Food is an addiction. Some people are prone to food addictions and some aren't. I could be around alcohol, cigarettes, and heroin all day long and not have any desire to touch any of it. I don't understand how someone could not control themselves around drugs when it's so unhealthy.
When you're an obese kid, you don't feel unhealthy. Your joints don't hurt. You can run and play just fine. Nothing feels wrong. You haven't been taught that being overweight is doing permanent, irreversible damage to your arteries and organs. You aren't aware how dangerous obesity is because your parents tell you, "You'll grow out of it. Don't worry." or "You're not fat. You're healthy." You don't understand exactly how bad being overweight is.
Growing up, I ate McDonalds or other fast food every single day. After eating tons of pure sugar/fat/salt daily, you start to become addicted to food.
One of the hormones responsible for food addiction is leptin. Leptin is the hormone that tells you to stop eating. You know how after you eat a ton of candy and you feel sick even though you don't feel "full"? That's leptin. When you constantly are overfed, you produce more and more leptin. Eventually your body stops responding to leptin, and you become leptin resistant. You can eat 10lbs of candy and never feel a desire to stop. In fact, you'll continuously crave food even after you're painfully full.
I tried going on diets when I was a kid, but vegetables, fruits, homecooked meals, or otherwise healthy foods weren't available in my house. I tried to eat healthy. I told my parents to please buy some diet food when they went shopping. So they'd bring home canned veggies and slim fast. And since they only went shopping once a month, I obviously started eating the junk food again when all the good healthy food ran out. Kids can't control what their parents buy, and many parents deny/don't care their kid is fat, so they offer no help. My mom still insists I was not fat as a kid. Even after showing her a picture of me as an obese kid, she insisted i was on the higher end of healthy, but definitely not fat Visual approximation.
I tried really fucking hard to lose weight as a kid. Eventually I became bulimic at 14 because I was so addicted at that point and could not stop eating. Children can't realistically lose weight on their own. Adults can't even lose weight most of the time. It's insane to think a kid should be able to do it when they can't even choose what they eat. It is absolutely 100% not a kids fault if they are fat.
