Chris Cactus was thinking about fat children on his blog over the summer and contrasting the current crop with his own experience. He got quite a nasty reaction to what seemed to me an uncontroversial post, so I am treading softly here.
Chris’s post started me thinking about the fattest girl in our year in secondary school. One day a group of us were sitting around talking about clothes sizes and she was there. I was fascinated – what would her clothes size be? She was enormous. When she told us her size, it was all I could do not to gasp in amazement. In fact, I was so surprised that I remember to this day what size she said she was. She was a size 12 (that’s 8 in American sizes) and, obviously, in retrospect, not enormous at all. But it makes me realise how skinny we must all have been. It was just normal that teenagers were skinny. That was just the way it was. It wasn’t good or exciting to be skinny, it was normal, ordinary, under-whelming and certainly nothing to be pleased about.
A lot of us cycled to school but certainly not all of us. Cork’s first McDonald’s opened when I was 16 and it was a source of great excitement and interest but I think I only actually crossed the threshold once. I only got sweets and crisps at the weekend, and only then, if we visited my granny who had a stash in the kitchen. Stopping for an ice cream was hugely exciting.
I think that a big part of the problem is that we are so much more affluent in Ireland now than we were in the 70s (although that may be about to change, of course, so watch this space for skinny children) and children expect to get a lot more of everything. Also, I feel that we are not half as good at saying no as our parents were. And our children are getting fatter as a consequence of their expectations and our anxiety to please. What do you think?
Less cash in parents’ pockets might also mean more children participating in free or at least cheaper activities like the afore-mentioned sports which will help burn any extra calories. I’m not sure our parents enjoyed saying “No” so often as it was probably more out of sheer financial necessity rather than maintaining our svelte-like frames
Here’s the way the deck is stacked against thinness:
*Too many sedentary indoor activities — video games, doing things on computers, watching TV.
*Not enough fresh air and exercise.
*Not enough time and/or money (why do foods without something — MSG, so much salt, fat, etc. cost more than foods with that thing — you’d think with fewer/less ingredients the product would be cheaper) to eat healthy. — It’s just too easy to eat take away, or frozen, or processed. Fresh fruits and vegetables in stores are expensive, sometimes prohibitively so. All the cheap foods are high in starches and fats.
*It is in our DNA to love sweets (fruit) and fatty foods (meat) — in our hunter-gatherer days, we needed the fat and calories to survive. The food industry knows this and their products cater to it.
*Food commercials during prime time (evening) TV — how many times has watching a food commercial made you get up and get a snack?
I eat as healthy as I can afford to, but I don’t get enough exercise– I could lose weight if I’d only exercise. Losing weight would help my blood pressure, asthma, and circulation — but “I don’t have time.”
I don’t know anymore. My two girls eat the same stuff and have totally different bodies. My 4 year old is tall and skinny and the 2 year old is this cute little rounded, solid ball. They eat tons of veggies and fruits, whole grain bread, and, yes some treats (the less processed the better). They have never been to McDonalds or other fast food joints. They run around all day long (yes, I am a very tired mother!) inside and out. So, why is the little one pudgy (she’s not fat, though, let me be clear) and the older one a beanpole?
I think there are so many factors. In addition to the ones already mentioned, parents are also more likely to be overweight, so there’s perhaps more unhealthy food (or just more food) sitting around for the children to take; parents may also be more sedentary and less inclined, therefore, to be physically active with their children.
I think one of the main factors in adults being overweight – namely, that we get our standards from the people around us, and once there is a critical mass (no pun intended) of overweight people in society we no longer feel as bad about being overweight as individuals – probably doesn’t apply to children at all.
I think children now are more indulged but also more denied than in the past – I’m so glad I grew up in a time when children were allowed to go out unaccompanied – I really cherished the independence I was granted as a child.
I don’t think bad times will bring thinner kids (not unless it gets really bad) – that particular genie is already out of the bottle. Cheap food nowadays is processed food, filled with fat and sugar to make it palatable and hence hitting all sorts of triggers in our monkey brains. A mother struggling to make ends meet isn’t going to make a nourishing meal out of turnips and cabbage and potato (and if she did I doubt her kids would eat it) – she’s going to get frozen pizzas and chips and chocolate not because she’s a bad mother but because they’re cheap and they’re filling and she knows there won’t be any waste. If you look around here in the UK, the poorer the area, the fatter the general population. Fat is no longer a feminist issue, it’s a class one.
There’s certainly a genetic, or at least cultural element there – I’m Jewish, and one thing I noticed growing up is that we were, as a group, somewhat rotunder than my schoolmates/friends of other religious persuasions. And I wouldn’t say our diets were really different – this was Australia, so we weren’t eating mountains of fat-laden Eastern European meat and potato delicacies.
Now, I suppose this may have something to do with feeding up the offspring and grandchildren in light of horrific experiences (my grandfather was a refugee, and there were lots of Holocaust survivors in my circle of acquaintances), but I doubt that’s the whole story.
(For the record, I scrape five feet on a good day, my sister is the same height, my mother is shorter and my grandmother was shorter still, so it doesn’t take much to make us statistically plump.)
A final point: I now live in the really flat bit of western Germany, where everyone cycles, and I haven’t noticed the majority being any thinner than the average. I suppose it would take the Tour de France to conquer the might of the sausage and fried potato…
Lots of very reasonable thoughts there – nice reasonable people. I suppose I should have specified that I don’t mean mildly chubby toddlers or rounded middle aged people (looks sadly at where waist used to live) but really fat children. I watched “The Commitments” last Christmas for the first time since it came out about 20 years ago. The amazing thing then was how huge Andrew Strong was for a teenager. The amazing thing now is how he just looks a bit overweight. My eyes have adjusted, I fear.
Agreement with TM. In my experience, poor people are more likely to be obese than wealthy people. Perhaps it has as much to do with the quality of food as the quantity, as well as with lifestyle, expectations and a host of other intangibles.
Maybe, maybe BroLo, I don’t know.
For some reason I thought this post was going to say something about the cat (not that she is fat but I thought it might be a pun). Maybe next time?
Fattening foods are just available every 2 steps, and are cheap and easier than any other kinds of foods. I have been cutting down on the amount of added sugar I eat, and try to avoid snacks with sugar in them during the week*. I thought this would be easy but sometimes I go to get a coffee and if I’m hungry I can have cake or chocolate or biscuits, to go with my lunch sometimes there is fruit or crisps and sometimes just crisps.
I was a size 10 aged 14 and my mother nagged me endlessly about how fat I was. Actually even by the standards of my peer group I was not fat, though I did have (and still have) a large bust, the curse of my paternal aunts.
*yes I know fruit has sugar but I do not count that.
QoP, she is fat – she’s enormous.
Katie, that is certainly a factor..