No, she doesn’t. Or at least, she doesn’t do it right. I hope you can think of a way to help your nephew.
Gotta agree with The Beetle on this one. She does not love her son more than anything. She says it’s easier to give him what he wants than listen to him whine? Pah! Kids whine! It’s up to the parent to give them the stinkeye until they stop whining. Believe me, a stonefaced stare goes a long way.
Kid wants mac and cheese? Fine. Once a week. Rest of the time it’s healthy food. Kid whines? Fine, kid goes to bed without dinner. He won’t starve.
My son did that once. I made a chicken pot pie for dinner and he turned his nose up at it. I said fine, I’m not running a restaurant, you can go hungry. He wandered through about an hour later, saying he’d try “a piece.” I ended up having no leftovers that night. 
No one said being a parent was easy. Hell, it’s one of the hardest jobs out there. Your sister is abrogating (abdicating?) her responsiblity and doing her son no favors.
Just out of curiousity, where’s the Dad?
Aaahh. So that’s what I’d flipped through. The same reflex that flips the channel away from “Next” and “My Super-Sweet Sixteen” kicked in before I figured out what Satan’s spawn was foaming at the mouth about.
If that’s typical of the kids on this show, there’ll be no follow-up episodes. Kids behave like that because they’ve learned that mom and dad aren’t willing to stand firm: those kids will always get their way. Once the cameras are gone, the parents will cave in on the next trip past McDonalds.
You wanna hear something worse? I used to know a couple who thought it was *funny * to make their child fat. As a baby, they put Mountain Dew in his bottles, and thought it was absolutely adorable that he could barely waddle across the room as a toddler.
My husband and I watched a few episodes of this show, then had to stop.
You see, my brother was the 200 pound 13-year-old, who grew into the 400+ pound 25-year-old who smoked, never exercised, ate loads of crappy food, etc. He died of a pulmonary embolism last October at the age of 28, leaving behind a widow, one daughter (only four years old) and three step kids.
So for all of you who say “it can’t be as bad as the doctor lady says,” it can be.
Sorry for your loss. I often wonder what the parents would think if the age progression stopped in the 20s or 30s with a picture of a coffin. You can debate what they would actually look like at 40, but the sad truth is that several of those kids won’t make it that far unless they change alot and soon.
It makes me sad IRL when I see kids like that. And I see alot of little Girl Scouts at various events who are so obese that their little sashes barely fit around them and the sash is the only part of the uniform the girl can actually wear. They are already wearing adult sized stretch pants and XXL t-shirts. Parents should be charged with neglect for letting their kids get that out of shape.
He just thinks the kid is ‘healthy’. Says he’s going to grow up to be a football player. :rolleyes:
He means a football video game player.
Ugh. Now my cousin would be a better candidate for a football player. At the age of 11, he’s already about five feet tall, and very big-broad shoulders, very muscular. He’s involved in sports and he and his brothers and sisters get plenty of exercise and eat healthy.
Not the lazy kids who sit around and stuff their faces full of junk.
I see. Since football players are big, it means they’re all fat and out of shape. :smack:
Someone should explain the difference between “fat” and “muscle” and that if your nephew can’t run from here to there without getting out of breath, a career in the NFL is a bit iffy.
Hey, I just had a great idea! How would your nephew like to spend the summer with Uncle Johnny? 
Uh… that would be a negative.
Please, Uncle Johnny? Please please* please*…
Well, okay. Maybe you should give your sister’s name to the producers of the show. How do people get on these shows anyway? If they’re really that clueless, it doesn’t seem likely that they’d volunteer.
What are their SDMB user names?
No, that’s NOT easy to do.
You don’t just mistakenly drink 80 oz. of regular pop, for example.
You don’t just stumble across a Venti Starbucks Caramel Macchiato and a cinnamon roll, for another. You need to go out of your way, and go into a store and make a purchase to do that.
1000 calories is for two KING SIZE butterfingers.
I always thought those king size candy bars were for two people for a 6 hour road trip? Do people actually eat those things by themselves? On a regular basis?
If you think 1000 extra calories is easy to do, you gotta re-think your eating habits. That’s a whole extra meal. I don’t drink 4 regular sodas in a MONTH. That’s a 30% increase over a normal diet. THIRTY PERCENT. Does it happen sometimes? Sure. . .like at Thanksgiving, or a Memorial Day barbeque with ribs, and potato salad and pie. That’s part of the enjoyment of those holidays.
But any given day? My god.
Perhaps you could point out that 7 years old proably isn’t too young to start getting involved in kiddie football. You know: never too early to prepare for that pro football career.
Of course nephew will probably fight it, and his parents will probably quickly give in, but even if they don’t catch a clue that they’re loving your nephew to death with food, he might at least get a little bit of exercise in before his tantrums win the day.
Not mistakenly, no. Without thinking about it, yes.
Yes. It was an example of how “little” an amount of “food” you can eat and consume 1,000 calories. A SINGLE Hardee’s Philly Cheesesteak Thickburger has 930 calories. A five-piece “Chicken Selects” from McDonalds (something people probably get when they want a healthy alternative) along with an order of their “creamy ranch sauce” runs you over 800 calories. Yes, you have to go into a store and make a purchase. How many people do that without knowing the nutritional value of their food? It’s simple, if you’re unaware of nutritional value of things.
It doesn’t say, “Share with a friend!” on the bar, does it? Doesn’t non-messily break in half (Like Twix, which come with two, or KitKat). Something tells me they’re not marketing it as the ultimate come together food.
Well yeah. That was kinda my point. If you’re regularly consuming over 1,000 extra calories a day, you gotta re-think your eating habits. I completely agree. I haven’t drunk four regular sodas in the past YEAR. Doesn’t mean it isn’t easy.
Whining is indeed a very effective weapon in The Kids Toolbox of Ploys, but it can be resisted. About two years ago I decided I was tired of being a short-order cook and now the children eat the meals I prepare for the entire family, instead of on-demand chicken nuggets, etc. (In my own defense, I started being the short-order cook during my pre-divorce/divorce interlude, when I was existing on salads or nothing at all, so the only cooking I was doing, period, was for them.)
At any rate, it’s been a climb back to normal eating. They still can eat just a little bit of things they “don’t like” but those are becoming fewer and further between. This summer we’re receiving a weekly bushel of produce from a friend of mine who’s sold subscriptions to her vast garden in the country. I have successfully enticed my children (ages 11, 8 and nearly 2) to eat kale, collards, kolrabi, beets and lettuce salads–all formerly “exotic fare.” It can be done. All it takes is perserverence – and deciding to Be. The. Parent.