Is obesity linked to class?

I have not read all the thread so I may be repeating what has already been said. I have a weight problem but eat very healthy and everything cooked from scratch, I didn't have a very healthy childhood and this is probably the root cause. My Mum is/was the worst cook you could imagine money was very tight and yes we sometimes had white bread and dripping for a meal. I have seen the advertisements for Farm Foods where you can buy the ingredients to make a good cheap meal but I don't think this generation have the skills to do so, I feel schools need to go back to the home economic classes to try to turn this ready meal trend around.

Yes, I agree. Not sure it is a recent trend - I myself had only one cooking lesson at school ( rock cakes - pretty b awful as I recall) but that was only because I took Latin and there wasn't enough space on the timetable to do domestic science too. But the emphasis does seem to have shifted now from actual cooking to the theory of nutrition. In an ideal world there would be a place for basic life skills, not just cooking but budgeting and so on.

Think the remark was more about eating breakfast buns. Presumably rich classy people eat smoked salmon and scrambled egg or eggs benedict? Hence the poor eat stodgy rubbishy food and put on weight more.

Perhaps some obesity is more directly linked to self esteem, than to poverty and that Poverty is a symptom of behavioural patterns with regard to poor self esteem, educational attainment and work chances. A chicken and egg situation.

Some very poor families do raise confident, well educated and successful children which must suggest factors other than poverty play a role in this.

There is also a certain Them and Us attitude. "They" only want to stop us smoking because we enjoy it, which was very prevalent when I had my children," They" only want us to stop eating junk food because we enjoy it. There really are children at my grandson's school who are fed on Pot Noodles because their mothers consider them a treat. Poverty doesn't necessarily come into it, it's lack of education and lack of interest.

I have just read through this thread for the first time. I was a Home Economics teacher who had to re-invent myself as a Food Technology teacher when National Curriculum came in. In my humble opinion it was the worst thing that happened to the subject. In my school we were lucky - we kept all our practical rooms but others did away with them completely because it was now a 'technology' subject and as long as other 'technology' subjects were offered on the syllabus it was ok.
We stopped the emphasis on practical skills re-inforced with theoretical knowledge and started teaching from an industrial perspective. The lessons length was also reduced - ever tried to teach 20 kids how to make even a simple dish (and get them all cooked in 6 ovens) in 1 hour 10 mins ?
It was scones and pizza ad infinitum. They were shown how to make scones, they made scones, they designed a 'new' scone, they made it, they designed a 'new improved' scone, they made it. The final lesson in half a term's work was to design a b****y box to put them in !
Inspiring or what ??
In the 'old days' I would have taught kids of the same age every type of pastry in the same half term and they would have been making a full meal for a family by the time they were 15. I am not saying that everything was better then but at least most kids (especially those who were deemed not very academic!) left school with good practical skills and a knowledge of nutrition.
It was also a time when in order to teach Home Economics you had to have been trained in the subject. Not any more - it seems that if you can teach 'technology' then you should be able to teach across the whole range of subjects and so they do. It's a bit like asking a plumber to re-wire your house!
Being made redundant was the best thing that happened to me !!!

tiggy you brought back all the memories of my twice a week domestic science lessons, in which we learned how to lay a table, launder and starch a linen tablecloth, wash glasses, cutlery, dishes and pans, even polish silver, in one section of our lessons, and we would plan and cook meals in the other. I learned puff, rough puff, choux, hot waiter and shortcrust pastry, and loads of savoury meals and desserts, as well as the usual scones, rock buns and raspberry buns. Domestic science lessons continued into the fifth year, so we could all cook, albeit a lot of it was English, traditional meals - no pasta, curries or paellas.

My grandson told me learned to make chicken nuggets when he was 11. Great, I said - you'll be able to make them again. But no - they just did the ingredients and method and wrote it down. We set to when he visited, using his recipe, and made breadcrumbs, set out the flour and egg, and he wielded my sharpest knife to cut the chicken, whilst we talked about hygiene with meat. Then, when they were cooked he ate them. It took an hour to take his school lesson and a bit less than that to actually make them at home with me. I hope they return to enabling children to cook from scratch, understand where food comes from and what processing does to it. It's one small part of eating sensibly, and education can do so much to help children understand nutrition, but so can parents and grandparents, by building on what they do in school.

when you reminded me of my DS lessons. We also learnt how to wash a hairbrush!

I still like to see a nicely laid table with shiny cutlery and glasses so long as I don't have to do too much towards it.

I enjoyed those domestic science classes where we made all sorts of stuff. I've used the basic roux for 50 odd years and every time I talk my way through it, just like the teacher!

I detested my DS teacher, so wasn't too keen on her subject. She failed me for my Guides laundress badge - twice. So I never attempted the cook's badge. However, my mum taught me the essentials and by the time I reached 15, one of my jobs was to prepare the stew for Saturday lunch, using the pressure cooker. I also made the annual mince pies, while listening to the nine lessons and carols from King's College. My GD suffered from the food tech lessons but made up for them by taking over my kitchen at weekends and is now a competent cook.
Grans - we may be the last line of defence against convenience food!

It's a wonder that any one ever wanted to cook again if all DS teachers were as sarcastic as the one who derided every single effort of mine.

The silly thing is that I am a good cook despite her rather than because of her. The only thing I remember about her lessons was not to try rubbing sugar into butter when making scones or you get used as an example of how not to do it and laughed at by the whole class.

I remember my DS teacher very well. She had a habbit of saying "ma" instead of "my"

A lesson with her went something like.......

First I will spoon ma mixture into ma cake tin with the help of ma little finger
then I will smooth ma mixture out with ma pallet knife
then I will take ma oven glove and pop ma cake into ma oven.........

It still makes me cringe when I think about it.

We had a little flat attached to the Home Economics class room and we had to make beds, lay tables along side the cookery lessons, in our final year we got chance to sleep over and to prepare and cook meals while we were there.
The Home Economics teacher was very highly strung, one girl in the class had her legs slapped every lesson for everything from forgetting her apron to her victoria sponge looking like a pancake but we did learn all the basics on how to cook for a family and my MIL filled in the gaps as my DM was the worst cook and housekeeper you could ever imagine.
Thats what is missing from this generation they dont have the basic cooking skills to go on and expand for their family.

Oh crikey !!!!

I do hope I was not like some of your teachers !!!!

Tiggy, hear hear and well said. I learned so much that I still remember from DomSci but my sons educated in the 90's remember nothing except how to decorate a pizza. I had to teach them basic cookery skills.
I dont want to get into the politics of class etc but in the last decade or so I think that many younger people, especially female have changed shape. When im out and about I observe a large proportion of young adult females with enormous waists. Im sure its down to a combination of poor diet and lack of movement. When my eldest son was at uni he said that although the boys ate and drank as much as the girls, the boys tended to do more sport and burn it off. I notice that when one of my adult sons has a season off football or cricket he gets a lot chubbier. If I look at pictures of young people in the 70s they are a completely different shape.
I personally think that one of the reasons is that food is available 24 hours a day. When I was growing up and a young adult it was not common to eat between meals, I can never remember being offered any food as a child other than at the table for breakfast dinner and tea.
Our local fast food restaurants are always full at any time of day. When I'm at school childrens news is often " we are going to Mcd for tea" it is no longer a treat like it was say 20 years ago.
White high carb food is cheap, but lots of people eat it so I think it is a combination of a variety of causes. Including the luck of the draw re genes.

We had a little flat too Glass Little did I know how soon I would be making full use of the lessons in homemaking!

With rationing after the war the food on the plate HAD to be eaten and the waste of food unheard of. No excess sugar, fats etc. however the feelings of guilt at not emptying the plate in childhood seems to mean that there is this subconscious need not to waste instead of stopping when full. This leads to weight gain. My daughter is always telling me that DH is not a dustbin when I offer him seconds.!

Re the eating all day, only about 12 or so years ago I remember passing a cafe and seeing people eating burger and chips. I looked at my watch and said its 3 pm I wonder if its their dinner or tea, how strange to be eating a meal mid afternoon. How times have changed, ive even been in that same cafe at 3pm and eaten a meal.
The fast food event as a treat for my boys in the 90's was more to do with lack of money than nutritional value I have to say.
My old dad, still going strong at 85 and a severe stroke back in April of this year, says we dont know what food poverty is these days. He always quotes the boy in the 1940 playground who stood by my dad who was eating an apple. The boy asked if he could have the core when dad had finished eating the apple. That was not really anything to do with the original post but I always remember it when there is discussion about food poverty etc.

Some of the best meals are the ones my DM or MIL derided as suitable only for poor people. Neck of lamb with pearl barley cooked very slowly was my DM's standby but which appalled my mil both thought nothing of slow cooked belly pork and breast of lamb. I'd never come across ham hock with broth until I came to the north east. They are all great favorites and staples and all seem to be fashionable to boot. I love Waitrose's forgotten cuts of meat. I hadn't forgotten them just had to wait for them to be reinstated.

Before we started our cookery lessons we had to make our own pinnies and head band with our names embroidered across the front in our house colours I hated needlework and it took me ages to get it right and guess whose name had the most letters ?? when we started our cookery lessons we really enjoyed them I used to be fasinated at the sponge mixtures rising in the ovens it took me ages to understand how it happened.

Glamma, we made pinnies first as well out if gingham. I remember having to unpick my homework tacking as my stitches were too long! How sexist itwas in those days no cooking or sewing for boys no woodwork or metalwork for girls. I loved my wicker cookery basket but unfortunately
one year had cookery, hockey and violin on the same day. Tricky on a crowded school bus with horrid boisterous boys!

Going back to obesity and class - I think it's more complicated, though learning to cook does come into it.
We have some friends nearby (both big people in their 50s) who invited us for a meal yesterday - it was fish and chips with cabbage in mayo plus a separate dish of mayo to go on top. Followed by suet pudding and ice cream.
First of all, they're not working class, never have been. Second, I've met some of their family who are also big. Thirdly they're not happy with their eating habits.
I managed a small helping of fish and chips, an orange for desert, and my guts are still suffering from the results. We are both skinny, from skinny families, eat loads of fruit and veg.
I think the genetic component is probably the strongest of all.

I don't think it is anything to do with class either. We ran a restaurant for over thirty years and some people just eat too much, drink too much alcohol and do not move enough, irrespective of class or nationality, although we did have a lot of Danish customers and they were rarely overweight despite starting on the beer at breakfast time

If only I could get breast of lamb. I still make lamb stew and rabbit pie, my favourite meals when I was a child.

When I was stuck at home with baby and DH in Germany still studying for exams, I went to night school and took a City& Guilds cookery course. I had a student lodger and she baby-sat for me. it was the best thing I could have done as when I was later in Germany, in a small village I needed to cook everyday and am still doing it.

When I was at school no one was overweight. If you look at the old newsreels everyone was slim, and managed to go for hours on end without food. They had to!

My daughter took her baby for his 9 month check up today. There was a little girl in the waiting room who was rolling about on the floor screaming. Mother's reaction was "SHUT UP Darcy-Storm (Darcy- Storm ???) or there'll be no sweets after school!" As she said it underlines the fact that as soon as they come out of school their mothers take them into the shop to stock up on sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks. My poor grandson isn't allowed anything to eat until his lunchbox has been checked to make sure that he's eaten it all.