Childhood obesity strategy "lite"

Well said Anya on page 1 and Molly dolly. Anyone heard of parental responsibility?

I am mystified by the education system nowadays. We had a school day of 9 to 3.45. We had break morning and afternoon, maths, english and french everyday and most important of all some form of PE everyday. admittedly the lunch menus had a little to be desired. but this daily routine seemed to tick all boxes. Puppy fat was in, but no-one was obese or unfit. And the school was top of academic tables.

I think attitudes to food have changed, yes.
I still think it is up to parents (and grandparents) to teach basic survival skills like cooking.
Anyone else interested in the Mumsnet idea of rationing?

When I complained to an old boss of mine that I didn't have time to complete the extra work he was asking for, his response was simply that 'time was not an answer'.

Are today's parents really so busy that they don't have the time excuse to encourage their children to eat healthily, or prepare food/meals at home?

Some of you here have already mentioned that your own parents have held down jobs as well as cooking, preparing meals etc., and that did not simply include knocking up a "packed lunch".

I don't believe our lives are any busier today than they used to be - but there seems to be a lot of talk about that, and it does give the impression that our lives are almost lived at a frenetic pace.

I agree railman.
No such thing as time, only priorities.

One of the problems is that we don't teach children to cook in schools these days. I can still remember being taught basic recipes. Young people should be taught how to make nutritious cheap meals rather than 'ping meals' full of garbage.

I would like to see public health England admitting some responsibility for this obesity crisis and addiction to carbs. The advice given in the 1980s has been proved wrong. We did not need 9 to 11 portions of carbs a day and low fat diet. And now we are stuck with this advice as to change it to eating as our grandparents ate, real foods like butter and full fat dairy will affect all those food companies making a fortune out of low fat rubbish

Well said. This is one of the reasons I would resist government interference.
They got it wrong with carbs
They got it wrong with "low-fat"
They got it wrong with dairy

Who is to say what fads we would be saddled with in the future.
If there is ONE area where I would like to see controlled it is HIDDEN SUGARS in manufactured foods and particularly corn syrup.
Portion sizes do not lend themselves to policing, but recommended servings in recipes (and ready meals) could be amended.

I haven't had the time to read all here but I think sugar should be taxed heavily, the money gained from that should be used to promote healthy foods like vegetables. The amount of sugar in anything should be easily displayed and healthy fats should be displayed too. Whilst there are a lot of arguments for parents to take more responsibility (which they should) I think it is a huge problem that the Health Dept still promote carbs, insist on low fat and don't educate using more up to date research. As a diabetic, I am always astounded when I go to my check-ups and I get more of the same nutritional advice which gives me high blood sugars without taking more and more medication rather than the more current, lower carb advice which keeps blood sugars down.

"exposure to unhealthy food advertising significantly increased food consumption in children, but not adults"

Advertising of unhealthy foodstuffs to children is already banned on TV, I don't whether a ban is practical on the internet is it?

Isn't the problem that parents should say "no" - you know, like they used to?
Indulgence - self and otherwise - seems to be the status quo now. We could ask how did that happen. But then again it doesn't take Einstein to work out that the more we consume the more it serves capitalism... as in the Tory party.

I have 3 children the eldest is obese and the other 2 normal weight, the younger 2 were skinny when they lived at home. Eldest would raid cupboards for food and when we started locking food away so he couldn't raid he took to stealing money to buy stuff so not always the parents fault. All 3were active

In my young days either mother or grandmother was at home all day and prepared food from scratch, good healthy meals and lovely puds. Today's women are so pressured to work when they have a family that when they get home of an evening to kids demanding to be fed its easier to give them convenience food ( full of sugar) and then give them sweets and pop cos they feel guilty leaving the kids all day. Also the children aren't supervised full time so tend to spend too much time on computer games instead of being out and about. Being a working mum when you can't afford paid childcare is no joke. I've watched my DIL and DD try and keep all the balls in the air.

I didn't learn most of my cooking skills at school, but at home. So did my children.

Are some people saying that today's parents care less about their children's wellbeing than the parents of other generations?

Marketing and TV advertising in the 50's and 60's was fairly unsophisticated. Nowadays, marketing firms employ teams of psychologists to create far more effective targeting of adverts. This extends to supermarkets where food products are carefully placed with the aim of enticing - even to the point of wafting around food smells to make people feel hungry and buy more.

It wasn't until I was in my teens that burger bars gradually became a common sight with the introduction of Wimpy Bars. These were followed in later years by McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc., and then lots of independent spin-offs. Nowadays, most urban areas will have several fast food outlets, selling chicken and burgers at ridiculously low prices. One can only wonder at the quality of meat these small operations are purchasing to be able to sell food so cheaply.

I see secondary school children and college students going straight into these fast food joints at lunchtime and the end of the school/college day. Their taste buds have been attuned to this high salt, high fat type diet and it is difficult for parents and schools to wean them off this junk food. Of course, parents should try and provide healthier food but even if they do, it is very difficult when the children are older to control what they eat.

I agree with Mamie who referred to the extremely enlightening documentary The men who made us fat. From what I recall the maker of this film traced the "snacking" and "super-sizing" trend back to the US where food manufacturers realised that they could make much bigger profits by convincing people that they were getting a "bargain" if they spent a little more money for what seemed like a lot more food. And I expect everybody remembers the gradual introduction of snacking between meals, with the adverts eventually convincing people that it was perfectly natural and desirable for people to eat between meals "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" "Milky Bar - the snack that you can eat between meals without spoiling your appetitite", etc. etc.

It's my understanding that the majority of nutritionists, dieticians and doctors dealing with obesity-related illnesses say that, whilst exercise is important, obesity cannot be tackled without considerably reducing the amounts of unhealthy calorie-laden food that children and adults consume. People would have to run for miles to use up the calories contained in some products.

Government role should be to protect the food supply not to tell people what to eat. Consumers' role is to be educated about what ingredients or foods to avoid and deciding how much exercise their child needs to be healthy. Government can regulate food labels. In addition to serving size and calorie counts, labels should disclose everything that surrounds or goes into a particular food product. Manufacturers and food packaging companies should be compelled to fully disclose things like GMO, irradiation, hormones, PBAs etc. via more comprehensive labeling. Educated Consumers will likely avoid products that don't measure up to their standards. (Nothing like a sale's slump or a bad quarterly report to get a manufacturer's attention). PS. Parents need to regulate a child's sedentary habits. May I suggest anything that will get them off the couch! If nothing else works, lock up the hi tech devices in the boot of your car and disable the TV.

@Mamie 'It feels like visits to America did twenty years ago'.

IMO this is the nub of the issue. Instead if becoming more European in our eating habits, we have followed the US style of overeating and the current obesity crisis is the result.

You only need to look across the channel and then across the Atlantic. Point made, I think.

I agree, pp. You can't outrun a bad diet!

There does seem to be a disconnect between weight, eating habits and exercise. Some people think you can eat a massive amount and work it off with a walk round the block.

I don't know if anyone remembers the programme Michael Mosely did a while back in which he ate a large muffin and thought that by jogging around a race track he would burn it off.

The muffin had about 400cals in; his jog would've worked off about 30 cals.

I think we need to revise the idea of self -indulgence too. Back in the day, self-indulgence had a negative connotation; now it's branded as a positive thing to be experienced at every opportunity.

Ministers scrapped plans to ban TV adverts for unhealthy food
Won't get rid of cartoon characters on children’s food packaging

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3749791/Junk-food-firms-40-meetings-ministers-tougher-laws-scrapped.html#ixzz4Hsd5QmV9
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Nobody would object to the above would they?

I really think the parent need to be more aware of what they are feeding their kids; there is so much processed meals out there and because they are quick to make become the norm.
It annoys me that these types of foods are cheaper than good honest food!

It occurs to me that we can't always control what manufacturers or growers put in our food, but we CAN control what, how much of and how often we eat. Do your best at home to eat right and your children develop the same good habits and tastes for healthier food. That's because children learn best by example. My twin grandchildren (girl and boy) just turned thirteen. They both refuse to buy lunch at school! "it's so 'gross'", said my granddaughter. So,recently both 'tweens' began packing their own (very healthy) lunches every day. Not that they don't enjoy pizza, french fries (chips) or ice cream with their peers, but they they don't seem to be addicted.

You can talk about sugar, quick foods, healthy foods, etc. all day and night. The simple fact, IN GENERAL, is that the calories consumed must be equal to or less than the calories we put out. Some type of exercise is essential for staying less than obese.

No matter what the government do, Mums will still give in. Children don't buy the weekly shopping or earn their own money every day, so only Mums can halt the obesity epidemic by learning to say NO and taking away the tech and putting the children outside to play( Mums need to put their own tech down as well). So come on Mum, take control and save your children

And/or Dad, of course...

Better nutrition education and enjoyable cooking in school may well help in the long term, but it's not going to turn the supertanker of increasing obesity any time soon is it?
There are quite a lot of judgemental comments about parents on this thread and this from a generation that did not have to raise kids in todays world. Eleothan's post hits the nail on the head - it is no good saying that parents or consumers "should" educate themselves and "should" say NO to snacks when there are such vast commercial resources ranged against them. It is unrealistic to expect a busy mum, pushing the supermarket trolley, to stop and read the small print on all the cereal packets. Those cereals are advertised widely, branded and packaged in a way that will manipulate the behaviour of parents and the presences expressed by children. The high sugar content mans that they are basically a form of confectionary. They also, usually, have words on them that encourage the parents to think they are making a healthy choice. e.g. "multigrain" - which means it includes flour from more than one source. The information on the nutritional content may take the milk into account! If you spend a half an hour or so researching one of these cereals, with your calculator at your side (and the Tesco website to assist with the small print content), you might still fall foul of the fact that the nutritional information relates to adult needs and not children. It is clear that they provide a lot of sugar, a few carbs, a smidgeon of fibre and a few trace vitamins. Also that a "serving", even with the milk, is not an adequate healthy breakfast for a child. By break time they will be hungry and wanting a snack.
But supermarkets are allowed to not only sell this crap to parents under the guise of it being a good breakfast food but to have special offers!
Incidentally under EU legislation food producers have to avoid claims that their foods have a health benefit. So the food producers sail as close to the wind as they can get away with.

"You can talk about sugar, quick foods, healthy foods, etc. all day and night. The simple fact, IN GENERAL, is that the calories consumed must be equal to or less than the calories we put out."

Exactly. The current fashion is for arguing round in circles about low fat vs low carb, but the difference that will make is trivial compared with shifting 1500cals more than you need each day. Recently they showed that spicy food increases your metabolic rate, but that was by about 50cals, so all it will do is give people room to argue that there's nothing wrong because they're eating chilli powder.

Comment from The Independent (and the Lib Dems) www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sugar-tax-obesity-junk-food-government-move-criticised-feeble-a7196261.html