Obesity linked to poverty

DizzyB I am sure you are right to be worried!

Perhaps we need to gather success stories before we can persuade our politicians to turn things around and accept that cheap chlorinated chicken, hormone fed cattle, pesticides which kill pollinators as well as plastic packaging is not the wonder cure for food poverty.

We are helping in small ways in our local community with the setting up of a store which, with help from eager volunteers and now funding from the Climate Challenge Fund is trying to turn things around locally. Before lockdown there was a 3 course community meal each week, using food which would have gone to waste and food grown in the community garden or donated.
However, nothing is perfect and we need to help eachother on many levels.

I am interested in the fact that for years there haven't been school class photographs - only individual ones which parents have to buy.
Why is this?
Is it to do with child protection?

I do seem to remember that in the post war years a lot of food was subsidised, so that expenditure on this by families did not have to constitute a very large proportion of their income.

I was in primary school in 1946. Back then the first of the welfare babies were coming through and 'well covered' was the fashion.

Do think the comments about Aga, Garden etc have been covered. All that was needed in that comment was to add shopping in Waitrose. Perhaps it was meant sarcastically!!!

There is no doubt that cheaper sugary foods can be cheaper than meat or fish and fruit, etc. Also, the adverts. and expectation of children as to what they eat has changed. Post war years we ate what we were given knowing there were no alternatives. Waste could not be allowed. I can remember my Dad once serving the same boiled egg back to my cousin who was staying with us because she had asked for it and then refused to eat it, and got it back at tea time and was threatened it would be there at net days breadfast, so she did eat it. Wonder what all the so righteous people on here would do with a child who just refused to eat the vegatables, etc they want to serve them.

Strange how it has changed. Victorian times saw the poor as being thin and under-nourished and the well-off being fat. Now the poor are fat and under nourished and the middle classes, etc are healthily well nourished and slim.

And, what about those families living in bed and breakfast accommodation - no cooking facilities. Also, so many children have nowhere to run around and play ---tens of thousands have been cooped up for months in tiny little flats, no gardens. Parent(s) too scared by what they were being told even to take them to local parks,etc. And, when they did go to park and beaches - they were castigated on sites like this.

How often do you see good special deductions on such items as fruit and vegetables? I think that the food shops, the manufacturers (with their hidden sugar in so much) are very much to blame. Let;s bring back some food subsidies on healthy food and really slam on the tax to make up for this on sugary ones.

Great post Franbern.

I’m sorry but I don’t agree calendargirl .

I wouldn’t want to go back to a freezing house , ice on the inside of the windows , sharing a tin bath in the middle of the room, sharing an outside loo with 3 other families ( and spiders) , no central heating, no kitchen ( just a sink on the landing) no washing machine , no garden, sharing one bedroom with my parents and my sister, I could go on......

Franbern the cost of food as a proportion of income is very low in this country, one of the lowest in the world in fact,

In 1957 we spent about 33% of average income on food compared to about 16% now.

To be fair Gillybob, I only said some things were better back then. ?

I quite agree with much on your list, yes, that sounds like my childhood also.

Post-war food was rationed too and supplies were quite meagre. That is why people grew their own in gardens and allotments.

Sweets were rationed until Februaru 1953
Rationing did not end altogether until July 1954 after 14 years.

Franbern I agree about sugar taxes but it is even more complex than that.
A lot of poor people already know how to cook and to eat healthy food but would love to be able to afford "treats"

The problem is what we regard as a treat is really the poison and that is partly due to the advertising etc.

Just watch one tv programme in an afternoon and us older folk are bombarded with readymeals delivered to the house, a cruise or two and all sorts of "necessary" medications and diet plans! and that's just the ads.

It really is an uphill struggle. I don't envy families today.

As MissAdventure said: it's a very complex subject.
My daughter is not only an excellent cook but is very knowledgeable in what's good/bad.
If you were to turn my grandson sideways he would disappear, just like his mother ( and me in my younger days) ?
My grandaughter, unfortunately carries her fathers gene. This is a child that is never ever still unless she's asleep.
I live with someone who doesn't have a sweet tooth, no rubbish food but we joke that he can put on weight by eating an apple ?
Very very complex.

Grammaretto, I gave a child in school, there are class photos every year. I also work in a number of schools, all do class photos. Perhaps its an area or school decision.

I think that a comparison to around 60 years ago is still very useful.

Of course, we can't (and wouldn't) turn the clock back but we can see how changes in lifestyle and society have influenced the obesity epidemic.

I can remember well, sitting in a car (watching over a sleeping toddler) while my friend popped into Tesco. I was alarmed by the sight of so many huge people waddling by - off to their cars with trolleys piled high with complete junk!

(Yet another good reason I won't shop there. Supermarket special offers do tend to be junk, don't they?)

A well known supermarket is currently selling a "Family Meal Freezer Deal" which comprises 1 x frozen Southern Fried chicken nuggets, 1 x garlic bread, 1 x chips, 1 x battered onion rings & 1 x tub of ice cream for £5.00.

It's not a healthy meal, full of fats and additives but if you're a family that's struggling to make ends meet, that's a cheap way to fill tummies.

I think the obese issue is mainly down to being bone idol.
Why should i shop/prepare/cook when i can just buy a take away/KFC/Mcdonalds etc.
That seems to be the attitude today.
Many of todays youngsters/youths/adults don`t know how to cook.
I didn`t snack between meals when young because we didn`t have snacky things in the house.

Callistemon

Franbern the cost of food as a proportion of income is very low in this country, one of the lowest in the world in fact,

In 1957 we spent about 33% of average income on food compared to about 16% now.

And what percentage do we now pay on things like rent/mortgage , electric/gas, council tax ? Before we can even think about eating ?

Sorry Calendargirl I wasn’t being awkward . Just saying I wouldn’t want to go back to the way things were . Here in Tyneside we were well behind the more affluent areas . I lived in slum clearance until I was 8 years old which was 1970 ! Unbelievable to some .

Many of todays youngsters/youths/adults don`t know how to cook.

Exactly! Because it was decided to remove Domestic Science (or Food Technology) from the school curriculum. So we've got generations of people who've never been taught to cook a basic meal or learn the basics of food hygiene. And if their parents weren't able to cook, how were they ever going to learn. I'll bet that the majority of us on here did some cooking at school and learnt to make pastry, make a pie or a casserole, but who's teaching the younger generations now?

My own personal experience with sugar is the less I take the less I want sugary food. Sugar is addictive.

Timetogo2016, a very good point:

'I didn`t snack between meals when young because we didn`t have snacky things in the house.'

My children didn't either. They could have an apple or banana but we didn't buy snacks. In fact, my DIL checked with me when my son said we didn't eat between meals. She thought he was fibbing!

I find food and obesity a fascinating subject. On the one hand, its so easy. Calories in, calories out. Simples.

Yet so many of us struggle with our weight. The fat person in the street knows very well they are fat and may well be struggling with it. Writing them off as greedy, lazy and self indulgent denies their possible internal wrangles.

I do thinking that snacking is having a devastating affect on our nation's health though.

For OH and I, snacking crept into our lives once grandchildren came on the scene and we started regular childcare.. Although healthy snacks were given, life seemed a constant round of snacks/meals/snacks.

Off thread a wee bit:

Grammaretto - if you get an answer to your query about class photos let me know - it has bothered me too!! We are lucky that at my DGS's school their class teacher for the year always takes a group photo and we can pay a small fee for a print which goes towards a school outing.

I have children in school they have yearly class photos and cookery is on the curriculum

gillybob

I’m sorry but I don’t agree calendargirl .

I wouldn’t want to go back to a freezing house , ice on the inside of the windows , sharing a tin bath in the middle of the room, sharing an outside loo with 3 other families ( and spiders) , no central heating, no kitchen ( just a sink on the landing) no washing machine , no garden, sharing one bedroom with my parents and my sister, I could go on......

....for heavens sake.....

You can for heavens sake all you like Furret but why we want to go back to “how things were” ? I most certainly wouldn’t . Okay so we ate differently but many things certainly weren’t as rosy as some seem to remember .

It’s not just financial poverty though, is it?
It’s educational poverty in knowing how to plan, shop and cook. In knowing what constitutes a healthy diet.
It’s not knowing how to budget.
It’s accessibility - if only local shops with poor selection and fast food outlets you don’t have much choice - who can manage toddlers and pushchairs to get on a bus to an out of town supermarket?
It’s poverty of time - if both parents in household are working and doing school and nursery runs, they are too worn out to plan, cook, shop .
And lack of support from extended families/handing down of cooking and domestic skills.
And fast food companies promoting their rubbish.
It’s not so easy to make healthy choices in this situation, and easy to judge if you haven’t walked in others shoes.

Plenty of videos on YouTube to show you how and what to cook.

You can still be slim and eat junk food it's the quantities they are eating, stuffing their faces.

Free fruit in Tesco's for kids to help themselves.

No excuse there are no poor people now or poor kids no one needs to go hungry in the UK only lazy mothers and fathers who are too idle to do some basic cooking. How much does basic cereal and milk cost to make, toast and peanut butter for breakfast. Free school dinners and vouchers now when on school holiday. Egg or beans on toast for tea. Homemade veg soup, veggie pasta etc.

Basically they can't be bothered.

My 2 DGD in Nottingham have both had cooking lessons at school and one is even contemplating becoming a chef because she has had such praise at school.
As for poverty causing obesity: There are several refugee families living in our town - from war torn Syria - who come to the community meal. None of them is obese. I realise this is a very small example but I do think we have got it all wrong in society and the remedy needs to come from all sides.

I can hardly believe that a huge opportunity offered in the wake of with the virus and subsequent lockdown hasn't woken people up to the fact that our lifestyles are just not sustainable.
Cheap food comes at a huge cost to the planet .
cheap travel comes at a huge cost to the planet
etc, etc, etc