Childhood obesity strategy "lite"

Sorry DD

I think this must be a regional thing , because I don't think I've ever seen a toddler with a sausage roll. A three year old needs about 1000 calories a day, so if the sausage roll is a meal replacement, it's not too bad.

It's OK, Anya.

Wasn't really getting too hung up on whether French / English more likely to cook Anya. I don't think it is taught much in schools here, but certainly school meals are much more nutritious (and three courses). They undoubtedly cost the taxpayer more too. Maybe something about food being considered more important in France and an image of themselves as gourmets / gourmands. FWIW I think you eat out better in England.
The point I was making though is that some people still buy sugary and processed foods even when fresh food is easily and cheaply available.
I think it is about the power of advertising, the power of the processed food industry, the greed of supermarkets plus the impact of food industry led bad science on so-called "healthy eating".

Well you'd have seen my three year old DGS2 enjoying a sausage roll if you'd been down our way last week It was his request for lunch on a day out with us. He followed it up with a strawberry ice cream cornet with a flake in and slart. This is a child who lives on a cooked from scratch healthy, organic, local, mostly veggie diet, and water - plus a vet active lifestyle - but he does have days off!

A regional thing? Well, we are Northern!

I would prefer to see government funding revived for excellent schemes like Home Start, to help mums in those early months and years, to teach them how to feed their children (and maybe themselves) without recourse to McDonalds and sugar laden squash, and to help establish good eating habits.

Yes, Maggie, maybe it is. I honestly don't know. It's just that people almost inevitably go on about sausage rolls in threads about obesity. I live in an area with relatively low levels of obesity and I seriously don't think I've ever seen a toddler eating a sausage roll in a pushchair, so it must be happening somewhere else. I think it's probably more relevant that I live in an area of relative affluence.

Remember the Jacques Perretti documentary, "The Men Who Made Us Fat"?
I don't think you have to look much further than that really.

I agree DaphneBroon, but Dads too, I hope.

HomeStart does still exist here, DB. As far as I'm aware, it's a charity (and always has been) and is intended to be used by families in trouble. Did you mean SureStart? In which case, I agree. However, I'm not convinced that families do eat most of their meals at McDonalds. There is some awful advice out there regarding food. NHS England no longer recommends giving children dried fruit instead of sweets. Some advertising slogans, such as 'fresh', 'no added...', 'low fat, add to the confusion.

I don't know about anyone else but I suddenly have a craving for a sausage roll .

Maybe I do Daphnedill.

To be honest, daphne, DGS2 lives in a lovely aspirational village full of hipsters who'd probably faint at the sight of a sausage roll, unless it involved wild boar and organic amaranth. But board that train into the city centre and it's a whole new world!

I think the other thing that shocks me when I am in the UK now are portion sizes. People having pub lunches with plates piled high, five or six veg including roast potatoes and mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding in huge quantities, lasagne with garlic bread and jacket potato, enormous plates of three different puddings, what is that about? Plus lots of grazing in the street, cakes and biscuits everywhere.
It feels like visits to America did twenty years ago.

I think life me most things, it's a case of moderation in all things, it's when it's a way of life that it becomes a problem. Perhaps Home Economics (or whatever it's called these days) should be part of the national curriculum, so that everyone on leaving school at least has a grasp of every aspect of domesticity, much more use in later life than some subjects. I agree too about the amount of food served up in eating places, sometimes quite obscene and greedy!

sorry, 'like most things'

Mmmmm. Greggs sausage rolls. Nothing else will do.

Sorry if I sounded judgemental Anya when I referred to the obese woman and her child on the tv programme. My point there was that she'd clearly had the range of support that the state provides, but found it all wanting. That was a personality issue imo - whoever was trying to help her would face resistance for reasons I can't begin to understand.
Yes, most areas had a butcher, green grocer and fish van which are now increasingly rare. As has already been said, many supermarkets (asda around here) provide a free bus but the issue is carrying a week's shop. Taxi fares, if shared between two or three are much cheaper than the bus and you're dropped at your door. Our local cab drivers always help load and unload the shopping.
The government is closing Sure Start and Family Centres at a rate of knots. Our local council has had so much funding removed, it plans to close 12 family centres. This is a tragedy on so many levels but on this thread, a tragedy because staff ran cookery groups, put recipe sheets together which focussed on feeding a family on a low budget. Lots of the staff were as hard up as service users, so became expert on what you can do with a pile of veg and some pasta or rice.
I agree with niggley that home econ/cookery should be on the curriculum for boy and girls.

Totally agree on portion size, Mamie. The first time we went to the US we were caught out by just how big a snack lunch of soup and a sandwich for one was - it would have kept us both going all day. Now I'm afraid we're the same. When we have fish and chips we get one small portion of chips and it's way too much even for two of us to share. Such a waste, and a temptation to overeat.

Off thread, I know, but is there much concern in France about under-eating? On my last visit to Paris the women seemed thinner than ever, and were still picking gingerly at a tiny salad as if it would bite them. We went to the Moulin Rouge this time, with a rather nice (and not cheap) meal included, and the two French women on our table ate no more than a small mouthful each. I felt like leaning over and asking if I could have their prawns!

Does this way of (not) eating have any effect on their children?

It's hard not to be judgemental about parents, often obese themselves, who allow their chidren to be so unhealthy - and it's not always a matter of poverty.

Yesterday I was in a bus queue behind a family of mum, dad, two kids, who were obviously on holiday in London. They were all very fat and each drinking a huge ice cream/coffee concoction from Starbucks.

If children were skeletal and very underweight it would be a child protection issue, but it seems you can allow your kids to be hugely overweight with impunity.

Mamie tell me where these pubs with huge portions are (please!) as find the ones we go to have very modest size portions, fine for me, But DH would often like a little more.

gillybob I was eating lunch ( not a sausage roll) when I read your post ( the bloody enormous lunchbox police) and I almost choked to death on a healthy slice of apple.

How ironic would that have been!

Anya that is very interesting and maybe a model that could be used elsewhere? Did it get any publicity? How was it funded?
When I was a governor the local shops did not sell ANY fresh food at all. This in a shopping court of maybe 10 businesses. Several takeaways though. This within a couple of miles of one of Tesco's biggest distribution centres, ironically.
I agree with you as well (!) that it is not helpful to be judgemental of people who don't have cooking skills or the understanding to disregard the marketing and start cooking fresh food.
I remember one mum I met, while out door-knocking for a recent election. She was just moving into a council house and looking both relieved and stressed. I wondered whether she had perhaps had one or two large problems (homelessness perhaps) to overcome to get this far. She was overweight herself and had 3 kids. They were not overweight - rather the reverse, but their skin was pale and blotchy and they looked really unhealthy. Kids like that used to be a common sight back in the bad old days but not these days. And I'm thinking of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - if you don't feel safe with your own front door and a roof over your kids heads. And you're living on benefits, which is really difficult, how are you supposed to get your act together to plan healthy but economical meals? There are increasing numbers of people these days going without food in order to give the kids something to eat and increasing numbers relying on food banks.