Childhood obesity strategy "lite"

In a nutshell Its the parents at fault.

I don't agree that the government should take on the responsibility for the nation's weight. But perhaps there should be a campaign, like the one we had to encourage seat belt wearing, which might hammer home the message. After all, that's what advertising does.
Also, good food is not prohibitively expensive. My friend and I often say that we ought to write a book about eating cheaply. On Thursday, at the little Iranian grocery shop near my son's house in Ealing, I bought 4 yellow peppers fo 79p. This just one of the examples of how cheaply food can be bought. But two generations have been seduced into takeaway food and rubbish food. Education is the way.
Advertising ,to a certain degree got us into this mess, we should use it to get us out of it.

Everyone had my DG's secondary school has done cookery for two years. Is that not the same for other grandchildren?
I think it starts in the home though. If the children's parents genuinely don't know how to cook and run a home, whose fault is that?

Making Domestic Science and Household Management, including childcare as part of then national curriculum for boys and girls would be a good start. Even if it was just theory, (cooking ingredients are expensive) Invaluable for later life, far more than the kings and queens of England!

Well to set an example I suppose that is the end of the emoticon, better lose the , one too

8. Ban advertising of unhealthy food and drink.
9. Find a polite way of replacing, "treat yourself, you deserve it", with "isn't that rather greedy?".

Don't agree with that lizzypopbottle and jalima. My mother worked full-time and cooked, I (and all my friends) worked full-time and cooked, as does my daughter and her friends. You have to plan ahead, but it can be done. We managed it without internet shopping too.
I think, Jess that this is a massive problem that needs tackling on all levels. Some ideas would be:
1. Legislate to stop the food industry filling processed food with sugar, sugar substitutes and additives.
2. Start a campaign to eat real food involving education, health and public information. Encourage initiatives to get real food to communities who can't access it easily. Advice on healthy eating should never be funded by the food industry, however obliquely.
3. Start a campaign to grow food. Everyone with a garden can grow something, more allotments are needed, community spaces should be better used.(Some already are). Gardening is great exercise.
4. Provide proper school dinners for all which are nourishing, enjoyable and educate children about healthy eating (and I don't mean low-fat). If France can do it Britain can. You just have to spend the money.
5. Classes for cooking skills are useful, but so is the internet. It is all there if you look for it.
6. Discourage grazing and treats. Food gives enormous pleasure but it doesn't have to involve instant gratification.
7. Legislation, education, attitudes, hearts and minds and money are all needed.

I am fed up of people coming second to big businesses.

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3749791/Junk-food-firms-40-meetings-ministers-tougher-laws-scrapped.html

Good points lizzypopbottle
Ever since the days that Patricia Hewitt stated that 'stay-at-home mothers are a problem' and Shirley Conran told women that they could have it all (then confessed that they couldn't!), sahm have been classed as second-class citizens, whereas in fact they are doing a very worth-while job bringing up the next generation.
Food prices are not really the problem as, relatively speaking, food costs less than in many previous years as a ratio of income, but the cost of housing has forced many women out to work when they may, in fact, prefer to be at home with their small children.

I defend the right of every person to live their own life and make their own decisions but I have a sneaky suspicion that the creeping increase in obesity generally can be traced back to a time when successive governments persuaded everyone that women (yes) should be at work whether or not they had children. It was inevitable that, as the workforce grew, the cost of living grew with it and now, most families find it very difficult to manage on one wage. Couple that with long working hours and the result is tired, stressed parents with all the family responsibilities of cooking, washing, cleaning, caring to do in the evenings and at weekends. Small wonder if convenience foods figure large in ordinary people's diets. There's simply no time for much creativity in the kitchen in many households. So yes, it's the government's fault, but way back and there's no going back. Whatever economic advantages were promoted when women were persuaded they could have it all, the toll it would take on families was not considered, as far as I can see. Sadly, women or men who are financially secure enough to remain at home, or simply determined to do it, and bring up their own babies to school age are regarded as second class citizens. By the way, I firmly believe that men can be caring, stay at home parents.

Um, I don't think they should, as I said in other posts their advisers are not always right.
They may tell us that we should or should not be consuming this, that or the other, then they are proved wrong in a few years' time.

Perhaps what they could do is investigate very carefully and scientifically exactly whatever is added to food or food manufacturing methods that cause obesity, ie aspartame, hydrogenated fats, palm oil, corn syrup etc - and ban them. That would push up price of manufactured foodstuffs but that would not be a bad thing in the long term anyway.

Has the sugar in breakfast cereals been reduced ajanela? As in those sugary ones that are marketed to children?
I think human beings naturally like high sugar and high fat foods - which is fine if you are a hunter-gatherer. It is the high availability, high pressure marketing and the seductive range of products that is the problem. Combined with a sedentary life.
But apart from Anya's interesting contribution - what do you think the government should be doing folks?

Should we not look at the time at the end of WWII when rationing finished and sweets puddings and cakes were really back on the table. Our parents trained us that surgery treats were rewards for eating all our dinner or being good and as presents. Not such a problem then as we were very active but our teeth suffered.

Now we come to the baby boomers trained to treat our kids with sweet things and serve sugary drinks. Less exercise because of TV then computers etc.

Now we have the added danger of fast foods, working parents with little time to cook and a vast range of high calorie foods and more electronic entertainment.

Not sure how we bring about change. Legislation and pressure groups can help, look how breakfast cereal sugar has been reduced. Fast food stores have introduced healthier menus but we have a long way to go.

How many Grandparentx would agree to stop giving their grandchildren sweets even on special occasions?

This strategy will make no difference.

The causes of obesity are well known. Nutritional information is easily available. People have to want to be fit, slim and healthy. It's hard work, and a commitment, as many of us know.

I suspect that many people simply can't be bothered.

No "strategy" will alter that.

No duck and limoncello gillybob?"
Tomorrow is our village event which starts with a tripe breakfast for the helpers.
I will pass on that one.

There are plenty of cheap cuts of good meat, if you know what to ask for and how to make them taste good. Our grans certainly knew how to feed a big family on a budget.

Liver was only one example (duh!) but kids often do like it....home made fish fingers made from frozen fish are really easy, as are home made chicken nuggets. Just needs a bit of imagination and confidence.

Homemade Thai burgers for supper tonight with mixed salad on a brioche bun . Just to balance out the healthy with the unhealthy .

DH and I eat quite a lot of fresh fish but it is not cheap and would work out very expensive for a family on a tight budget ( unless of course we are talking fish fingers which are cheap and quite low in fat ) . I can't see many young children enjoying liver . My grandma used to make tripe and onions which I happened to love but not everyone's cup of tea I know.
Decent meat is not cheap.

Yes - overweight parents often have kids who are heading in same direction. I sat opposite a mother and daughter on a train last year that fell into this category. The journey was about an hour and a half during which they consumed a couple of cakes (bought in advance) , sweets, chocolate, crips etc at a a rate of one snack about every 15 minutes. This was mid afternoon.

It would be interesting to see how the parent's weight correlates, I can't see many fat parents describing their kids as fat.

Yes there has been interesting research crun in this area - parents just don't see their own kids as fat. Presumably they see them as cute/cuddly/babyfaced. Our own child usually looks like the most beautiful one in the school nativity play...
I think the problem is with objecting to regulation is that non-regulation has not worked.

An overweight child has a 95% chance of being classed as normal weight by the parent, and even a 2% chance of being seen as underweight.

There you go then Jalima

I recently rediscovered liver and onions, served with cabbage, as part of a low carb diet. Got so much meat for my money!!

We haven't eaten liver for years but I used to cook it, the DC always moaned 'oh, not liver!' then ate every bit and said 'well that was nice, thank you Mum'
Every time