Seriously Concerned for Today's Children

Holy crap. This is brutal. COKE??? Who gives an 18 month old COKE? She'll be fine??? This makes me so angry and even more sad......sigh.

From the UK Daily Mail - June 10, 2008

Obese at just 18 months, the little girl raised on a diet of
chips
By James TozerLast updated at 7:58 AM on 09th June 2008

She's only 18 months old, but Courtney Boswell's diet of chips - and not much else - means she weighs as much as the average four-year-old.

But despite being warned her daughter's future health is at risk, her mother Angela insists the toddler will grow up
just fine.

Miss Boswell, 33, said persuading Courtney to eat healthier
foods has proved almost impossible. She said: 'Most of all she loves chips. I ate a lot of chips in chocolate sauce when I was pregnant with her so maybe it comes from that.

'I think she'll be fine when she's older - I'm not worried at all.

'People say she's getting podgy because her tummy sticks out a bit, but it's just a bit of puppy fat and she will grow out of it.'

Courtney, who weighs 2st 2lbs, or half a stone more than the average 18-month-old, will this week feature in Wednesday's ITV1 documentary, Britain's Biggest Babies.

The toddler, whose diet also occasionally extends to chocolate, crisps, cereal and Coca-Cola, is shown devouring a portion of chips in just under ten minutes.

But her mother insisted that a lack of vegetables is not for lack of trying.

'I've tried giving her healthy food but she won't eat it,' Miss Boswell said. 'She will eat a bit of what we're having, say spaghetti bolognese, and she had a massive bowl of mashed potato the other day.

'She might have a banana sometimes, or yoghurt, but she won't touch vegetables - she picks them up and throws them.'

Nutritionist Jeanette Jackson said: 'This really is very bad, this poor child.

'She is only 18 months and already she is chronically obese. The foods she is being given lack vitamins and minerals. Her development will be delayed and, if it continues, there is high risk of her getting a chronic illness.'

Catherine Collins, from the British Dietetic Association,
added: 'It can take up to seven attempts to get a child to try something new but there are ways of varying this diet and the family should seek advice from their GP.'

But Miss Boswell - who has four other children, including a
five-month-old son, Kai, by partner Gary Quinn, 37 - insisted there was nothing wrong with Courtney's diet.

'We don't have any big people in our family,' she said. 'If
there were I'd be more concerned, but the other kids
have had similar diets and been fine.

'She's a very healthy baby and it's not often she gets ill. She drinks milk and sometimes Coke between her meals but she is very active. All the children get veg, but I can't force them to eat it.'

Around 13.4 per cent of children under ten are now obese -
so overweight that it threatens their health - up from 9.9 per cent in 1995.