Re: obesity in children
 

I think rather than concentrating on the angle of they shouldn't do it because they should be learning accademics, you should be looking at it from the angle of why aren't they getting enough exercise in the gym lessons, what are they doing in their gym lessons and why aren't they using their brake times to get them active. If you find out that the gym lessons are being used correctly then then they should be getting enough from the hour a week, plus the breaks. That is unless they let kids sit about on pc's in their breaks.

Re: obesity in children
 

Now I understand where you are coming from. I can only speak regarding my children's school, gym is similar to what we did at school, organized games, races etc... My son plays football at all his breaks, my daughter skips and runs around. In winter as there is snow on the ground most of the time they are out building forts, slides etc.. I think that the goverment see that in general kids do not get enough exercise, hence the higher levels of obesity so this is a way to promote healthier lifestyle. I personally feel that today we live in a world of conveniance, so parents tend to give their kids processed foods and then the kids play computer games or tv for hours on end. Lets face it when we were growing up we had kids tv from 3.30pm till 6pm now there is 24hr cartoons etc..

Re: obesity in children
 

Part of the solution coul be to re educate the parents. Unfortunately both sets of parents work full time and find the easiest way to feed the kids and keep them quiet.

Re: obesity in children
 

To keep it realistic do you have to run a lot faster than when you played as a spitfire?

Re: obesity in children
 

Nope they get to pedel a winged bike like a maddy. :eek:

Re: obesity in children
 

Obesity is a tricky subject. Blackburn with darwen council weighed kids in class as part of pioneering scheme and my friend's daughter who is a large girl came home crying from her school after being teased

Re: obesity in children
 

Another case of schools being insensitive. What did they do line them up like in a dinner queue so that all the others could here the results? Kids should not have to face that it could give them a complex and drive some to trying to loose wieght at a dangerous rate.

Re: obesity in children
 

Yes, and her parents then probably gave her a bag of crisps to make her feel better!

Re: obesity in children
 

Lets be honest, in this day and age with everything we know about Obesity, fitness and health, healthy eating, exercise etc, unless you have a thyroid problem there is no excuse for being obese. Its a choice and put what ever excuse you want on it, my kids won' eat this, they don't like that, all you are doing is pandering to their whims and when it gets out of hand then its the schools fault because they don't have enough games, gym etc or the teachers fault for not educating them on nutrition. It starts at home when they are young, plonking them in front of the telly while you do your chores, stuffing them with sweets to shut them up, making what they want for dinner and tea, which they saw on the telly and hey it only takes a couple of minutes to heat up a burger and chips and then you can get back to Corry.

Re: obesity in children
 

Very scathing comment for you Gayle - how would you know that without knowing the girl's parents!

Re: obesity in children
 

Quite right, and those parents could be extremely responsible parents who always try to encourage the child to eat apples or equally the child may have some medical problems that makes her overweight. I could well have been totally wrong about it but I'll bet I wasn't the only one thinking it.

I think the school probably handled it incorrectly but if she was teased about her weight after being weighed then I'll guess she was being teased before she was weighed at school already.

Re: obesity in children
 

Obesity is a multifaceted problem....and needs a multifaceted approach.
Yes, exercise is important....children should also have cookery lessons at some point in the curriculum. I am not talking food technology....I am talking good basic cookery skills. Many children grow up not knowing how to cook a meal from scratch, using good fresh products. Fizzy drinks should be banned in schools and children should be encouraged to drink water.
How many of us older folk were ferried to school each day....I know that I was given the bus fare, but frequently chose not to catch the bus so that I could save this money for other things....like a visit to the pictures on a Saturday....so I got my exercise by running a couple of miles to school.
We also did competitive sports, cross country running, netball, rounders.
We didn't eat a lot of processed foods......though we did have butter and full cream milk...we rarely got sweets and hardly ever saw fizzy drinks.

I know mothers who send their children to school with a well balanced lunch box, but the children ditch the healthy food in favour of a bag of chips....so you can give the child a healthy diet..... but it doesn't mean they will eat it.