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Timothy

There are several heavily overweight students in my classes who seem to be really depressed.
I teach all ages here in Taiwan and noticed that as long the kids do not reach puberty, there is not much of a problem with that. Once they, however, become more self-aware, they hit a wall.
When I asked one of the chubby students to participate in activities such as writing on the white-board, he seemed to hate me for ever.

What are these parents thinking? Don't they know how much suffering they cause their kids to endure.

The thing is that I have fat kids at younger ages and they do well. They are happy and love to participate all play activities. But once they hit puberty it's over.

I carefully write into the communication book that their kid needs more exercise to gain more body-control etc. . Once, I wrote your kid needs a healthier diet. This child was just getting too fat and I saw her father pretty much every day sticking disgustingly greasy looking foot into her mouth. She became more and more a terribly depressed child.

The biggest problem I see here right now is that they do not want to participate in any physical activities where they are exposed to the looks from others. Even going to the white-board can be a problem.

How do you deal with this issue? Do you just keep quiet?

What are the parents thinking?