[Margaret Pilkington]

Another point to be taken into consideration is the number of fizzy drinks that some children consume......all loaded with sugar.
There has got to be an advantage in making childrem more active too. Even at school playtime there is little real physical activity......children no longer play the physically active games like skipping, tag, and hop-scotch. In fact i'm sure that I read about a school that was enlisting the services of someone to teach the children skipping games. This problem is multi-faceted and needs a multi-faceted approach.
Parents have a hard job.....OK, no-one ever said it was going to be easy......the state too must take some responsibility for allowing people to become dependent on someone else to sort out all the problems......I am NOT saying that the state is responsible for obesity in children....just the 'nanny' attitude that has prevailed for far too many years.

Do you as a parent remember doing without something as a child....? and then thinking that when you were a parent yourself you would not deny your child things...? I think most of us have been there. It is too easy to give in to the desires of children. We see ourselves as 'bad' parents if we don't provide the things our children ask for. Perhaps parents should learn to say NO more often.

Oh.....by the way, this is a very acrimonious thread....and it doesn't need to be.