but now that I've had my thyroid removed and have kept track of things, I know that at a certain point, that even if I'm in range, I get to a point where I'm too low on thyroid hormone.

I wish that the doctors had tried to give me thyroid hormone when I was little. It would have made my life so much easier.

My sister and I ate the same foods except she would go back into the kitchen at night for a second dinner! We did the same activities of acrobats and games outside with our friends and she was the rail thin one and I was the fat one. It's not always about food intake when the thyroid isn't doing its job to metabolize it.

No need to take it personal, Lamb. I really don't know about thyroid issues but I'd doubt it's the norm. Besides, we are talking about obesity here, not just overweight. Nearly every overweight person I know has a poor diet weighted towards fatty products, particularly meats and dairy, balanced by some hi GI grains (white bread, rice etc) and empty carbs (soda, sweets) and very low in the fruit, vegetable, legume and whole grains departments. The obese ones are more extreme here and are less physically active.

I was once fairly overweight (never obese) and it had everything to do with my diet and activity level. This is the norm for most people. Exceptions aren't the rule, usually.

 

[tango]

I remember some years ago on another forum I made a comment about seeing people so fat they couldn't walk using mobility scooters while eating super-jumbo portions of cookies and ice cream. Someone there made a big issue of the fact that mobility issues can cause weight gain and it's not necessarily the weight that caused the mobility issues. As I said in reply I couldn't tell which was the cause and which was the effect but could confidently say that eating your own body weight in ice cream was unlikely to help the situation.

When my weight has been too high it has always been because the balance between eating and moving has been badly off. I often think, particularly in the US, people don't always appreciate just what is in the food they are eating. I single out the US in particular because my experience is that the food in the US leans far more towards heavily processed meat and cheese than other nations. That said I read a recent article in the UK where people were complaining about new rules that restaurants had to indicate the calorie content of their meals, and people were apparently so surprised that a roast dinner with potatoes and Yorkshire puddings had lots of calories in it that it took away their enjoyment of the meal. Apparently some people thought that mashed potatoes (prepared with lots of butter and cream so they taste good, obviously) were a healthy option.