I too have 2 school aged daughters, one of them eats a meal close in size to mine, she's only 7, but we're not worried about it for 2 reasons. 1/ the food she eats alot of is salads and vegetables, and 2/ she runs it all off in the course of the day. My wife has been diagnosed with Epilepsy recently and so is not driving at the moment, she and the girls walk to school everyday and they all love it. My thought is that the perception that fast food is cheaper than good food (which is starting to become true) and healthy food is not tasty cause alot of our obesity problems. Saying that, looking around at my daughters school, there are actualy very few overweight looking children, but a lot of muscular athletic ones that I suspect are considered to be obese using the stupid BMI system.

I'm interested in the obesity epidemic for their generation. We live in an area where I don't see a lot of chubby or overweight children. Move along a suburb or two and it's a different story. Is it about not getting the right foods? Or is it something more?

You can't be very observant Rachel. Read a sociology book!! Generally the reason why childrens lifestyles or eating habits differ is due to socio-economic differences. Not everyone has parents who are educated enough to pass on knowledge of healthy eating, sometimes their parents don't have enough time to teach them to begin with. Not to mention cheaper food is generally worse for you and good, healthy food options are expensive.

I agree with anon, its def about education of the parents. These days we are surrounded by the easy option: McD's and other fast food outlets means that you dont have to put in the effort of cooking, you can just buy it over the counter and you dont get to see the prep that goes into making the food, even if it is speedy fast (sometimes). We buy our biscuits, bread, tinned fruit, already popped popcorn, muesli bars, cereal... All of it is far too easy. And we often dont stop to think of what is in the food we are eating. Not all of it is good or healthy.

I have taken the approach of trying to make as much as I can from scratch. I make biscuits (rarely), chips out of old tortillas, my boyf much prefers my homemade pizzas to the bought ones, I make my own sauces for meals (mint sauce for lamb, tomato sauce for pizzas and pastas, gravies, and hollandaise or mayonnaise on the odd special occasion). I am learning the art of making bread by hand, and try to use as many fresh fruit and vege ingred as possible in my cooking. This is teaching me how much effort goes into my food, helps me not to be so lazy, and ensures that I know what goes into most things I eat. My family think I am crazy, my friends love eating at my house and its helping me to have a better attitude towards food and towards myself. Instead of feeling guilty for eating, I feel proud of what I have put alot of effort into cooking and I am less likely to over indulge!

I prefer not to hide the bad foods from my son. We create the habit to eat well (we have our own rural garden)but we don't try to pretend that takeaway food doesn't exist. There is nothing wrong with eating KFC twice a year. I remember, as a child, having fish 'n' chips every friday. My generation only ever had one fat kid who sat a the back of the class covertly eating crisps. The difference is that in the '70s we did a lot more physical activity. We didn't have a X box or PC. We played cricket at the park. Chubby kids today probably aren't seen as much because they are parked in a chair with the X box. The sporty ones are outside to be seen. Even though I live in a rural area, I still see Mums and Dads driving their kids 200m from their house to the gate to meet the school bus. That's not a diet issue. It's teaching the kids to be lazy. Often the obesity issue is clouded by the fact that a large percentage of the population are a few pounds over, thereby making it the norm and pushing up acceptance levels.

I don't have children, but I have done a lot of nannying and it terrified me how obsessed some of these children were (especially the girls) about body image and their weight. To be honest it was less than half the kids I looked after, but the ones who were like that were pretty extreme. I found one girl in her bedroom banging her head against the wall, screaming and had thrown all her clothes out of the drawers and on to the floor. She had spilled something on her favourite jeans and her problem was that she "didn't look good in any other pants." I didn't know how to even start dealing with that.

Luckily, I'm not nannying anymore!

I was a slightly chubby child, but I was bullied at school about being fat and I credit that with my ballooning weight through my teenage years. 106kg by the time I was 16. I believed I was fat, felt awful and found solace in food, yet obsessed about my weight as it sky rocketed out of control. 9 years later I am 82kg and have reached a plateau, but it's taken this long to get rid of that scarring. Children in the early 90s were bad for this. They are even worse now!!

I agree I was being a little simplistic. However I disagree that cheaper food is worse for you. We spent $80 this week on food- and our fridge is so full it's difficult to close. Yes that's not all the food we'll need, but it's a fridge full of veges, good meats and fruit plus some ingredients to do baking for lunches-which is not labour intensive. If you buy in season, and when foods are abundant you don't need to scrimp on food on a small budget.

Food is only the tip of the iceburg. Kids are being bombarded with propaganda through TV,etc that sexualises them from an early age, that gives them false images and false rolemodels to learn from, that sterotypes them into being mini adults, and lastly that pressures them into being something that they can never live up to.

And do you know what, we know all this stuff yet do nothing about it. We allow the programs on our TV's, and we allow a fast food joint on every street corner. Bad food is a problem, as is lack of exercise or activity in general, but who is in charge of making sure they aren't an issue? The parents.

What an amazing world it would be without the TV or the playstation.

Intersting topic Rachel. And to carry on from what Pete #4 says the average NZ Adult BMI is actually higher than the average recommended BMI. Therefore the average NZ adult is overweight. Unfortunately that means that being overweight is regular/normal and therefore that perception is passed onto the next generation. I think that is the main issue - the problem begins to manifest itself as we grow further from the ideal over time and generations.

I would also say that lack of parental education and parental neglect contribute to this problem. Ingraining bad habits and not providing children with an adequate diet or guidance around food deprives them of the skills required for a rewarding and healthy life. Good work Rachel for passing on such valuable knowledge to your kids. Im sure it will benefit them for many years.

I agree with Pete - it drives me mad seeing parents dropping their kids off at school gates, when you know that in this day and age of zoning they cant live that far away! We also had FnC once a fortnight (normally dad's pay week!) and we definitely appreciated it. More than that, we WALKED to the shop to get it and it was *shock horror* at least two blocks away! We played sport practically every Saturday for the entire school year, and in the holidays if we werent outside we were in trouble. It would have to be snowing for us to be inside, but even then we werent watching TV, we were making forts out of the furniture, having handstand competitions in the lounge (sorry for breaking that vase mum!), or racing matchbox cars over everything. Kids these days seem to fall into one of two camps, those whose parents make them do a thousand things a week so they are exhausted; and those whose parents let them do nothing. Let's try for some balance people!

@JGM #7

The world I grew up in was lacking both a television and a playstation.

We had a blast.