“Fat kids needs to be told they are fat.” Katie Hopkins. The woman can do no right. This time, she’s dared to prioritise children’s health over their feelings in a shocking article that states: ‘If you have fed your child into obesity, you are failing your child.’ Reprehensible, right?
Er, no. Once again the nation is up in arms about Katie’s views, but it really seems to be that people are disregarding anything she has to say based on a preconceived notion of who she is. Sure, you may not agree with everything that Hopkins has said in the past, and sure, you may find her to be an intolerable snob, but this doesn’t mean that she should be deemed wrong before she has even opened her mouth. I can’t abide this kind of attitude, especially when Katie is actually quite right.
So, let’s take a look at what exactly she has to say.
#1 If you have fed your child into obesity – you are failing your child.
Correct. Nobody is responsible for what goes into a young child’s mouth but the parents. Buying fast-food and sweets day in, day out, may keep your child happy in the short-term, but long-term it equates to child abuse. Yes, that’s right. Child abuse. Feeding your child into obesity is sure to have a detrimental effect on that child’s life, whether that be with regards to the child’s health, social standing, or even success within the workplace. By cooking supersize portions and giving your child the option to gorge themselves on anything they see fit, you are not taking proper care of them. When I was younger, I had one designated ‘sweet day’ a week. I looked forward to this day and consequently grew up to see sweets as a treat that shouldn’t be consumed every single day of the week. In addition to this, I had home-cooked meals everyday and was allowed to enjoyed greasy takeaways once a week, again reinforcing the belief that foods like this are a treat and to be consumed in moderation. The result of this? I weigh less than eight and a half stone and haven’t contracted diabetes. Result.
#2 Many worry they will hurt a child’s feelings. Playground bullies are not so sensitive.
Indeed. If you are naive enough to think that size doesn’t matter within a school playground, then I regret to inform you that you are wrong. Children are not kind. Nobody wants their child to be laughed at, bullied and picked last in PE. Nobody wants their child to be the unpopular one, the one that grows up bitter towards the ‘pretty girls’ that snickered at them and called them names. Surely it better to address the problem at home and ensure that your child grows up to be a healthy adult rather than wiping away their tears with a healthy dose of chocolate cake and a ‘love the skin you’re in’ attitude.
#3 Fat kids grow up in the shadow of a fat parent
Fact. It stands to reason that if you are slim, athletic and healthy, you won’t raise your child on a diet of Burger King, and the same goes for obese parents. Chances are, if you are obese you will raise your child on a similar diet to yourself, therefore paving the way for a life of health problems and bullying. Parents often tolerate fussy eating, treating their children to ‘smiley faces’ or whatever they’re called because their children refuse to eat real potatoes, and teaching them that fish fingers are a suitable substitute for real oily fish, but giving in to your child’s every whim is not what a truly loving parent does. Telling your child that they must eat vegetables and having to put up with the ensuing tantrums is part of the process I’m afraid, not relenting and bunging a ready meal into the microwave because you can’t be bothered exercising your authority.
#4 Instead of acting on this ignorance, we are recalibrating ‘normal’; changing school uniforms into plus size versions.
Surely this is totally irresponsible? Without wanting to sound like my parents, back in my day there was a standard size for each age. If you were wearing age 12-13 at age 7, it was obvious that something was wrong and that you were bigger than average for your age. Inventing a plus-size range for young children is only going to lead to attitudes such as ‘well there is no normal,’ and the idea that some children are naturally 30 lbs heftier than others.
The obesity rates of children between the ages of 2-5 have doubled in the past 30 years. I have never even heard of a two-year-old being obese but the statistics show that over half of obese children first become overweight at the age of two and eight out of ten overweight teens grow to be obese adults. With one in ten children going into reception overweight, the future seems bleak. It is all very well to hold your child’s feelings in high regard, but we must ask ourselves, what is crueller? Bringing your children up with a healthy attitude to food that ensures their BMI is equally healthy, or setting your children up for a lifetime of health problems?
And that isn’t all…
Fat parents today seem oblivious to how much they are damaging their children, but it isn’t only the parents stuffing their children full of crisps and fizzy drinks that are a problem. It is important to take into account those parents at the other end of the spectrum, the parents who have let their own disordered eating rub off on their little ones. The need to be thin is also an attitude that can be dangerous when passed down from generation to generation. Body image activist Mia Freedman found that almost four out of ten girls said that their mother was the biggest influence on how they perceived themselves, and two thirds of those girls had heard their mother complaining about her own weight. Now, statistics can of course be manipulated to convey just about any message, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that there must be a relationship between a parent’s attitudes towards food and their child’s.
The worrying trend of pro-anorexic sites and the constant scrutiny that children are placed under due to society’s obsession with thinness and perfection is resulting in children as young as six developing eating disorders. When Fearne Cotton researched the world of pro-anorexia, she spoke to school children about their body image and was horrified to hear the young girls complaining that they thought that they were too fat and wanted to diet. However, shocking though pro-anorexic sites are, the parent does still hold a level of responsibility when it comes to raising their child in the right way, and if you find yourself weighing yourself daily in front of your children, talking about how fat you are or going on crash diets, you could be just as damaging to your child’s health as those parents that feed their children gigantic portions in the name of love.
Bringing your child up to have a healthy attitude towards food and exercise is of the utmost importance, and while I am not saying that every over or underweight child is the result of a bad upbringing, what I will say is that whatever your relationship with food, you must not let that impact upon your child’s mental and physical wellbeing.
What do you think? Do fat kids need to be told they are fat?
The Grumpy Bitch 
Wonderful. I don’t know who Katie Hopkins is, and your first paragraph almost had me thinking this was going to be a rant disagreeing with her (I’m glad I was wrong). It seems to me that the focus should not be on the idea of weight specifically, but on health. The term “weight” always puts people up in arms, when in the end that’s not really what the discussion is even about.