Are parents to blame for childhood obesity? Study shows 10 percent of parents are feeding their toddlers adult-sized portions

Saturday, July 09, 2016 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: childhood obesity, food portions, parents

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(NaturalNews) A British dietary group is blaming parents rather than junk food manufacturers for the growing epidemic of childhood obesity throughout the world, claiming that the portion sizes on many children's food plates are simply too large for them to remain slim and fit.

The ballooning of the next generation of youth, the Infant and Toddler Forum (ITF) insists, is often a factor of parents loading their children up with adult-sized food portions when far less grub is necessary for proper childhood development.

Completely ignoring factors like metabolism and the types of foods children are eating, ITF says a survey it conducted among 1,000 parents found that upwards of 80 percent of them are routinely serving too-large portions of popular foods, beverages and treats to their children, at least based on official government recommendations.

Roughly 10 percent of parents are also serving virtually adult size portions of spaghetti bolognaise and cheese sandwiches – this, despite the fact that nearly three out of every four parents indicated concerns about not feeding their children enough food to keep them healthy.

Seven out of 10 parents surveyed admitted to giving their children too many snack chips to keep them pacified, while more than one-third indicated that they routinely give their children entire bags of crisps in one sitting – roughly twice the recommended amount.

Many of these same parents also admitted to giving their children too many gummy snacks and processed fruit juices, with as many as 25 percent indicating that they let their children consume entire packs of gummy snacks at one time, which guidelines indicate is about three times the recommended amount.

Based on the survey results as a whole, ITF estimates that as many as 10 percent of all parents are feeding their children way too much food at mealtimes, and that many parents use food and beverages – typically the salty, fatty and overly-sweet kind – to keep their children quiet and content.

"Larger portions form our acceptance about what is an appropriate amount to eat and this becomes the norm," psychologist Gill Harris, a member of ITF, explained to the media. "In other words, how much you offer often determines how much your child will eat and habits learned in early life generally tend to persist."

ITF pushing meager food servings that resemble Michelle Obama's starvation diet for American school children

But many parents don't even seem to understand what a healthy diet consists of, let alone how much of that diet to serve to their children. A mere 25 percent of all parents surveyed expressed confidence in the portion sizes they serve to their children, with younger parents between the ages of 18–24 expressing the least confidence.

Meanwhile, this same percentage of parents worries that their children will become overweight in the future, which is why groups like ITF are trying to intervene. In ITF's view, it's simply a factor of portion sizes, and the group has now released a guide that it says will help parents to better discern how much to feed their children.

But visual imagery released by the U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) of what this actually looks like more closely resembles the types of "starvation" school lunches pushed by Michelle Obama than a healthful diet for growing children.

One depicts a handful of meager broccoli florets scattered across a plate, while another shows four or five raspberries as a meal. On another is a dry slice of bread, followed by a single hard-boiled egg sliced and spread thinly across a plate – hardly what a child, and especially an athletic child – needs to grow strong and fit.

You can learn more about how to grow healthful, nutritious food at home – the kind where you don't have to worry about serving too much of it to your children, by checking out the Natural News Grow Box system.

Sources for this article include:

DailyMail.co.uk

Science.NaturalNews.com