Malnutrition in England

Bijou

A little while ago the BBC interviewed a single mother of three who said she couldn’t afford to pay her bills. She admitted that they lived on take away food.
When I was a child in the 1920s, 30, and 40, we never ate out, and the only ready cooked meal we had was fish and chips now and then. School meals were well balanced meat and two veg and there was a third of a pint of milk free.
Nowadays children would not be addicted to fast food if they weren’t introduced to it to start with.

I get so fed up with blaming mothers!
1) if you are banding blame about why is it just mothers who get blamed! Fathers are also capable of cooking !!!
2) so many parents work hugely tiring long hours and are literally too exhausted to chop boil etc at the end of the working day. I am someone who is often too tired to cook properly for myself with a full time job, caring responsibilities for two adults and two ASD children and a toddler every day! and as I dont tend to buy takeaways, it usually leads to me skipping eating at all! That doesn't effect the children obviously, but is still not ideal and is a sign of the pressurised society we live in!
3) the cost of fresh food is often really huge especially if your only source of shopping is the local (expensive) corner shops and a cheap burger and chips will be less than the stuff from the shop! Those of us who live near to large shops and or have a car are very privileged.

What we need is
1) everyone have access to fairly priced groceries
2) proper low cost public transport systems so people can reach and use a wider variety of shops
3) decent levels of benefits that are inflation linked and that allow low income families a decent standard of living
4) properly funded child care so working parents can afford to work for something other than a nursery bill and recognition that with increasing the state pension age there are less grandparents free to look after children while their parents are at work as we the grandparents have to continue to work

Well said jenpax, Casdon and icanhandthemback.

There are many more factors involved than "young people can't cook*.

1) if you are banding blame about why is it just mothers who get blamed! Fathers are also capable of cooking !!!

jenpax
bijou did say a single mother of three. Quite often the people who are struggling are mothers left on their own and they do have a struggle, trying their best.

Presumably that father isn't around every day to take his turn at cooking.

I know men can cook just as well.

^ I get so fed up with blaming mothers! ^

Bijoux was talking about a single mother who was interviewed, not mothers in general.

Intensive farming has also meant that foods are not as nutritious as they were. Your modern carrot is not as healthy as a carrot was 70 years ago.

And if 'young people of today can't cook', whose fault is that? Did many of us on here not raise that generation? Both of my adult children can cook and indeed do cook most of their meals from scratch because that's how they were brought up.
I'm not seeking to blame anyone, by the way - just pointing out that it isn't always as straightforward as it may appear.

We keep hearing how time short everyone is. How is it, therefore that the average person spends 5 hours a day watching a screen? This does not include work screen time?
www.uswitch.com/mobiles/screentime-report/

My children can cook too Blondiescot - especially my son. They know about good nutrition as well.

M0nica

We keep hearing how time short everyone is. How is it, therefore that the average person spends 5 hours a day watching a screen? This does not include work screen time?
www.uswitch.com/mobiles/screentime-report/

There's no such think as an "average person".

M0nica

We keep hearing how time short everyone is. How is it, therefore that the average person spends 5 hours a day watching a screen? This does not include work screen time?
www.uswitch.com/mobiles/screentime-report/

😀

I wonder how I found time to cook - children and all their activities, a job and an elderly parent 🤔
There were no mobile phones then, at least, if they were, they were just for phone calls.

We couldn't have afforded takeaway food.

Blondiescot

And if 'young people of today can't cook', whose fault is that? Did many of us on here not raise that generation? Both of my adult children can cook and indeed do cook most of their meals from scratch because that's how they were brought up.
I'm not seeking to blame anyone, by the way - just pointing out that it isn't always as straightforward as it may appear.

Indeed.
And ours are fabulous scratch cooks as well.

I am no supporter of averages, but in this case I would expect the distribution to follow that of the usual bell curve, with the majority of people clustered in the centre, 5 hours+/- 1hour but with the ends tailing off to 0 and well over 15.

5 hours, +/- 1 hour would include a significant proportion of all respondents.

Either way a lot of 'busy' people spend a lot of their free time in front of a screen and could use some of that time more usefully cooking.

grandtante
I’m over 70 and my cooking education consisted of DS at school where we made Victoria sponges, Danish open sandwiches and scotch eggs amongst other useful things. apart from the former I’ve never remade the other two.
However I could read recipes which was helpful as, apart from fish fingers, ready made food wasn’t available so it was learn or starve,
We HAD to eat real food.
Now the younger generation don’t have to and they believe that the UPF!s that they buy are good for them. The manufacturers make them taste very delicious. It’s in their interests to make them very palatable and do so much to make it seem like a healthy option. It gives them a very healthy profit even if it isn’t good for the consumers.

I didn't do domestic science at school apart from in what is now Y7, where we made scrambled eggs, fairy cakes and I cannot remember what else for a term. Nothing useful, anyway. One term was spent hand stitching a shapeless nightie (and a lot of chatting). Nothing to prepare us for useful domesticity! 😀
Then, thank goodness, we dropped all that in Y8 and learned Latin instead.

Callistemon I didn't even do domestic science in Year 7 and I can't say I lost out. Latin was fun at times.

I really wish people wouldn't label all young people as food ignorami.

People seem to be ignoring the fact that most people who are hospitalised for malnutrition (and there doesn't seem to be data about those who aren't hospitalised) are middle-aged or older.

I can't really see the link between malnutrition - and lack of cooking skills. It's quite possible to buy and eat healthy food with little cooking involved.

Years back, my grandson (who lived here) asked his friend to play after school. His mum said she'd collect him at six, when his dad got back. The next week, grandson went to his house - and she asked me to collect him at six.

The next time I saw her, she said he wouldn't be coming again - as I hadn't cooked dinner for him! Apparently, he ate at 5 and was in bed at 7. We had after school snacks, ate at seven, with bed at 8.30.

The snacks were apple, cheese and red pepper slices with peanut dip. Her 'dinner' was turkey dinosaurs with chips. Of course, he'd had his dinner later anyway!

growstuff

Callistemon I didn't even do domestic science in Year 7 and I can't say I lost out. Latin was fun at times.

I really wish people wouldn't label all young people as food ignorami.

I reckon the real reason the Roman Empire fell was because they ate and drank far too much; they lay down on couches to eat and got digestive problems.

Callistemon21, the stinky fermented fish sauce they were so fond of was very nutritious, though (but rather them than me).

M0nica

I am no supporter of averages, but in this case I would expect the distribution to follow that of the usual bell curve, with the majority of people clustered in the centre, 5 hours+/- 1hour but with the ends tailing off to 0 and well over 15.

5 hours, +/- 1 hour would include a significant proportion of all respondents.

Either way a lot of 'busy' people spend a lot of their free time in front of a screen and could use some of that time more usefully cooking.

The ones who spend hours watching a screen are probably not the same ones who are single parents and work three jobs to make ends meet.

Hetty58

Callistemon21, the stinky fermented fish sauce they were so fond of was very nutritious, though (but rather them than me).

Maybe they'd have been better off eating take-aways while sitting in the communal latrines.

I did Domestic Science at school, and chose to study it to O Level. Passed with a top grade too. Along with passing several other subjects and A Levels too. But not an A Level in Domestic Science. There wasn’t such a course to do.
None of my children, nor my husband, received any formal teaching at school in Domestic Science, but they can all cook. My husband always says if you can read you can cook.
Anyway I don’t think the malnutrition is caused by people being unable to cook, but there maybe a bearing on it though a lack of knowledge about what constitutes a healthy and balanced diet.
I feel a great many of the adults in the survey who were malnourished may well be elderly people or people with mental health issues.

One of my grandchildren has 3 babies. Her husband works all day and when he gets home she goes out to work. All because of high mortgage rates. Their cooking is more or less non existent and the kids live on fast foods, horrible to me but what can they do ? I have to say the kids are happy and smiley and they are not overweight . I suppose there are fast foods and fast foods, some better than others.

I went to a girls' grammar school. I realise now how thorough our cookery classes were. First we sat down and analysed what we were going to cook and if it provided us with all the nutrients. Then we were sent out to buy the ingredients and cost them.
Finally we cooked our dinner, sat down and ate it. A cooking lesson lasted all afternoon. I was not impressed with the home economics classes my daughter had in secondary school. She is a good cook though. Possibly because she has always seen me cooking from scratch.

nanna8

One of my grandchildren has 3 babies. Her husband works all day and when he gets home she goes out to work. All because of high mortgage rates. Their cooking is more or less non existent and the kids live on fast foods, horrible to me but what can they do ? I have to say the kids are happy and smiley and they are not overweight . I suppose there are fast foods and fast foods, some better than others.

In the 70s I worked full time,shifts, including nights. Hubby worked during the day. Whoever was at home cooked tea, nothing fancy like people want nowadays, basic good home cooking. Took an hour at most,or used slow cooker.prep during day, whoever was at home. Called working together. All my children can cook.