Obesity linked to poverty

A sack of potatoes would be a good investment for young mums. They'd never be short of a nourishing meal.
I did that in the 60's bringing up 4 children, which included 2 step-children. All I used to get were the accompaniments in between beans on toast or spaghetti on toast.

It can be done---along with a recipe book from the charity shop.We lived like Lords A 1/6 breast of lamb on a Sunday. I paid what I could at the butchers throughout the year to secure Christmas dinner.

The money today compared to yesteryear is an absolute fortune, which is why many of us can save as well as eat well.

The problem with comparing our own childhoods with children of today is it like comparing apples to oranges. I was brought up in the fifties. There was little variety of food, it was plain and nutritious. My mother shopped locally everyday. Even things such as ice cream were impossible with no fridge or freezer in the house.

Today we are all bombarded with choice. Plentiful variety everywhere. Countless cookery programmes, advertisements where millions are spent to attract attention, a massive diet industry on the back of this which, if you think about, cant really afford for you to succeed because they will loose your custom. Even school meals are nothing like the meals we had in the 50's and 60's. Then it was stews and shepherds pie, today you are likely to see lasagne, pizza or spag bol. Fajitas even. Food is definitely more enticing and exciting than it was in the fifties.

Add to this the culture that has removed the understanding between want and need and we wonder why there is an obesity crisis. Too much choice and a society that encourages people to indulge themselves, their children, even their pets.

While we are all responsible for what goes in our mouths, for many it is a daily battle to do the right thing.

Ps and my mum worked too.

Hetty's point about nor many people having cars in the 1950s is a good one. Exercise was enforced upon us.

There was no need for young people to spend hours sweating in the artificial atmosphere of a gym because we had to walk or cycle, although there were buses.
Because many people who had gardens turned much over to vegetables that was exercise too, as well as growing healthy food.

Fast food was fish and chips occasionally.

There is currently a lot of research going on into the gut biome and it’s connection to obesity as well as the increase in auto immune conditions, allergies and conditions such as fibromyalgia. Apparently a lot of the food we eat today is far more processed, even flour is genetically bred (and I don’t mean genetically modified) to be a totally different food to that which we had as children, if we don’t look after our gut health and feed the good bacteria it becomes increasingly difficult to loose weight and we open ourselves up to increased levels of inflammation which, in turn, leads to many debilitating illnesses.
Ready meals are a huge problem, not just because of the calories, but because of the processed nature which does not ‘feed the gut’. People reasonably think that getting a calorie controlled ready meal is healthy, it isn’t.
It does worry me, what will happen in the near future, with the current obsession with bleaching and sanitising anything which stays still for long enough. Will we see another huge increase in allergies and autoimmune conditions?

School dinners and the breakfast clubs are for some children, their only meals.
Some people don't learn to cook with their parents. Schools no longer teach domestic science/home economics or straight forward cooking. I started age 11 with brewing a pot of tea, progressed to boiled egg and toast and onwards to stews made from cheaper cuts of meat. I was lucky in school but also at home because we helped with meals. Mum was adventurous as got a recipe for SpagBog from Women's weekly in the 60's and we progressed to curries. The enjoyment of cooking and eating as a family stayed with us and continues in our adult children and grandchildren.
Many children are not so fortunate. Sure Start family centres ran groups for young parents, usually mothers. There would be advice on cheap meals cooked from scratch. Of course, we don't have family centres now. too expensive.....

gillybob

Yes of course I did get that it was very much tongue in cheek Calli but it doesn’t change anything .

Some people really do believe that everyone has enough money to feed their family Substitute Aga, £8 chicken or whatever .

But that was the whole point of MissA's post

I really can’t see the relevance of “when we were young” because we don’t live in the 50’s, 60’s 70’s anymore do we ? would we expect young families to live like many of us did back then ?

My apologies MissAdventure - wee small hours = temporary SOH bypass

(Was Marie-Antoinette being ironic then when she said “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche alors” oops! )

I buy a 5/6k lb chicken for about £8.
It is not a cheap supermarket bird.
We will have roast chicken, cold chicken with salads &jacket potatoes, chicken and egg fried rice, chicken sandwiches and soup from the stock.

I was 20 when our first child was born, we had jut my husband’s income a mortgage and very little spare.
The family allowance of £7 a week was a godsend.
I planned out all the meals and cooked accordingly.
We managed so well because our priorities were right.

My daughter is in a very different financial position than we were but 3 years ago they had an enormous unexpected tax bill from HMRC, paying it meant they had £30 a week for food for 5 weeks after they had paid the bills, put petrol in the cars etc.
She refused my financial help as she said she could manage if she was very careful.
The fist thing she bought was a sack of potatoes.
She did it and they had a roast every Sunday.
When their first pay checks came in after their abstinence they had no debt, no credit cards had been used.

We grew up without supermarkets, just local shops (and vegetable plots) so far less temptation.

There were no special offers, BOGOFs or fridges and freezers to fill at home. Fish and chips or ice cream were rare treats.

We walked everywhere and played out. TV was only available for a few hours in the evening.

Adults often had physically demanding jobs (having walked or cycled there) and housework, gardening and shopping were all heavy exercise too!

My DD lives in a tiny little box of a house with a postage stamp of a garden, but boy is she lucky compared with her neighbours who live in high rise flats .

Yes of course I did get that it was very much tongue in cheek Calli but it doesn’t change anything .

Some people really do believe that everyone has enough money to feed their family Substitute Aga, £8 chicken or whatever .

gillybob

I agree with Paddyanne .

I live in one of the poorest most deprived regions of the U.K. where many children rely on a school dinner for their meal of the day .

Not picking at any particular posts but a chicken costing £8 ? an Aga? Even a garden Are all so far from many people’s reality as it’s possible to be.

gillybob and others
MissAdventure's post was meant to be tongue-in-cheek - or satirical.
Can no-one see that (apart from petunia and me?)

We didn't have so much choice when I was a child. We largely ate what we were given, not asked what we wanted for tea. Treats were just that - occasional, maybe once a week, not everyday items as they are now. We couldn't afford the indulgence.
We walked to and from school and didn't have the labour saving gadgets and machinery to make life easier.
We were taught to cook in practical school lessons so many meals were from scratch. Many women work outside the home and have neither the time nor the energy to do that now. I have to say that Mum became overweight in middle age and I struggle not to take after her.

GagaJo

Sadly, Calendargirl, school lunch is often still the main meal for poor children. I would see them at the lunch counter at school, weighing up what would get them the most for their free school lunch allowance. Good for learning how to budget, if nothing else!

That's why some children don't look forward to school holidays and this lockdown has been difficult.
They don't get fed.

I agree with Paddyanne .

I live in one of the poorest most deprived regions of the U.K. where many children rely on a school dinner for their meal of the day .

Not picking at any particular posts but a chicken costing £8 ? an Aga? Even a garden Are all so far from many people’s reality as it’s possible to be.

Sadly, Calendargirl, school lunch is often still the main meal for poor children. I would see them at the lunch counter at school, weighing up what would get them the most for their free school lunch allowance. Good for learning how to budget, if nothing else!

Ah yes. Another 'undeserving' poor thread. Blame them then there's no need to help them. Very Victorian.

I have a school photo taken about 1922 in liverpool where my mum was a child. Noone is fat but there looks like dire poverty and misery.
If you want to be reminded of how folk lived before the welfare state you could watch the film trilogy "My ain folk" by Bill Douglas.
As MissA has already said: the reasons for modern obesity are complex. If it were easy we would all be slim, fit and healthy.
And most of all HAPPY!

As an earlier poster said, school dinners in the late 50’s and 60’s were often the main meal of the day for many children. A main course and pudding, just water to drink from those coloured dented metal type jugs and squat little glass tumblers, no plastic, were they not worried the children would cut themselves? ?

My husband was from a large family, I think they qualified for free school meals, but I’m sure he was always first in line for any ‘seconds’.

Dinners cost 1 shilling a day for most of my schooldays, Mum always tried to send us with two half crowns, 5 shillings, on a Monday morning to pay for them.

Can you imagine that now, 25 pence paid for a week of nutritious hot meals for a child. No crisps, chocolate bars, cartons of drink, bits of plasticy cheese and ham.

MissAdventure

Yes, just spend 2 hours each day in front of the aga cooking up all sorts of dishes, seasoned from your garden herbs, and all those goodies in your pantry.

I think miss adventure's comment was meant to be taken with a pinch of humour and a generous dollop of sarcasm

Agreed on one front ladymuck but we now have slow cookers and other time saving devices.

One other very important difference also from the ‘old days’ was that children were expected to help.

Leaving young families aside for a moment, many obese adults are older, weren’t brought up on fast food which wasn’t available until the 70’s? , and it is their choice to eat the bucket of 6 chicken legs with fries or one huge pizza to themselves.

I don’t know if medical science supports this but as fast food has a lot of bad fats generally, is it as addictive as sugar?

Fizzy drinks like cola are another culprit. Some people drink it every day.

So Choice can lead to Obesity as well as poverty.

One big difference in the 'old days' is that most women were housewives. They didn't go out to work, so they had time to cook properly. The cheaper cuts of meat take longer to cook, but women had the time to do it then.
Also, school dinners were better...meat, potatoes and a veg, plus a pudding.
Sheer laziness and lack of time is the reason for poor diets these days.