UPF, poverty, obesity.... children’s healthy eating - an impossible challenge?

I don't recognise that at all. Me and my friends have never abused our DC but can 'control' them just fine.

I do supply teaching and I can go in to a year one class one day and the children are tall and strong with shining skin and hair and I can go to a different year one class the next day and the children look fragile and dull. The white kids are grey with sunken eyes.

In some schools not one child will eat any of the provided fruit or vegetables. Sometimes I give nursery children a sticker if they drink some milk. They walk around sucking down cordial all day instead.

In school nurseries, the lunches are not free so most have packed lunches. Some children will have just two packets of crisps for their lunch or just a six pack of Oreo's. I'm at the stage now where I'm pleased is they have a greggs sausage roll.

One advert that has really pissed me off recently is the one for buying train tickets through Uber. "With all that money saved, the snacks are on you!"

Why do you need snacks on a train journey?! Yes, if it's a long one you might need to take or buy lunch, but it's the normalisation of snacking EVERYWHERE that boils my piss.

‘Elevenses was more structured though.

There's a mindset difference in pausing mid-way between meals, having a sit, eating some food off a plate, compared grazing on the go and eating from packets.’

Yes, there was a thread recently about someone being annoyed by a colleague eating noisily at her desk.
It became clear that many people now see it as a norm or indeed a human right to be able to eat constantly at your desk if you want to. It didn’t used to be. There used to be more of an assumption that you would take a break and it was more likely the employer would provide a staff room for you to do it in.

I read Ultra Processed People recently and the stuff about the “food swamp” was compelling - when the prevailing food environment is UPF it is really difficult to avoid. UPF is readily available, heavily marketed, cheap, easy to prepare, has a long shelf life and tastes nice - you can absolutely see why time poor cash strapped families turn to it.

And I absolutely agree that the government needs to step in to publicise the dangers of this stuff and then regulate it. The extent to which “big food” controls not only politics but most of the scientific research in this area is terrifying.

Elevenses was more structured though.

There's a mindset difference in pausing mid-way between meals, having a sit, eating some food off a plate, compared grazing on the go and eating from packets.

By pausing and structuring, it's easier to regulate what you're having.

Plates were smaller which led to smaller meals. My 1980s "student plate" has a large rim, so the flat surface is the same as the medium plates we have, but the outer circumfrence is the same as the full size dinner plate. Some meals I use the smaller plates, but often if I use the bigger plates for the family, I dig the old one out to naturally hold my portion back (older children needing a higher intake than me, they used to use the small plates). It still gives me a full looking plate without looking like a restriction.
Those small IKEA plastic bowls- they can fit a whole can of food. The capacity is surprising and its easier to eat more than you think you are.

That leads me to another musing- the size of things like lunch boxes. People naturally fill the vessel they have. I've seen huge lunch bags filled with every type of food- sandwich, fruit, crisps, chocolate bar, cake, yoghurt pouch, peperami and babybels for a few miles walk/ picnic. I ended up taking the children's bags for them and putting them in my rucksack because they were so heavily weighed down and struggling to walk with them under the weight of the food.

Many parents seem terrified to let their children starve on walks of only a couple of miles.
For context on a 10 mile run this week, I used one of my two nakd bars in two hours of constant running. A 2 mile walk at child pace is not going to have children depleting their glycogen stores!
I'm also seeing more parents being doubtful about going ahead with outdoor activties in standard weather conditions. Yes it is safe to go for an hour's walk in 10⁰C rain- send them in their coat (cohort can afford coats, just not used to being out of nice cars)

There are a lot of factors, but the easy availability of ultra processed, ultra palatable food plays a big part. British supermarkets have markedly bigger aisles of processed shite than do continental ones- perhaps European countries have legislation to control aggressive marketing that we don't?

A while back someone published excerpts on Facebook of his diary as a young man walking the Ridgeway Path in the 1970s with his two mates- it was really entertaining, but what stood out for me was the low availability of food. They were on a low budget, and seemed to exist on mostly rice. On the rare occasions when they encountered a shop that was open they couldn't afford much- maybe some oranges, or on one occasion they found a chip shop and enjoyed the luxury of chip butties! In the photos they look incredibly skinny.

Nowadays, every village Spar would sell you 100g Dairy Milk for a quid, or a 2 for 1 offer on Pringles, or a packet of value biscuits for 50p. The shape of young men- supposedly the fittest and skinnier of us- has completely changed- they're a lot more chunky. A lot of it is gym honed chunk, but still...

DS is 14, now has his own pocket and occasional job money, and the school bus drops him off outside the Spar. Every fucking day he comes back munching a Snickers bar or a packet of value biscuits, and often has a fizzy drink on the go, too. It drives me bloody mad. He's not overweight (yet), but it's doing his health no good at all.0

But the snack size and frequency have both grown enormously. People used to have ‘a biscuit’ which to be fair usually meant two. What it didn’t mean was the whole packet. Crisps were a small bag not a multipack or grab bag.
When I was at secondary school in the 80s my year group was kept back after assembly and harangued by a teacher for the heinous crime of ‘eating in public in school uniform.’ It must have been a transitional moment because we had no idea we weren’t supposed to do this. It was a grammar school and many of us had long commutes so what this meant was that we were officially not supposed to eat anything between school dinner at 12 and getting home at 5. Can you imagine that now, when parents wait outside the school gate with snacks for their kids at 3.15 (and many of them will have had snacks in an afternoon break in any case)?

Not quite. As more people become aware, and engaged with knowing what is in the food that they are consuming, that knowledge will hopefully trigger a change in how people shop, and the food that they give to their families. The first step has to be an awareness of the damage being done to people, through low quality, processed food.

It's a scandal. I don't think people realise basically 1 child out of 3 is in poverty.

I also started listening to rangan chatterjees podcast this morning about the loneliness epidemic and the huge impact on mental and physical health so that's fun 😬

But ok for the DC to suffer??

@User8746422 you are just trolling now. All UK apples, organic or not, will have been be kept in cold storage as we cannot grow apples over the winter and spring. Organic plants are not magic.

I agree. I can't understand why there isn't more outrage.

A Co-op opened near me recently. Huge excitement to have a 'local' shop. I looked around and all I could see was 'fake' food. 90% of it was fizzy drinks and crap. We are doomed.

Wow this is really scary. Young people too sick to work already. How on earth are we going to finance the failing health of the next ? This is a perfect example of the short termism of austerity. Unfortunately the effects aren't truly felt until way down the line when everything and everyone is screwed!

Out of interest what would you make in 10 minutes? I succumb to takeaways when fatigued/ill etc.

This is nonsense. Millions of cuisines- Asian, Arab, Mexican- know how to add flavour to non organic food with spices and herbs.

I have to be honest that the rise of Just Eat and such like and the enormous variety of food you can order has increased how much we get a takeaway. When I was growing up in the 90s we got a Chinese once in a blue moon. We get a takeaway probably twice a month and more if ill/fatigued etc.

Holy shit 😆 Makes me glad I'm a vegetarian and can rustle up a meal from scratch for under a fiver then!

Yes but with what types of ingredients? The prerequisite is that meat & eggs needs to meet the highest level of animal welfare and organic farming. Fruit and veg need to be organic and pesticide free, local if possible. This is not judging anyone who shops and cooks with different ingredients but it's an objective fact based on what level of food is deemed "healthiest", and arguable tastiest. Children can't be forced to eat healthy if it doesn't taste good.

Cheaper meat and produce often don't taste like anything and that's why children refuse to eat them. The cheapest, non-organic apples that have been kept in cold storage months literally taste like biting into cold styrofoam. How can a child be expected to eat that when they also have the option of a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps? Cheap chicken is dry and rubbery with zero flavour. How are kids supposed to eat that compared to deep fried chicken nuggets slathered with sauce.

Cooking at home is way cheaper for me. Eating out in London is phenomenally expensive.

@User8746422 absolute nonsense. I cook from scratch for two of us and our total grocery bill for the week (including cleaning stuff and gasp some stuff like crisps, chocolate and biscuits) maximum £85 - and we could definitely go lower.

I made a chilli at the weekend that did four generous meals with rice with a bit left over to have for lunch one day with a piece of bread.

It was made with 750 grams of decent quality minced beef, an onion, a carrot, a couple of sticks of celery, two peppers, a can of chopped tomatoes and a can of kidney beans (plus garlic, chilli, smoked palrika, bay leaves, a cinammon stick, cumin etc..).

I suspect it came out at around £3 a portion.

I like good quality fish and meat (preferabl free range and/or organic) so operate a policy of bulking it it with vegetables and pulses and buying cheaper cuts or species - we eat a lot of mackerel. I also make liberal use of the yellow sticker section. I got two very nice salmon fillets half price on Saturday. They went straight in to the freezer and I will use them tomorrow to make terayaki salamon with egg fried rice and pak choi.

Where are you shopping for an organic steak to cost so much? Organic steak can be obtained from Sainsburys for much cheaper than that. Cooking healthy meals from scratch, does not have to cost so much, you are choosing to use very expensive ingredients.

Or taller people leaving after brexit?

I dont know as the report doesn't mention that.

I dont know if immigration was materially different for babies born in 2012, 11, 10 etc to those from 2013 or whether shorter people started immigrating here in big numbers in time to have babies from 2013 onwards.