Over-protective helicopter parents responsible for increased child obesity

[macker]

When I was a kid only 4% of children were obese and our parents used to politely whisper to us that they maybe posibly had a gland disorder. Today close to 20% of kids qualify as o-b-e-s-e. In three years from now it is predicted that 40% of adults will be o-b-e-s-e. It is a generational issue. Children wake up, hold your mistake up.......except adults can offer solutons.

[Wormius]

Maybe I have got blinders on, but I really don't see that many overweight kids around. What I do see, are a lot of overweight old people. Don't blame 80 years of gravity for squishing you into a little round ball, think about hitting the gym a little bit more often.

[Sr. Mints]

Lets not mix up the 'facts' here.

Video games and what's on television causes cancer, not obesity; smoking causes obesity. And processed food and inactivity increases violent tendencies in youth.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I'm not exaggerating anything. I really was allowed to walk to kindergarten and bike to elementary school without adult supervision. I really did wait outside in the cold for the school bus, not inside a heated car with my mother. I really was allowed to play all over the neighbourhood, completely out of sight of my parents, for hours on end (with no cell phone, of course). I'm not misremembering these facts. These things really happened.

Heh, at least you got a bus, I walked two and a half blocks uphill even when it was -20 or worse and people hadn't had time to shovel their walks yet! Just put on everything from snow pants to scarves. And that was from age 7 and up.

And yeah, it was downhill on the way back... not one of THOSE stories.

But I agree, no one here is making up anything.

[psicodude]

I think people need to remember that things have definitely changed since they were kids that are forcing parents to do things differently these days.

Firstly, I also remember walking to school for all except the coldest of days. But, none of the 3 schools I attended (primary, middle, and high) were more than 5 or 6 blocks away which was quite common for the time. Schools were also typically fairly small as well. It was rare to see a non-high school with more than a couple of hundred kids in it. Today, however, most suburban neighborhoods have 1 public and 1 Catholic school in them and it is normal to see schools with 800+ kids in them. It just makes economic sense to have larger buildings supporting a wider geographical area with large populations. So, yes, you may have walked to school when you were 5 years old, chances are it wasn't very far away. Expecting today's 5 year old to walk close to a kilometer (at the extreme) is unreasonable.

The other thing that has changed is the food we eat, and I don't think it's fair to place all of the blame on parents here either. High fructose corn syrup and the like are in everything these days and are nearly impossible to avoid. As was pointed out early in this thread, 2 hours of playing soccer per week are easily wiped out by a fruit roll-up or juice box. Is this avoidable by going to the grocery store 3 times a week and not serving anything that comes out of a box? Of course. But the fact remains that nearly 20% more women are working these days that 30 years ago. Many people simply don't have the energy to put in 9 hours at the office and then come home and start chopping vegetables.

I get that many parents are just plain lazy and are the main cause of this issue, but people need to realize that times have indeed changed and loads of parents are simply doing the best they can.

[driveway]

While I like to think being a kid was way more awesome in the 80's, blaming a lack of physical activity can't possibly be the sole or even major culprit for child obesity.

The kids here in Taiwan are all freakin' rakes, every last one of 'em. There are a couple of students in the class who get teased for being 'fat' and these kids are nowhere near overweight. They would be considered 'big for their age' in Canada.

And these kids get virtually no exercise. They have gym class 2 days a week and spend 10-12 hours a day at school, sitting down, reading and doing paper work. The most activity I've seen them get is 15 minutes once or maybe twice a week when we go to the park and they kick a ball back and forth.

Diet has got to be far-and-away the biggest cause of childhood obesity.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I'm not exaggerating anything. I really was allowed to walk to kindergarten and bike to elementary school without adult supervision. I really did wait outside in the cold for the school bus, not inside a heated car with my mother. I really was allowed to play all over the neighbourhood, completely out of sight of my parents, for hours on end (with no cell phone, of course). I'm not misremembering these facts. These things really happened.

Kids still do ride their bikes to elementary school.

Kindergarten kids that live close to school still walk.

Kids often wait outside for the bus. On cold days they may wait in the car - not all of them, however.

Kids still play all over the neighbourhood.

Nothing has changed, man. You are totally exaggerating to say parents in 2012 are worried about "marauding band of predators prowling every suburban community waiting to snatch up any unsupervised child."Of course that's an exaggeration. Nobody is worried about that. Nobody.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

The only thing that's warped is the idea that child-raising is so much more demanding today and children are in so much more danger than they were 20+ years ago.

This also points to your lack of understanding of parenting today. Parents aren't necessarily more worried about a more dangerous world. I happen to think the world is safer and continues to get safer. But it's still dangerous, and our awareness of the dangers and our ability to prevent accidents through educating our kids and protecting them (sunscreen, helmets, etc.) help them grow up unmaimed and alive. Being aware of these things, applying the lessons learned and teaching your kids about them is very time consuming. This doesn't mean you are a helicopter parent; it means you're a responsible one. Taken too far, like anything, can be bad, obviously.

Goaliegirl also brings up an important new aspect to parenting in 2012 versus when a lot of us were growing up. Not only are our kids growing up in real life, but they are also growing up in a virtual one. That takes more time and effort for parents to help them stay safe and responsible online as well - a world that didn't even exist for our parents.

[MarchHare]

This also points to your lack of understanding of parenting today. Parents aren't necessarily more worried about a more dangerous world.

This is factually incorrect. The incedence of parental "over-protectiveness" as a response to irrational paranoia rather than actual risk has shot up dramatically in recent decades. You can Google the topic and find numerous reports and studies discussing this.

A few examples:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1156063.stm

In the aftermath of any high-profile child murder, newspapers routinely scream that our children are in mortal danger.

Yet in Britain today, a child is no more likely to be abducted and killed than 30 years ago, when boys and girls tended to roam with more freedom.

Of course, parents tend to act on instinct rather than statistics.

[...]

Professor John Adams, a University College London academic who has examined the role of risk in society, believes we have gone too far in shielding children. The result, he says, is that we are depriving them of learning and valuable life experience.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...nt-expert.html

"Very rarely are children seen on the streets, playing outside, taking themselves to school because we live in such a risk averse and paranoid culture around child safety."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...hildren.health

This week the decline in children's play will be laid bare when ministers admit that one in four eight- to 10-year-olds have never played outside without an adult and one in three parents will not even allow older children, aged eight to 15, to play outside the house or garden.

A national consultation on how to reverse the decline, to be published on Thursday, will also show that children start playing outside later in life; the average age at which they are allowed out without supervision has risen from seven in the 1970s to over eight today. The crisis is being made worse by increased traffic and parked cars, less tolerance of young people and fear of 'stranger danger'.

[...]

'In our consultations parents told us this is because there are not enough safe places to go - and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that parents think their children are safer playing inside on a computer than outside.'

[...]

'We argued very strongly that children need safe places to play,' he said. 'There is evidence that parents are less willing to let their children play out and that can turn into a vicious cycle, because if play areas are not used by families then we concede them to less desirable groups.'

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

This is factually incorrect. The incedence of parental "over-protectiveness" as a response to irrational paranoia rather than actual risk has shot up dramatically in recent decades. You can Google the topic and find numerous reports and studies discussing this.

A few examples:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1156063.stm

This article doesn't cite anything that I wouldn't consider to be common sense and I've addressed it already. Taking things too far is bad, is the argument the article makes.

"You can," says Mr Adams, "be risk averse to the point of depriving yourself of very substantial benefits."

Well, yeah, obviously. That's been true since the beginning of time.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...nt-expert.html

This is a newspaper article that cites no study and has no facts other than one person's opinion backed up by nothing. Even this anecdotal quote is easy to refute with my own anecdote.

"Very rarely are children seen on the streets, playing outside, taking themselves to school because we live in such a risk averse and paranoid culture around child safety."

You're honestly telling me you can't find children playing outside anymore? I don't know what ghetto you live in, but there are kids everywhere in my neighbourhood.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...hildren.health

Another "meh" article.

This week the decline in children's play will be laid bare when ministers admit that one in four eight- to 10-year-olds have never played outside without an adult and one in three parents will not even allow older children, aged eight to 15, to play outside the house or garden.

So 75% of kids 8-10 have played outside without an adult. That doesn't seem so bad, but it's the 25% that's of concern, obviously. Unfortunately, the stat is completely meaningless without a comparative analysis of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. The article is implying things are worse, but are they? I don't know and neither do you (based on the article you're citing, anyway).

The article goes on to say this:

...that children start playing outside later in life; the average age at which they are allowed out without supervision has risen from seven in the 1970s to over eight today. The crisis is being made worse by increased traffic and parked cars, less tolerance of young people and fear of 'stranger danger'.

The average age at which people are allowed to play outside unsupervised has increased by one year in forty years and it's a crisis?! That's ridiculous and I think proves my point more than yours. Thanks for the link.

[jammies]

When I'm baby-sitting my nephews, as soon as mom and dad leave, I kick them out of the house, and tell them not to come back unless they have at least $100 that they've begged off total strangers to pay me as a toll. "Jump in front of a car and pretend you are hit, or, even better, take a hit and tell the driver you'll sue" is the advice I give them, and so far nothing too bad has happened, and I've made some good money. Plus they've learned valuable street skills.

They used to complain "What if some bad man comes and kidnaps us?!?" but I told them some hypothetical bad man is not nearly as scary as I am if I don't get my money. Then I tell them stories of how, when I was young, their dad and I were the only survivors of 14 kids (my parents are Catholic) because we had to fight rabid wolves in an arena every Saturday night to pay for Grampa's coke habit. Then they see that I'm actually pretty easy on them, considering I let them keep 10% of the money for themselves.

Pussies.

[photon]

I can't get my kid to come inside some nights.

Our neighbourhood is filled with kids every day, and if parents are out it's because they're playing, but half the time there's no adults out.

Some days kids are knocking on our door for my kid to come out and play before school lets out.

EDIT: I'm on board with the diet idea.. we're fortunate that my kid loves fish and uncooked veggies so it's never an issue with that stuff, we have to struggle for him to each chicken or beef or get enough protein.

[photon]

Lol no kidding, he gets 1/4 glass of something to drink with his meal, that's it.

Even then it's still a battle to get him to eat enough.. but he's growing, so I try not to agonize over it too much.

He's totally used to the no veggies no dessert rule too, which is great.

[V]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Maybe I have got blinders on, but I really don't see that many overweight kids around. What I do see, are a lot of overweight old people. Don't blame 80 years of gravity for squishing you into a little round ball, think about hitting the gym a little bit more often.

I've found quite the opposite. We were at the pool not that long ago and I couldn't believe how many fat kids there were there. It was crazy.

This whole helicopter parent thing is tough for me. My wife is a bit of a helicopter parent, and I'm borderline negligent, and tell her to ease off all the time. But I just know that one day something bad will happen, and it'll be my fault for being negligent, and then all hell is going to break loose.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by goaliegirl

I have kids(6,10 and 12) and I don't raise them much different in regards to outside play as I was raised. My 6 year old daughter is currently at the park, which is about half a block away, I cant see her but I am not paranoid about her being there. I think there is very little difference in raising kids today compared to when I was growing up. The only thing I can think of is internet dangers, something which my kids while playing outside are going to have no issue with.

I agree with you. My point was people comparing their experience with how they were raised with how people are currently raising kids. You're not a good judge of parenting skill at seven years old, but a lot of people in this thread are using those inaccurate judgements and comparing them against parents today. It's a flawed way of looking at things, which is how CC is arriving at his Cleavers meets Rockwell meets The Bronx childhood/parenthood anecdotes.