Fight obesity like tobacco

[The Riff-Raff Element]

It's also possible that the animals living in close proximity to humans are gaining weight due to scavenging off the copious amounts human waste, raiding bins, being fed and steeling food ect .

We should be weighing the urban foxes

[merlin]

So who did we think should be responsible for children’s diets? Was it the parents, the school, the government or the producers and advertisers of jolly tasty products. Or shall we just hope is goes away?

[demi]

I think, after this little debat:

The schools should be making sure they only sell healthy meals and are a no junk food zone, have daily P.E. classes, and send letters home for the parents of overweight kids expressing their concern and suggesting they visit the family doctor about the problem.

The family doctor should express concern too and give dietry and excersice advice and follow up with the family to make sure they are getting better. Support groups should also be made available to help the families.

The government should have tighter regulations on what ingridients and quantities are allowed to be used in food in the first place.


And if all that fails then its the parents fault and they are a lost cause. Enforcing penilties seems to fringe on peoples' freedom rights....apparently.......and people don't seem to like that so much.

But ultimatly it all comes down to the parents as they are the ones who are feeding them and bringing them up and its their responcibility to ensure they keep their kids healthy and provide the best posible life for them.
I would be really worried if my kids got fat. I don't want them to have health problems or get bullied at school, and if they did it would be my fault and i would have failed as a parent. Suck it up, do whats right for your kids, don't over feed them or pass on your bad dietry habbits because if you do it will be your fault for making your child suffer.

Now I'v got to go get the dinner on. Homemade burgers and mash potatoe. My husband will be happy its meat tonight haha

[GeorgeSalt]

I've been following this thread a bit.. a couple of points I'd like to make.

There are now second- and third-generation non-cooking families, when the pattern becomes entrenched it's difficult to break. Cooking and home economics are lifeskills that everyone should have, but how these skills are transferred is more complicated than just teaching in schools. There are grassroots movments encouraging a better understanding of food, home economics and basic cookery skills and these should be encouraged. Massive cutbacks in public spending have seen support for these non-critical social initiatives cut or removed completely and threaten the good work being done in this area. It's now largely falling back on community volunteers.

Convenience food is just that, convenient. When both parents in a family (or the the sole parent) are working an eight hour day and commuting for an additional two hours on top of that there's a time pressure that can be relieved by subcontracting the preperation to someone else in a factory. That's something that can't be ignored, and well meaning comments from stay-at-home parents have to made bearing in mind that their's is not the reality for many low-paid familes. One of the interesting side effects of the economic downturn has been a reduction in full-tme employment by parents as a result of increasing childcare costs. That creates a greater time opportunity for home cooking for those with the skills to use it.


One initiative that has been tried in the UK was providing part of welfare support in vouchers that could only be redeemed against fresh fruit and vegetables. I became aware of this when a friend fell on hard times and we dropped in for some shopping on the way back from a walk. It seemed like a very good idea, but I suspect it could have been a trial rather than a national policy.

[oldjerry]

I'd agree with all that(though I think it's a bit condescending,well wrong actually,to suggest that this is mainly a problem for the low paid.)

Without getting into the'It's all the fault of Big Business' rant,I would add a couple of things.
In the UK,since 1945,there has been a policy to produce cheap food,witness the ratio of disposable income spent on food in the UK compared to other countries in Western Europe.

[ side note:many would argue that this has been responsible for the apparent poor quality of British cuisine when compared to same,and,come to think of it,for the decimation of large swaths of land through agri-business].

This cheap food has led to a situation where manufacturers can add value to the raw material ,and the product(frozen oven chips or whatever) is still affordable to the vast majority of people.One of the driving forces behind the ,admittedly slow,move towards people actually preparing and cooking their own meals has been the recent significant hike in food prices.

.........Thank God! the Market's saved us again!!

[boboff]

Those are all true jerry.

However it does take a bit of care, take frozen chips as a case in point. 89p for 2 kilos in Morrisons, 3% fat, no other added ingredients, it's a "healthy" starch for 44p a kilo. White rice is 40p for a kilo, again low fat.

Minced Welsh Lean beef in Waitrose £18 a kilo, 17% fat.

With "Fresh" potatoes going up starkly in price (60p a kilo versus 28p a year ago) you do have to budget with some sence.

[oldjerry]

Exactly so,or better still grow as much as poss yourself.
I got the book of The Wartime Farm BBC thingy for a Bday pressie this week,and without being melodramatic,or belittling the situation 70 years ago,it does feel a bit like a siege at the present time.

[merlin]

Those are all true jerry.

However it does take a bit of care, take frozen chips as a case in point. 89p for 2 kilos in Morrisons, 3% fat, no other added ingredients, it's a "healthy" starch for 44p a kilo. White rice is 40p for a kilo, again low fat.

Minced Welsh Lean beef in Waitrose £18 a kilo, 17% fat.

With "Fresh" potatoes going up starkly in price (60p a kilo versus 28p a year ago) you do have to budget with some sence.

Hells bells Bartie, £18 a Kilo!!!!! And 60p for spuds, how the devil do people afford to live in the UK now?

[merlin]

No, somebody is winding me up, it must be a misprint, £18 per Kilo for a minced sheep? I can’t see that flying for long!

[berry]

no merlin it really is that expensive. Ive given up meat mostly - eating it when i can get it in co-op reduced and freeze it. that means we have a meat based meal maybe 2-4 times per month.

my weekly shop (excluding milk and bread as i buy these as and when) was £30 a week for two. some weeks i can just about scrape by with £30 but to give the boy fresh fruit and veg daily i sometimes need nearly double that now. thankfully ive persuaded him a fresh carrot is just like eating an apple!

luckily in the summer though we do forage for berries and fruit.

[oldjerry]

Perhaps we're lucky,but a kilo of minced beef from our local butcher,decent local meat, is about 7 quid, makes 3 meals for a family of 5,so a meat based main meal should pan out less than £5 for 5 people (not too desperate as the kids get £35 a week in Child Benefit).We end up making loads of pasta\pastry etc but hey ho the kids are healthy and happy(ish)..To be honest it's the rising price of flour that worries me.

[diggernotdreamer]

my weekly shop (excluding milk and bread as i buy these as and when) was £30 a week for two. some weeks i can just about scrape by with £30 but to give the boy fresh fruit and veg daily i sometimes need nearly double that now. thankfully ive persuaded him a fresh carrot is just like eating an apple!

Berry, I am quite distressed reading your post, my daughter gets vouchers for her kids which she redeems for fruit and veg onl and I think she gets milk tokens too, are you not eligible for this kind of thing? it seems really awful that in this day and age, people are struggling so hard to afford to eat properly. Seems to be the people who need the most help never get it, after reading about these people who come to the UK and milk to benefits system by inventing a 100 children and buying property with the proceeds and all the prescription medicines they are getting and flogging as well.
I wish you well with your business xx Lyn

[berry]

my weekly shop (excluding milk and bread as i buy these as and when) was £30 a week for two. some weeks i can just about scrape by with £30 but to give the boy fresh fruit and veg daily i sometimes need nearly double that now. thankfully ive persuaded him a fresh carrot is just like eating an apple!

Berry, I am quite distressed reading your post, my daughter gets vouchers for her kids which she redeems for fruit and veg onl and I think she gets milk tokens too, are you not eligible for this kind of thing? it seems really awful that in this day and age, people are struggling so hard to afford to eat properly. Seems to be the people who need the most help never get it, after reading about these people who come to the UK and milk to benefits system by inventing a 100 children and buying property with the proceeds and all the prescription medicines they are getting and flogging as well.
I wish you well with your business xx Lyn

i was entitled to them but its only for under 5s and the boy is now "too old". I think everyone at the bottom is struggling. I shop day to day and get fruit and veg when its reduced or if i have to go into town use the market. id use the market more but.. busfare is £3.50 its frustrating!

[GeorgeSalt]

I'd agree with all that(though I think it's a bit condescending,well wrong actually,to suggest that this is mainly a problem for the low paid.)

That depends where you draw the line, I'd put the line somewhere around £30-35k/year household income for a two person or family household. This is above the defined poverty line and I suspect it's probably above where most people might put a low-paid line. But I would also include those that would be low paid if they weren't working hours that make family life difficult. So a family with a children <12 years of age where both parents must work a combined >1.8x f-t hours in order to balance the family budget. That to me counts as low paid for the purpose of discussing diet and convenience foods - because the hours that must be worked to live are going to cut into the hours for food preperation and family time. And where something has to give, it's easier and cheaper to buy-in the food preperation time.

Obesity is not mainly a problem for the low paid, but for they are the ones for whom it may not be elective and where society has a greater responsibility to help.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

£18 a kilo for beef mince

Obesity is not mainly a problem for the low paid, but for they are the ones for whom it may not be elective and where society has a greater responsibility to help.

If you look at the demographics, obesity is more pronounced amongst low income groups. A lot of high "added value" foods (i.e., stuffed with cheap fats, sugar and salt) are also relatively inexpensive. It's not simply the price of food either - the cost of transport and cooking are often significant enough to make a difference. As Berry pointed out, £3.50 bus fare means that she doesn't go to buy fruit as often as she'd like to and it's the same for lots of other people. Why on earth the voucher scheme isn't continued past five years of age... But then, where's the money in that? I noticed that there is now a plan to vaccinate children against "winter vomiting virus" at a cost of £25 million per year. This will, apparently, save the UK NHS £20 million per year. The company making the vaccine must be paying their lobbying firm quite well

EDIT: And this, from Denmark. They had the idea of actually implementing a fat tax. It lasted a year before it is to be repealed because it increased food prices:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20280863