Childhood obesity strategy "lite"

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.

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.

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

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 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?

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.

Having now read a few more of the posts on this thread, I am not convinced that simply focussing on sugar content is the answer, nor is running around either at school, or after school the answer.

It may be just me, but I don't think nowadays, in the UK we either enjoy eating, or food - these seem to be seen as just something you have to do, and we encourage "grazing", and "snacking".

I mean, what sort of fools do they take us for, when they advertise 'breakfast in a bottle', or "healthy" 'breakfast bars. Complete drivel.

Some of us have commented too about the lack of importance we place on 'domestic science', or 'food technology', which is so important. Our grandchildren seem to get so little encouragement in this at school nowadays, too much focus on 'A Levels' or getting to "Uni", and this is not always beneficial is it?

Good food is not expensive, fruit vegetables beans including baked beans, lentils pasta and lovely thick home made soups are all wonderfully healthy. Personally I think that when they started selling off school playing fields for housing and stopping home economics, I.e. Basic cookery has had a huge deal to do with it. We learnt to cook basic foods like vegetable casseroles, shepherds pies etc and also how to make good meals out of very little. Nowadays if they do get cookery lessons it's usually not what I would call basic useful cooking. We also had what was called Music and Movement every day in the school hall, broadcast every day over the radio and it was fun, we loved it. Make it fun and not so competitive all the time and all the children would benefit.

maizie that's my point. Seat belt wearing is compulsory. Whilst smoking is still very much a voluntary activity, the legislation, combined with hard-hitting campaigning against it, has made it unattractive.

The point I'm making is that if choice is limited people have to alter their behaviour. The problem with food is choice. People will make poor choices unless there's something stopping them. In the 70s and 80s diets were appalling (mine was, anyway) but we were still, in the main, slim.

Why? I dunno, but I bet it has something to do with a lack of choice.

I think it needs a three-pronged strategy; legislation, (unbiased) information and education.
I am amazed by how many people reckon they learnt to cook at school. I certainly didn't and OH even less. Surely that is part of what you do a parent? We learnt from parents, then books, now t'internet. OH learned to butterfly a lamb from YouTube the other day.
Over on the Mumsnet thread they are discussing bringing back rationing. That would be interesting wouldn't it!

Years ago I can remember making delicious meals in my Pressure Cooker! Two young children, little money and both working, it was a godsend! Today, I still use it, mostly for marmalade making, but I still remember the cheap, easy nutritious meals we had all those years ago.

This is a great debate and good to see that so many people agree that child obesity is a problem.

It was exactly that that prompted my guest post on here:

www.gransnet.com/forums/blogs/1229019-Grandkids-obesity-and-biscuits?msgid=25923498#25923498

But perhaps there should be a campaign, like the one we had to encourage seat belt wearing, which might hammer home the message.
The seatbelt campaign made people sit up and really think about their behaviour, which is why it worked.

Sorry; are these posters under the impression that seatbelt wearing is voluntary? Because it isn't. It's a legal requirement and the fact that it had to be made compulsory seems to me to be evidence that voluntary compliance doesn't work.

All very good and laudable but won't do much until we put a stop to all those fast food places being built.

Are we so ashamed of British foods, that we are happy to have instant fried chicken shops, burger bars, and the one size fits all places that sell the same old submarine rolls. No choice of breads, no inclination to provide a wider choice, and then the provision of sloppy "ice cream" with all sorts of sugary juices.

My wife and I were on our way back home from a holiday this week, and had to stop at a motorway services - the nauseating smell of fried food, intermixed with the sickly sweet smell of "doughnuts" being sold from a vending machine.

The dustbin in the circulating area was crammed with plastic beakers (about 1/2 litre size) with that well known symbol on them, with other wrappings spilling out of the bin, and still people were queuing up to buy and eat more of this junk food. It was so bad I had to take a photo of the bin!!

Ironically, these scenes were witnessed outside an M&S outlet at the same services.

We were so glad to be back home instead of foreign parts!

Having worked in a school and seen several initiatives brought in by the health conscious Head ignored or quite vociferously opposed by many parents, I do wonder how the nation's eating habits have gone so badly wrong. Delicious food made freshly on the premises - not a single frozen or processed item on the menu - resulted in parents complaining that their children liked chips and why couldn't they have doughnuts for dessert? Salads and veg grown on the school allotment also went largely untasted; when washed and left on the side in the dining hall for children to help themselves, not many did. One grotesquely fat child who could not even sit on the carpet with the other children due to her size was frequently seen before and after school waiting at the bus stop (they lived a mile from the school) with her vast mother, both frequently eating. Not all families were like this of course, but a worrying proportion; I sometimes wonder how the hugely fat child fared at senior school and work. Evidently during the war the nation was well fed - home grown veg, little sugar, processed food unknown, and a pre TV and computer life resulted in exercise. We know all this don't we - but how can it be changed?
However...does anyone remember the National Health orange juice that we were given daily in the 50s? It had to be shaken vigorously as the bottle was half full of sugar.

That's interesting, Belladonna, but I was thinking of something more informal.

The time allocated for Food Tech lessons in school is about an hour a week. In this time pupils have to get from their last lesson quickly, no mean feat as most schools are huge, prepare themselves ( wash hands, apron on), then after brief instructions, start work. Preparation, cooking, washing up and clearing away has to be done in that hour. Virtually impossible. Staff clock watch continuously as when the bell goes, pupils have to go to the next lesson, there will be a new group in the food room and staff spend lunch time with slower pupils returning to wash baking sheets etc. Nightmare!
I agree that all pupils need to learn about making good, nutritious family meals, but unless timetables change drastically and allow more time, it will not happen.

When we were in China we used to see the local schoolchildren and teachers doing exercises outside three mornings a week. You don't see many fat Chinese children. Although that is changing with the advent of fast food chains

There is one simple, cheap measure that could be taken. Bring back afternoon playtimes for KS2/Junior children. Maybe even extend playtimes. These have been squeezed out in recent years, to make time for academic subjects.
If you observe children during playtimes they are all moving - running, jumping, skipping, kicking & throwing balls. Even the most sedentary will be walking round. Just imagine if we had two half hour playtimes a day - that's an hours exercise! It would also give children more time for self-organized activity (which many don't have) and teachers time to set up for their next lessons or have short meetings. When I was running our School Council 'bring back afternoon play' was a recurrent theme in our Suggestion Box.

I strongly believe that nutrition and cooking proper meals on a budget should be national curriculum for boys and girls. Currently many schools do cookery, but it rarely seems to be about cooking healthy meals or understanding nutrition. It seems planning, shopping and cooking nutritious meals is not seen as "educational" in its own right, so cooking has to be linked to other parts of the curriculum. For example my 10 year old gd recently had to cook a cake "from another country". Why a cake ? Why not get the kids to cook a nutritious meal. Kids are not taught how to put a meal together and imho it would make a huge difference. In many families they don't get taught this at home, so schools seem to be the obvious answer,

I think that if the Govt were as serious as it claims to be, any campaign would be hard-hitting enough to shame people into eating better. The seatbelt campaign made people sit up and really think about their behaviour, which is why it worked. Smoking has been treated in the same way. Combined with legislation, smoking has become a much-maligned and undesirable activity.

Perhaps we should take a similar stance with food. .

Imo no matter what the government say or schools implement the parents /carers are responsible in the home to ensure kids eat balanced diet. Imo you cannot exclude sugar/fat from a kids diet but can offer kids healthy hearty meals with treats occasionally. It really annoys me that parents /carers say they can't give a healthy diet for the same money as processed diet! It's entirely possible & more cooking/budgeting classes in schools should be compulsory! !
I agree with other posters, I avoid no sugar drinks that contain aspartame, it's a dangerous ingredient that has long term health affects ?

I am a retired Food Technology teacher and am encouraged by the work in Primary schools to teach healthy eating, but in Secondary schools where I used to work the subject of nutrition is unfortunately relegated to a small section of PSHE (personal, social and health Ed ) or covered in the Food tech syllabi which are crammed full, but usually short, due to time tabling of other Tech subjects. If a pupil does not choose Food Tech for GCSE or A level, they may miss out on Nutrition lessons in later school years.
Slightly smaller dinner plates giving the impression of larger portions, families making a habit of drinking water with meals, especially when children are very young, to discourage sugary drinks and giving fruit as a snack instead of crisps and biscuits could help child obesity.

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.