Are todays eating habits storing up health problems for the future?

nanna8

I’ve read similar. Apparently it is better to be slightly overweight than slightly underweight past the age of 60. Encouraging. Slightly,though. 😀

Yes, l saw this some time ago. I think many of us have always instinctively thought this as it means that there are reserves of fat in case of illness. I should have no problem.

I was taught to cook from scratch and still do. Yes I was obese but lost 7st over 5 years counting calories and when I reached 15st,7lbs went to Age UK community fit club.
I was size 32 now 16 still trying to lost the last stone 4th year but 1 day I will get there.
I was born disabled so 7 exercises and 500 rotations on my static pedals a day . Got to sit fit class ,move it or lose it class , recently joined singing and exercise class and health and mindfulness class.

You choose what you eat but you can also choice to not eat rubbish packed full of chemicals . Plus you can exercise you don't need a gym . Plenty of classes for all ages and abilities you just have to look.

If you want to be healthy it takes hard work there are no short cuts . Plus never giving up .

Teaching your children to cook healthy meals from a young age is a must . My parents taught my brother and me plus using up leftovers . My children they have taught their sons .

We visited a National Trust property where we were given a talk about the Victorian kitchens. Apparently the staff consumed a huge amount of calories every day but they did not put on weight because of the hard work they had to do. If you consume more calories than you expend you’ll put on weight. It’s very simple.

But……I recall the thrill of these foods in the beginning. We were allowed to try, Vesta chow mien and another one can’t remember if it was a risotto? Also there was the Frey Bentos steak and kidney pie. I loved it if they appeared at our house as we had so much fish otherwise. Certainly wouldn’t be for me now though and fish is probably my first choice, how times change.

Apparently during the war people ate more healthily than previously. 🙄 I guess lack of sugar and fats? Vegetables were is reasonable supply.

Did we really eat so much healthier in the past.
I would say yes. Or what pases for healthier.
Not all the people who eat "healthy", escape from illness.
I sometimes wonder if their diet is too narrow. That they are missing out on a more varied diet.

Not just breaks.
Being too thin also means they are vulnerable when they are ill.
I know someone like this who eventually took the advice on board. Thankfully.
It took some doing, and a few years before she could see that.

I was told in hospital this week that older people are much more vulnerable if they are slimmer and that they are more prone to breaks.
Some weight bearing is thought to be better for us. Obviously not being excessively heavy!

This was new to me.
Of course I was in an orthopedic department.

Did we really eat so much healthier in the past. Yes, less obese people, but that was because a shortage of food and far more physical type work which worked off calories.

Sunday brekkie when I was a child (40's and 50's), was often white bread soaked in egg and fried in fat, then covered in white sugar. Loved it.....Also my Mum for a treat would make me a sugar sandwich, white break, butter and sugar!!!

My Mum worked part-time, but always cooked a meal for us in the evening, always contained meat, potatoes and one vegetable. Tinned (very sugary) fruit for dessert and things like Angel Delight ,etc.

Life was very much harder back then, My Mum would ensure that I had one piece of fruit each day, but would keep these in a bag that only she had access to. No fruit bowls left out on dining tables back then. I think there are far too many rose-tinted specs around when we talk about our own past.

I’ve read similar. Apparently it is better to be slightly overweight than slightly underweight past the age of 60. Encouraging. Slightly,though. 😀

As an aside, and something to cheer those of us who are a tad (or more) a bit overweight, - there is an article today that shows that people who are overweight or slightly obese live just as long as those at what is considered a healthy weight, which seems slightly more than first thought.

Those who are less than 18 on the BMI scale are most at risk of early death and it doesn’t get too much better until about 24. Of course those obese people at 40 or above are at the same risk as those at 18.:

I feel quite happy after reading that😄

Jaxjacky

Because most women didn’t work, their role was primarily domestic and child rearing, I’d rather not have women return to that pigeon holing. It also meant one wage and in the 50’s there were still food shortages in some areas, the poorest of society were unhealthy and died early.
There were many disadvantages in those rose tinted days, particularly for women.

Exactly!

mabon2

Yes indeed all this oven/microwave/airfryer preprepared food is bad for people who eat it. It is full a various e's fat and sugar often hidden.

Air fryer food in my house is fresh food cooked from scratch. An Air fryer is an oven..... works like any oven, but smaller and quicker.

The quality of the enamel on children's teeth is not just to do with diet.
Just saying.

Genes, Fluoride, Dentistry...

When I was a child my Dad grew vegetables in our garden. he also had chickens.
When they got too old to lay eggs, gave them to a neighbour as he could not kill them.

I agree but not in our house even my adult children agree. They did not grow up and eat takeaways. McDonalds,Morrisons etc was a once a month weekend treat and usually breakfast....My children rarely got processed food and I worked full time as a secondary teacher.. Slow Cookers,homemade soup and freezers are marvellous things!

It was always home cooked food when we were growing up, we never had takeaway outlets- only the Wimpy bar for a rare birthday treat.
Also, amazed at the amount of kids today that need their teeth coating to protect the enamel, probably because of all the sugar in food.
We only ever got fruit for supper.
Treat was a caramac bar on my when home from Sunday school.
Had my first filling at nearly thirty.

posset thank you for correctly namimg the author. I was too lazy to check.

What surprises me is that it has taken so long for this issue to come to the fore. In the mid 1980s a book called 'E for Additives' was published and was a best seller. I can remember then looking at packets of food and being quite horrified by all the synthetic ingredients in the food I was buying and that while each may have been tested and found safe for human consumption, little was known about how they interacted. Then, I was thinking more in terms of causing allergies and other reactions, not the effects we now know it has.

It was reading the 'E for Additives' book and thinking round it, which made me decide not just to cook from scratch - I already did that - but as far as possible to avoid processed food. As we had the BSE crisis at the same time, I moved to buying organic meat, even though it meant halving the average meat portion we ate to cope with the high price.

I am not purist, I accept that I cannot avoid all processed foods, but I consciously avoid them and have adapted our portion size and meal choices in order to do so.

M0nica

If you read the work written by Dr Xand van Tulliken and other writers in the field. They put the blame, not on what we eat but its constituents. the processed ingredients, food elements we never ate before. all those 'modified', emulsifiers, 'hydrolised' etc etc.

Other researchers into the human biomes have reiterated what is being said. It is impossible to completely eliminate these products from our lives, but by home cooking from fresh ingredients can reduce it, as will, ideally, shopping organic, not always possible or affordable, but shop for meat in farm shops where they rear their meat to high welfare standards, many of their other meat products will be free or nearly free of the UPF incgredients.

When meat costs mroe reduce portion size. i was brought up on 4oz of meat per person - and most recipes work to this portion size. I have gradually reduced portion size to 2 oz. We eat a lot of casseroles and stews and I add extra vegetables and beans to every casserole.

I read Chris van Tulleken's book "Ultra-Processed People" and, honestly, you'd never eat an ice cream again! It was very enlightening, and now I am verging on paranoid about reading labels on things!
I think the whole nutrition issue is down to education, and it surprises me that some people are so unaware of it, because it is so easy nowadays to learn about just about anything from a quick google search!

I also think it’s the habit of snacks/grazing all the time, mostly sweet, which are a huge part of the problem.
Lack of exercise too, walking/cycling to school; being shooed out of the house after breakfast and only coming home for meals, being bored and finding something to do. All that seems to have gone out of the window.

Everyone has cars these days and kids get picked up from school round here. We had to walk, sometimes a long way. It kept us fit and I remember always feeling hungry as a child, never quite enough to eat. I disagree about fat kids,though. I don’t see any round here,they are all slim but very tall, much taller than we were. Not unusual to see young girls 6 foot tall, including one of my granddaughters. Aussie sunshine ??

When I was in school, every other class may have had a hefty child. Now seeing the kids coming out of high school, I see a lot of hefty children, some quite obese.
Do they not learn about nutrition at school anymore?
Where does the money come from for all these snacks?

Sarnia

In answer to the OP.
Yes, absolutely. We GN's know that where parenting is concerned we have to keep our opinions to ourselves, unless asked. My DD's and DIL's are busy people. All with full time jobs with homes, partners and children too. They all use ultra processed food and ready meals for convenience and speed. Rarely do I see any colourful vegetables on the plates. At the moment I am dropping hints about how good is Jamie Oliver's Healthy Eating cookery programme which is currently on TV. I daresay it will fall on deaf ears. I do worry about my GC's future health though.

Plenty of us had full time jobs, with homes, partners and children and still managed to feed ourselves and our families properly.

I can see no reason why the above full time jobs etc etc, should suddenly have become so onerous that feeding your family properly is too difficult. Frozen vegetables are quick and easy to prepare and in many cases fresher and more nutritious than fresh vegetables. the same with fruit. Fresh fruit needs only the briefest of washes.

Grammaretto

I have never knowingly eaten a Gregg's sausage roll. I'm veggie and I may have eaten a vegan SR.

My guilty eating habits are eating too much. I cook from scratch lots of veg but I eat butter, cheese and dairy..

It's true that there weren't many overweight kids when I was young.
Given the chance we'd have devoured a sweetshop. I feel sorry for today's children who have to learn self control!

Greggs do a good vegan sausage roll too!

I certainly wasn't overweight as a child, mainly because 50s food was so horrible. I suppose we were lucky to have meat most nights but I just remember lots of gristle and fat that I was supposed to eat because it was good for me. Needless to say I didn't. Runner beans were another "favourite" very stringy, with very tough skin. Peas were lovely but they were fresh so we only had them two or three times in the summer.

I think my daughter's boys have got off to a good start. Only water to drink when they were little, and they still aren't keen on fizzy drinks. As a biochemist working with plants she is very careful about what food she cooks and how she prepares it.