Childhood obesity on parade

I ferried my son and one of his friends to the local water park today. Now I'm sitting here watching a lot of overweight kids in swimsuits. In fact, my son's buddy is one of them; he's enormous. He's eleven and you can feel my car lurch when he gets in it.


He's also really big in general, though, several inches taller than my son. His whole family is huge. Genetics? Nothing to be done? I don't know. I can't decide if it's prejudiced of me to think there's neglect involved in letting a child get so fat. He had knee surgery a few months ago. I don't know that it was related to his weight, but doesn't it seem likely?


I try so hard not to fall into the social and cultural biases against heavy people that I confuse myself sometimes. I found the movie Kung Fu Panda a bit offensive because of all the fat jokes. I was mortified when my son said "At least I'm not fat" after we left the theater. When I tell him to eat grapes instead of another cookie I always focus my explanation on health, never appearance. I don't ever want anyone's feelings hurt, especially not because of how s/he looks.


So how do we negotiate this situation for the good of everyone? I wish I knew.