Childhood obesity strategy "lite"

Our veg was usually fresh from the garden and allotment, but I do remember when i was a child DM putting a pinch of bicarb in when cooking greens, a practice they discarded later on. They weren't mushy though. We used to eat a lot of oranges when they came off rationing so probably got vit c from those!
I use an electric steamer and it's so much easier to wash up too!

My mum used to boil vegetables until they were mush and she served almost everything mashed.

Mashed carrot, potato,swede, cauliflower etc. all sitting in little mounds around the plate. Even her sprouts, cabbage etc. were boiled until they were just slop.

I love my veg just cooked, still with a good crunch to it.

Yuk! I've steamed my veg for years ever since I lived in a bedsit. I bought an electric steamer, because I only had one ring for cooking. My sprouts and cabbage are always bright green :-)

Bicarb removes the Vitamin C content. Acid-alkali thing I guess. The practice was common in the past - designed to soften woody old veg?

I didn't know that. I don't think my mother did either, because I remember sprouts and cabbage being a sort of grey colour. It's no wonder so many children have grown up not liking 'greens'.

Boiled with bicarbonate of soda to keep them green!

How many times do children really eat fast food? I confess that I don't experience it, mainly because we don't have Greggs, McDonalds, etc on the high street. The only people I see eating out during the day time are the yummy mummies/ladies who lunch in cafes tucking into incredibly expensive salads or huge slices of cake. Unless you follow these people home, you don't know what they eat during a typical day.

I agree about take away coffees. When I was working, it seemed compulsory for people to clutch a large cup of coffee on the way to work. Some of them have 600 or 700 calories with the added syrups.

I would really never add oats to mince now, especially in something like shepherd's pie, which already contain enough carbs. I've said before that I think sauces are a source of hidden carbs. I know for an absolute fact that many poorer families feed their families on pasta, which can be bought very cheaply in supermarkets and then add a gloopy carb-rich sauce. There was a thread on Gransnet not so long ago, in which people virtuously claimed their own home-made sauces had fewer calories than Dolmio, but they were wrong. Tomatoes, however they're cooked, are carb-rich. Somebody even expressed surprise that pesto has sugar - of course it does, because fruit and veg are made up of sugar.

Carbs are without a shadow of a doubt the cheapest form of energy (calories). As the article earlier in the thread pointed out, poorer people have few pleasures apart from eating and the don't want to leave a table without feeling full. The cheapest (and most comforting way) to do that is to fill up on carbs. Meat and dairy products are much more expensive nowadays (even allowing for inflation) than they were when you or I were young. I seriously don't think the demonisation of fat has helped.

I also think food habits have changed. I really loathe stews and the supposedly wholesome food some people on GN recommend. As a child, I had so many of them and they were always thickened with flour. My mother was an appalling cook (still is) and I have nightmares thinking about over-salted, boiled to death vegetables. I really can't look back on the 'old days' with pleasure.

Sorry, the DC - not the DGC!

I could not usually afford meat such as chops, steak etc when the DGC were growing up so had to resort to cheaper, perhaps 'bulked out' foodstuffs. However, they were always slim and active. I'm not sure that such things as adding oats to mince would be a cause of obesity.
Something else is going on here and I wonder if it linked to the fast food industry, burgers with a bun and chips, chicken covered in batter or crumbs and fried with chips, the coffee shops selling lattes overloaded with calories, huge muffins, oversized bags of crisps; how often did we see people eating in the streets years ago - now lots of people walk along munching (and throwing the litter around, but that's another matter!)

I agree with others that food has less of an effect on health than marketing departments would have us believe. As a former teacher, I've watched the skinniest of teenagers eat chips and an iced bun (with nothing else) at lunch time. They seem to thrive, which goes against all advice.

I also agree that hereditary factors are at least as important as nutrition. I also believe that environmental factors play a part. Epigenetics is a relatively new science (and I will confess I know little about it), but it has been proved that certain environmental factors cause genes to behave differently.

I also don't believe that stress causes auto-immune diseases, although somebody with an auto-immune disease is likely to be affected by stress. T1 diabetes is an auto-immune disease, but T2 is not usually recognised as one, although (for some reason not yet understood), there is a genetic link.

It is also possible (but not proven) that stress and T2 diabetes are sometimes linked. The evidence for it is that new cases of T2 have been observed to rise in communities which have suffered traumas such as earthquakes. There is a definite link between depression and T2, but again it's not understood why. As I mentioned above, there is research into the link with cortisol, which is the hormone produced to put the body into 'fight or flight' mode. Cortisol is known to block the efficacy of insulin.

It's a shame there's so much mumbo-jumbo written about food. Nutrition is a multibillion pound industry and it makes me angry that people are persuaded that expensive supplements and foodstuffs will work miracles. I feel the same about the 'cook everything from scratch' mantra. Yes, fresh cooked foods often taste better, but they're not always healthier or cheaper.

I agree with Iam64. Eat what suits you and you like. If something causes problems, recognise it and don't eat it. By the way, I know somebody with gout who was told not to eat Marmite. He stopped and it went the symptoms became much milder. I eat five times a day and restrict my carb intake, because I can control sugar spikes better that way. People without diabetes don't have those kind of spikes, so can be more lax.

Sorry to digress. This thread is about childhood obesity. Children need protein and a higher fat intake than adults to thrive. Current thinking is that restricting children's fat intake and basing diets on carbs, especially hidden ones used as thickeners, could be linked to the current rates of obesity. Somebody suggested bulking out mince with oats (and I used to do it myself), but it's all adding to the carbs. Wealthier families wouldn't need to bulk out meat. This is precisely what the manufacturers of cheap burgers and sausages do.

My DD has the same Daphne so agree with all your post, as it is made worse by stress, but is there anyway, inherited.

womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/autoimmune-diseases.html

DD has an auto immune disease - Psoriatic Arthritis - No not caused by stress, it is genetic and inherited from DH's side of the family whose health issues include IBD, UC (Ulcerative Colitis) asthma and eczema -all of them auto immune diseases.
Yes the symptoms can be aggravated by stress, but stress is NOT the cause.

Sorry about your friend Jalima
The two middle-age women who I know with MS were both in a lot of stress beforehand.
Obviously I can only speak anecdotely.

Iam64, I am not speaking in the place of an expert. I never said I was.

like Jalima, I agree with bags when she questions how much diet influences our health. It goes without saying that healthy diet (so far as we understand that to be on current thinking) has to be better for us than a diet of pies, pasties and cakes, supplemented by a ready supply of pizza and cake. I have been fortunate to have had three consultant rheumatologists over many years. My current consultant has been 'looking after ' me for 15 years. Without exception, they and the specialist nurses who work with them have taken the same view on diet. Yes, eat a healthy, varied diet, keep fats to a minimum, if you find certain foods cause a flare in symptoms, its probably wise to avoid them. They say there is no evidence that giving up e.g. tomatoes, oranges , the kind of foods that have long been seen as triggers, unless of course, you find they trigger a flare up in you.
I know that if I eat too much red meat, any food from a chinese restaurant, even a small glass of red, I'll flare. A glass of white seems to be fine and I'm careful not to overdo that.

Obi - there is no evidence that stress causes auto immune diseases. Yes, stress can exacerbate symptoms, as can getting over tired or over doing most things,sadly. I had an excellent consultant, who took a detailed family and individual health history. My conditions are all based on my genetic makeup and the unfortunate fact that I had glandular fever as a young woman. He said it was all sitting, waiting and that the GF flattened my immune system and allowed it / them in. I'd much rather be informed by these experts than by someone who says everyone she knows who has these conditions has had stress. Haven't we all had stress, but not everyone is unfortunate enough to develop chronic health problems as a result.

MS caused by stress?
I should think that it causes stress.
Presumably some American quack holistic practitioner would say that you could overcome it by not being stressed.
Unfortunately, too late to tell my friend who died aged 40 from MS.

You are allowed to disagree with me!
The ones I picked out, where underactive thyroid, MS, psoriasis, overactive thyroid and alopecia. In all of those, all women as it happens, were under stress before they got it.
The one I hesitated at was the rheumatoid arthritis. I do happen to know that the man in this case has depression, so I that is stress too I should think? HIs body would be under stress?

sorry obieone I must disagree.
I only looked down the list on your link a short way and found two diseases mentioned in this American website that are not caused by stress.

I am sure that having one of these diseases could cause stress, however.

Autoimmune diseases can affect anyone. Yet certain people are at greater risk, including:

Women of childbearing age — More women than men have autoimmune diseases, which often start during their childbearing years.
People with a family history — Some autoimmune diseases run in families, such as lupus and multiple sclerosis. It is also common for different types of autoimmune diseases to affect different members of a single family. Inheriting certain genes can make it more likely to get an autoimmune disease. But a combination of genes and other factors may trigger the disease to start
People who are around certain things in the environment — Certain events or environmental exposures may cause some autoimmune diseases, or make them worse. Sunlight, chemicals called solvents, and viral and bacterial infections are linked to many autoimmune diseases.
People of certain races or ethnic backgrounds — Some autoimmune diseases are more common or more severely affect certain groups of people more than others. For instance, type 1 diabetes is more common in white people. Lupus is most severe for African-American and Hispanic people.

Stress?

I thoroughly expect to be out on a limb on that one.
No you're not.

Whilst a very poor diet could lead to certain conditions caused by malnutrition (and obese children can be malnourished), an excellent diet is not going to prevent hereditary conditions, those caused by a familial genetic pre-disposition to certain diseases or those caused by pollutants encountered from various sources.

A good and appropriate diet could improve the general health of someone with an underlying condition but will not cure it.
Anything that improves the immune system is bound to be of help however.
I thoroughly expect to be out on a limb on that one too

I found this link
womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/autoimmune-diseases.html

Of the people I know who have any of those, I would say that in just about all cases, stress played a large part in them getting it.

Thanks for mentioning health problems caused by auto-immune conditions, iam. I'm actually beginning to wonder just how much influence diet has on people's health. Is it really as much as keeps being claimed? I thoroughly expect to be out on a limb on that one.

Er... jess, I am amused by your mentioning Waitrose and poor kids within spitting distance of each other .

I agree that time will tell about Theresa May's social justice credentials and, if they are genuine, how much she can actually force through. Given the state of UK politics right now it doesn't look as if there will be much of a robust challenge from Opposition any time soon.

I mean: contributory factors to disease
(why is there no 'edit' button, even for just five minutes!!

They somewhat disagree with each other, and I couldnt work out whose was right and best.
I would never claim to be right, I am only expressing my opinion.

However, it is no good telling someone who has developed breast cancer through inheriting an abnormal gene that they should have eaten better, stayed slim, never drunk alcohol, exercised more!
Or someone who has worked in the mines or worked with asbestos and developed lung disease that they should have eaten more greens and got out in the fresh air more.

People who are healthy are probably doing a lot of things right, food wise.
they may well have eaten a healthy diet and exercised.

And we all know of an old person who lived on cakes and biscuits, smoked like a chimney, drank a tot of whisky each day and lived to 100.

I'm sure diet and exercise play a large part in keeping healthy, but genetic makeup, stress, pollution etc are all contributory factors, perhaps even more so.

I wrote a long reply earlier, tapped the wrong key and lost it.
In essence, I said that people of our age have a completely different metabolism, and food needs, than growing children. We eat a very healthy diet of mainly veg and fruit, most homegrown, very little meat, a lot of oily fish, and homemade bread. Plus some chocolate , biscuits and alcohol in moderation. It isn't expensive, but I can't see children surviving on this.
I admire Jamie Oliver's programme for healthier food for children, but it's an uphill battle.
The weekly religious journal that we get, american based, has a cookery section, and the recipes have so much unnecessary sugar, and tomato sauce I've written to them about it twice with healthier ideas, but up to now they haven't changed their style. I know they have a big obesity problem.
Attitudes are hard to change.

Thanks for that Jalima - you are so right, being healthy can be affected (of course) by diet, lifestyle etc but it can also be affected if you are blessed with a number of auto immune conditions. These just get you, probably as a result of your genetic makeup. This leaves those of us so blessed, at higher risk of all kinds of unpleasant diseases, diabetes (esp type 2 ) among them. The pancreas ages with the rest of us and if you add auto immune conditions to the mix, type 2 is hanging around waiting for you.

dd, I dont think your posts are contradictory! Where did I say that?
When I said the posts, I meant all the posts of the last 24 hours.
thatbags, Jalima,yours, JessM etc etc. They somewhat disagree with each other, and I couldnt work out whose was right and best.