Childhood obesity strategy "lite"

Yes, the marketing of crap science about fats and cholesterol. So I guess I do blame government a bit, and scientists for not fighting crap science enough.

I agree absolutely about juicing.

Gotta go and cook some dinner.

I agree with you to a point, bags, but I DO think marketing has had a big effect. My huge bugbear is juicing, which has been sold along with a squeaky clean image. Very few people in the UK suffer from micronutrient (vitamin and mineral) deficiency, so they don't need the high concentration in juices. Juices are almost 100% sugar and are nowhere near as filling as eating fruit and veg and don't have the advantage of fibre content. They're often marketed as having 'no added sugar' - they don't need any, because fruit is usually very high in natural sugar and the body doesn't know the difference. I know a number of parents who wouldn't let their children drink fizzy drinks, but gave them big glasses of orange juice, because it's 'fresh' and 'natural', who seemed oblivious to the fact that the orange juice has more calories than Coke.

Of course it matters which is the better nutrition, dd. And the full fat one or Greek is better than low fat because fat contains more nutrients than sugar as well as taking longer to break down so you are unhungry for longer.

But you don't have to know how many teaspoons of sugar there are in a helping according to my way of thinking. You just choose the one with the lowest or near lowest carb and sugar value. Comparative choices are all that's needed, not exact knowledge. And one makes comparative choices by reading labels.

Errrmmm, but it DOES matter if you're watching your weight, as does the total amount of carbs. The high fat yoghurt is a better choice than the high sugar one, because fat takes longer to metabolise and keeps you feeling fuller for longer.

I think we come at this subject from different starting points, jess. I'm not going to blame anyone else for any unhealthy food choices I make. Nor am I going to blame other people who make unhealthy food choices for making the choices they make because I don't know their circumstances. But I'm not going to blame food producers or government either.

Consumer choice is the power tool here. If we don't use it, for whatever reason, it's our own look out.

And I still think that obesity is mainly caused by overeating. It doesn't matter what food is overeaten. I think overeating may not be something people can be blamed for either. Perhaps their bodies are not giving them the right signals? Which, if true, sounds like a medical problem to me or an evolutionary adaptation problem to our very success at food production.

I've no idea how many teaspoons of sugar there are in things I eat because I don't measure sugar in teaspoons, nor am I particularly trying to avoid sugar. I judge sugariness by comparing similar products, just as I compare the cocoa content of hazelnut-chocolate spreads. Nutella is the best for that so it's not surprising it also tastes the best of the ones we've tried.

Things like bread I judge by their taste and texture. Bread that is cottonwoolly is texture and hyperwhite in colour is clearly not as nutritious as bread with a bit of 'bounce'.

The bounce test goes like this: get a slice of bread, squash it flat on your plate or board and see how much it springs back. If it stays squashed it's rubbish bread

Seriously, gransnetters, try it!

It's actually similar to the wool fabric test my sewing teacher told us. Someone on gransnet must have been told it apart from me....???

A person who does not know that there is more sugar in low fat yogurt than in full fat or Greek yogurt is not well-informed.

Quick google presented me with this for same weights of different yogurts.

Full fat: 11g carbs and sugar
nonfat: 17.4g carbs and sugar
Greek: 9g carbs and sugar.

What is unclear about that? The calorific values are not much different from each other.

Info from here: healthyeating.sfgate.com/nonfat-yogurt-vs-fullfat-yogurt-6056.html

It's also about marketing bags which is designed specifically to get people to buy and consume as much as possible. I agree even the well educated are not fully rational when it comes to food.
And many bright and well informed people can still get fooled by something like "low fat" on a yoghurt pot for instance, not realising that it is still very high on sugar. Why not try asking a few people how many teaspoons of sugar are in a common brand of low fat yoghurt and see what range of answers you get. Here's an example:
www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=256916383
So a busy mum thinks that a low fat berry yoghurt is a reasonably healthy thing to give a child at the end of a meal not realising that there are more than 3 teaspoons of sugar in each serving. Yes, many of them would be able to work it out if they happened to know the number of grams in a teaspoonful...

Agree with you absolutely, nellie. Like many people, I was brought up not to leave anything on my plate and it's only recently that I can bring myself to leave food when I eat out. My attitude always used to be that I'd paid for it, so it would be criminal to leave it.

Awww, thank you, crun. It's an issue I've raised with a number of people. I once worked somewhere, where the cook insisted on 'cooking everything from scratch' and claimed she was cooking healthily. My problem was that I'm diabetic and it was almost impossible for me to eat anything which wasn't packed with carbohydrates, including flour thickened stews, tomato-based sauces for pasta. The bread and soups were home-made, but were just as fattening as shop-bought versions.

So what about portion control in this discussion? IMO it must be a big factor. Many foods in recent years are being presented in bigger and bigger portions.
Look at this.
www.nhs.uk/news/2015/09September/Pages/Decreasing-portion-sizes-could-cut-obesity-levels.aspx

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34246119

There is an almost perfect correlation between childhood overweight/obesity and deprivation and a consistent pattern over time between various regions. Could it be that people 'comfort eat'? Or is it about some kind of short term survival instinct rather than thinking about the future? Whatever it is, it's clear that something irrational is going on.

When I go to Aldi, I'm always struck by how much cereal and bread is sold in the first aisle (I think all Aldis are the same).

"the issue of 'cooking from scratch' also has its limitations - it depends what you cook! Whenever I decide to lose a few pounds, I find it easier to control what I'm eating by buying microwave meals, because the nutritional content is printed on the package. It's much harder to keep track when you're cooking something with a number of different fresh ingredients"

Hallelujah!! For years I've been trying to get through to people that if they put as much salt/fat/sugar in their own recipes as the food manufacturers do they'll end up with home cooking that's just as unhealthy as processed food.

People will keep saying how they cook everything from scratch "because I know what goes into it", but you only have to read the sort of things people come out with to see that they have no idea. If people can't be bothered reading nutrition panels on food packets how are they going to be bothered calculating what's in their own recipes? Not so long ago there were people on here putting more sugar in their own pasta sauce than there was in the Dolmio that they were criticising. I've seen a foodie who was putting 2000kcal of cheese into a sauce, another who thought that three cherry tomatoes is a portion, and another who thought a 50kcal salad makes a lunch. When I asked her where she was getting the remaining 1950kcals from she didn't answer, probably because it was coming from chocolate and cakes scoffed in front of the telly.

"has anyone noticed the size of many of the nurses........I don't want Government to interfere but believe that education is better."

Healthcare workers must among the best educated about the health consequences of obesity, so if education hasn't stopped them getting fat it's probably not going to work on anyone else either.

jess, what proportion of people would you estimate are at a low enough level of understanding that they couldn't understand enough about basic food info (not A-level stuff) that they couldn't work out what sort of foods are high in calories, fats, sugars proteins and what aren't by reading the basic info on packets?

Does one really need to have studied much to know things like what are high protein foods, what are high carb foods and what are high vitamin foods? I thought that sort of thing was taught right through primary school.

Does one need to have studied much to know when one has eaten too much? Don't people feel full nowadays?

I honestly don't think the obesity epidemic is because of ignorance about food. I think it's simply that people eat more nowadays because they can and because, as I said before, we haven't adapted yet to there being a constant surplus.

Why do clever people who understand all the science get fat? My view is that it's not about knowledge. It's about appetite and the pleasure of eating, which I think makes it all a much more complex biological problem than knowing about food values.

Further comparison of Cheerios and Jordans Country Crisp shows that the Jordans CC is also approximately 5p per adult portion more expensive than the Cheerios. Which doesn't quite fit with the 'just as cheap to eat well as to eat badly' theory.

Meant to add that the issue of 'cooking from scratch' also has its limitations - it depends what you cook! Whenever I decide to lose a few pounds, I find it easier to control what I'm eating by buying microwave meals, because the nutritional content is printed on the package. It's much harder to keep track when you're cooking something with a number of different fresh ingredients, especially as I live on my own and usually cook too much.

@JessM

That's why I don't like the traffic lights - I think they give a false sense of security. Not only do they not give the overall carbohydrates (just sugar), but the %RDA figure is misleading, because the calorie needs of people varies widely. A toddler given the calories recommended for an adult will get fat.

Bags I've taught enough secondary science classes to know the limits at the lower end of attainment.
I notice you didn't fancy spending half an hour trying to answer my A level question (can't say I blame you - the information required to reach an answer is not on the package and would require further research on the nutritional needs of children ) But I think you will find if you check that Cheerios gives nutritional profile including milk and Jordan's without. The cheaper cereal is claiming nutritional value based in part on the milk added to it.

Yes of course cutting down on everything works as well. The emerging evidence seems to suggest that people find it harder to sustain though.
Mumsnet thread here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2710611-So-how-would-you-tackle-childhood-obesity?pg=1
I find it fascinating to see the difference in the threads.

People who have a healthy relationship to food won't need a pill, mamie.

I'm sure cutting down mainly on carbs helps some people. It will be because they are cutting down on calories too. If one wants to choose a group most likely to help one lose weight, carbs would seem the best choice.

But it (losing weight) works if one cuts down on one's overall intake as well. People who don't get enough calories, or only just enough, whatever the food is, don't get fat, even if they are malnourished as to nutrients.

There is a big debate about rationing on the Mumsnet thread.
Not going to get into a discussion about that on here Bags, but can obviously personally testify to having lost weight, kept it off long-term and improved health outcomes by cutting right down on certain foods (carbs), not on everything.
A pill - well it might help overcome sugar addiction, but it doesn't do much to help people have a healthy relationship with food.

My 3 DGC all eat like horses. They never seem to be full. They are all skinny with very good muscles (for their age and size). They all have masses amount of exercise therefore the extra calories in, are needed.

Another 3 children of similar ages could eat the same as they do, but not have the exercise and become very fat. Should we not be educating children (and their parents) on input and output.

I'm not keen on the rationing idea, gaga. It's an emergency response, e.g. in war-time when there isn't enough food to go round. The problem now is the opposite: too much. We have to learn how to solve the problem by free choices, I think.

And pharmacists.

I think everyone knows the saying "moderation in all things", mamie. No-one argues that all food values are the same. We all know we need a variety of kinds of food. But the only thing that helps anyone lose weight (except if it's a medical problem they have) is to eat less of everything.

The actual doing isn't hard. For instance, last time soop and I met for lunch we gave one order for fish and chips but with two plates. It was plenty! Portion sizes are often too large. So, adapt! Act accordingly. This is what, as a species, we're not good at doing yet.

I wonder if, in the end, it will be a pill that sorts the problem: something that deals with the false hunger pangs that tell you you're hungry when, really, you're not.

There's a PhD project for a generation of budding nutritiionists.