What is really stopping us from feeding our children healthy food?

[LilMissRe]

I saw an article today about obesity levels in little children and how it is increasing to dangerous levels. I'm intrigued as this is for a project I'm doing to graduate from university- hopefully this year!

The concern here is that, well, little ones (0-5 yrs) have the least say in what they can eat and drink, and as many don't start school officially till 4-5- schools can't really intervene and so a lot of experts place the blame entirely on us parents- especially mothers.

In my opinion I think time and marketing of unhealthy food is a big player here and is to blame, but I can't just use my opinion and would be very grateful for your opinions and experiences on this.

What is really stopping us from feeding our children healthy food?

Thank you!

People keep saying that fast food is cheap, but I don't think it is. Even the smallest, cheapest thing (a happy meal or small chicken and chips meal is £2/3 at the very least) and that's not cheap for one meal, for one person. And many things cost quite a lot more than that.

I think a lot of the time, people don't want to eat healthily, they perceive the food as less tasty and don't see the immediate effect on their health.

I think a lot of it is just the ease of getting very moreish food which encourages all of us to eat more than we need. It's something to do with the combination of sugars and fats which is prevalent in processed foods that means we can eat more than our hunger demands.

Even middle class parents try to cook meals that will appeal to their children, which obviously means they will eat more of it.

Staple family meals of the past such as stews were filling but you'd be unlikely to eat more than you needed. Few children really enjoyed them. They were fuel.

I come from a part of the world where fresh food is cheap, tasty and easy to find. The contrast with the UK is huge. Here you really have to go out of your way to find non-junk food. It involves saying no to 90% of stuff on supermarkets and shops, children-oriented social gatherings etc. It's a constant fight.

Then there are places like my local Asda where the fruit and veg looks fantastic but tastes of absolutely nothing, with wooden, dry textures. I remember trying their tomatoes and apples - nothing exotic! -, being shocked and thinking "No wonder people on this country don't want to eat fruit and veg".

And I disagree with those blaming working parents, when I think of the children who I know are overweight in my children's classes there is not a consensus of it being to children of working parents
I don't blame working parents as such, after both of us worked when the boys were small but a mistake we got into was over booking the kids into too many after school activities were everything became a rush .it was like a fear of trying to keep up with everyone else and not wanting them to miss out on 'experiences' meal times was definitely rushed and not always great. After 18 months I cut back on virtually everything and everything was much calmer.

@Youngandfree I think the amount of fat children shows that many parents do not know their kids best when it comes to their diet.

Laziness, lack of education etc.

Any parent can provide their child with a healthy diet if they want to, but many don’t want to, don’t have the confidence, aren’t willing to learn what a healthy meal looks like etc.

Obesity is completely normalised in society, personally I would be hugelt ashamed if my son was overweight, as I would have failed in my parenting.

I try and feed my child the best I can but food is so expensive I really struggle.

I went to school in Ireland where we did home economics (and had to do it!!) we learned
How to cook from scratch;
Spaghetti bolognese
Shepherds pie
Chili con carne
Lasagna
Risotto
Curry
Roast chicken
Casserole
All the different styles of cooking e.g boiling, broiling, roasting, grilling etc
Cake
Scones
Pies
The difference between different pastries you need to use
We also learned how to make scrambled egg
Also included was sewing, how microwaves, ovens, fridges and washing machines work. How to fix a plug etc etc
It set me up!!! They still do it here!!

I notice at work that most of the younger people either buy sandwiches with lots of mayo and a meal deal, or buy takeaways. It surprises me the amount of people who buy cheap lunch takeaway deals.
By MN standards my diet is not brilliant, but compared to those around me it is ultra healthy.

Laziness and wanting an easy life!

I think the answer is very complex... but in society, in general, I see so many disordered eating habits as well as so much disinformation, whether it's overeating, sugar addiction, restrictive diets, orthorexia etc. I think we've lost the ability to eat intuitively, as well as the sense of what a balanced and nutritious diet looks like. There's not much hope to feed kids in a healthy way when so many adults don't manage it themselves.

I have a friend who had never cooked any meal before her DCs arrived.The reason was economic. Her own mother could not afford to waste food so had never let her have a go at preparing a meal.
Likewise, poorer parents give their children what they know they like (junk) to fill them up cheaply.

I think lack of exercise has to play a part. Back in the day the family car was used by Dad who was at work, mum walked us to school and then went to her work.

The one that cracks me up, as a child morning break was playtime the emphasise on play, now its snacktime kids feel left out without a snack.

Yes kids were so active in the past.

British children are amongst the least active in the world.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/20/british-children-among-the-least-active-in-the-world-with-exerci/

DelurkingAJ said
"For a better choice of kids’ food in restaurants, I suggest eating out at non chain places. They’ll often (in my experience) do a half portion of something on the adult menu (if it can be halved...we’re usually after pasta dishes) for a lower price."

I agree, also some restaurants do one dish as a starter or a main, buy the child the starter portion but they eat it as their main.

My dd is intolerant to cows milk and a couple of other things. I can walk up and down a vast aisle of biscuits, bread and cakes in any supermarket and still only be able to choose a very few items from there. Ditto cooked meats and snacks, it's made us as a family much more aware of what's actually in processed and convenience food, simply because we cannot buy most of it. Necessity dictates that we are avid label readers and in truth, even if something doesn't contain the allergens, the list of ingredients is often off-putting.

OP you may want to look at this, I guess some will be on youTube. Years ago, Jamie Oliver did a series of programmes on TV about the rubbish that was served up for school dinners in this country. He went to some of the poorest places in europe to see how they dealt with school dinners and found that their children had much more nutritionally balanced foods.
He tried to implement that in the UK and was faced with a huge parental backlash, schools that only served healthy food had parents throwing junkfood over the fences to their children in the playgrounds. His project was scrapped. Think the series was called Jamie's School Dinners, if you google turkey twizzlers, you'll find it.

Much more recently Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall was asking similar questions to you and made a few programmes about it. Google Britain's Fat Fight.

I think it's a combination of factors, lack of exercise, very large portions and ignorance about what is actually in manufactured food.

I think a lot of it is sugar. I don't deny my children sweets e.g. at a party or the cinema as a treat but I wouldn't buy them as a matter of course. I am very surprised at the number of parents who greet the children at the school gate with a bag of Haribo or a few chocolate biscuits or even a doughnut. Every single day. If they can't make it home without a snack (which is fair enough some might have a long walk or go straight to an activity) then why not an apple or a banana? Even a sandwich. It's not as if sweets or biscuits will be very filling. I think parents see it as a treat after school.

There's no one simple answer.

There's a particular age group that weren't taught cooking properly either at school (due to home ec classes either being cut or ridiculously altered to not include actual cooking, but things like designing food ads 🙄) or at home (due to their own parents working full time). This group not only lack the skills but often the confidence, time or support to attempt to gain those skills.

I was also lucky enough to be the daughter and granddaughter of women who cooked from scratch and were very good and adaptable cooks. They'd all also grown up in very poor families where the food had to go a long way (big catholic families). Even the fathers and grandfathers could cook basic meals. Mum taught all 3 of us from the usual (to me) thing of with little kids making things like fairy cakes, cheese straws, jam tarts to prepping veg and making everything from soups, sauces and basic "meat n 2 veg" up to a full roast. Grans we only saw a few times a year but when we did they involved us in/taught us too. Eg something my mum didn't tend to do was fish & chips every Friday from scratch so when we visited grans it was a fun novelty to help with this (and get very messy) prepping the fish and breading it - little production line going, 1 did flour, 1 did egg, 1 did breadcrumbs, always arguments about who got to do the egg bit 😂

There's also the poor regulation of marketing over processed and low nutrition foods. Far too many have descriptions on them and are advertised in such a way as gives the impression they are healthy products when they're not.

There's also poor pricing regulations which mean that certain foods are far cheaper than certain other healthier foods, also the special offers aren't well regulated with regard to this. When I lived in Europe almost 20 years ago now where I lived bogofs were already banned as encouraging over buying and over eating of unhealthy products, and other offers were strictly regulated too. So that offers were more often applied to healthier products to attract customers. Absolutely no reason this can't be done in this country.

My personal experience is also that midwives and health visitors own knowledge/training is often dubious, and I've seen some shockers on here what posters have reported they've been told by hcps from faulty bf info to over encouragement of the use of "hungry baby" formula to poor weaning advice and ignorance of certain dietary requirements. At the very least they should admit they're not sure and signpost their patient to someone more qualified/knowledgeable.

Time and energy are definitely factors, certainly when I was a full time working single mum and we weren't getting home till 6.30/7pm I did more often do freezer to oven meals, not always or even predominantly but sometimes I was so knackered and dd grumpy and tired herself that it was easier to do a 20 min meal of this type and use the time it was coming to calm dd than to spend 30 mins cooking from scratch and having to leave dd to only become more grumpy.

If I were in charge of fixing this?

Add sound nutritional knowledge to hcp training (it was part of my nurse training but I'm hearing from various sources it's either not happening or not correct/accurate, not sure why this is as to me it's a very basic foundation of good health)

Bring back proper cookery classes at school teaching the basics inc nutrition, cooking from scratch NOT jar sauces and cake mixes! I remember from my own cookery lessons that the teacher would talk about the nutrients in the food we were cooking and what bodily functions/systems they supported.

Ban advertising of junk food altogether.

Ban special offers on junk food. Regulate pricing so that retailers are encouraged to make their special offers apply to healthier products.

"It is almost impossible to eat out and find decent food on the menu for children" totally agree with this too. Dd hates chips and when she was still too young/small to manage an adult portion it was murder finding places/options that were things she liked to eat. It's a peculiarly British thing I think, having completely different food for kids! WHY cafes and restaurants won't/can't simply offer half size portions of their standard menu for children I don't know. Often we ended up I'd order her a side dish of something or I'd order something for me which we both liked and split it with her and order a side for me to bulk mine up - ridiculous! Authentic ethnic (for lack of a better term) places (Italian, Spanish, canton, Japanese, Thai) were often better options because they seemed to not have this expectation that children would only eat beige foods! I suspect half portions would also be popular with pensioners - certainly a few of the local fish & chip places offer this.

Ban "children's menus" instead cafes/restaurants have to offer half portions of regular menu dishes.

Huge issue not just because of this factor which really needs a thread of its own - but our work/life balance in the uk is WAY out of wack! If we had decent living wages, cheaper housing etc that meant a single parent could live on max 35 hours pw people would have more time/energy/motivation for this and many other things. It would also mean there were more Job vacancies and other societal improvements - as I said whole other thread!

JockTamsonsBairns - genuine question when you say you're a school meals cook are you actually cooking from scratch or at the very least "fresh" but pre-prepped ingredients? Or are you pretty much just re-heating/cooking ready made items?

"When my mother was a child, women gave up work on marriage and mortgages were based on one salary." When was this? It may have been true for your grandmother but this ideas that all women quit work upon marriage/children but actually that's never really been true for working class women.

On fussy eaters, barring genuine medical issues and dislikes, I see an element of too much capitulation by parents.

I've even witnessed parents "training" their kids to have the same poor, junk food based diet they have purely so they don't have to make/offer something healthier. Some of these supposedly "fussy" kids have been in my care for mealtimes, sometimes several mealtimes over a period of time and when discussing what I was making for dinner the parent has said "ohhhh they won't like that" and several times when I've asked its turned out they don't even know if the child likes "that" or not because they've never had "that". Then said child has not only happily eaten but asked for more and then asked for said item/dish again when back home.

Just because a parent doesn't like something doesn't mean the child won't.

I'm veggie, dd isn't but also doesn't eat red meat as she doesn't like it, plus it tends to make her stomach upset. So I'm used to making not necessarily 2 meals every night but meals that are easily served as either veggie or omnivore, though she also enjoys certain veggie dishes, depends what I'm making. She also likes very spicy food which I can't tolerate so I adjust for that too. There are also some things I like which she doesn't, like olives, sun dried tomatoes, cauliflower, leeks, kale...

I don't find it particularly difficult adjusting as I go along. But some parents seem to be averse to even considering their child might like different food to them.

"Actually, I also blame the size of plates from places like Ikea" not just ikea! Plate size generally is stupidly large now! My mums still using crockery she got in the 80's and the dinner plates in her set are only slightly bigger than any of my side plates - which are from a variety of places but all roughly same size. My dinner plates are too big for the cupboard! The door won't close! I first was made aware of this from doing weight watchers a few years back and this was something the leader discussed one meeting. That's what prompted me taking one of my side plates to my mums one day out of curiosity. Completely unnecessary for plates to be so big. Also design makes a difference. Mums 80's set bowls are the shallower lipped design rarely seen now, whereas mine are the very deep unlipped like a huge coffee cup style like these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Malacasa-Regular-Porcelain-Cereal-Ceramic/dp/B01M1RO5UK/ref=mpssa112_sspa?keywords=cereal+bowls&qid=1561400255&s=kitchen&sr=1-2-spons&psc=1

Again prompted by that meeting discovered my bowls hold 5 TIMES the amount my mums does!

"It creates the impression that's the space that needs 'filling'," exactly!

@Iamnotacerealkiller - not just the demonising of fat but of any food group. I remember the demonising of fat, now we have the demonising of carbs which you seem to have fallen for.

Neither is correct or healthy, we need ALL food groups for healthy bodily function, various foods contain nutrients best absorbed when eaten with food/drink from other food groups. Also as close to natural form is best. We saw this with the margarine/trans fats debacle.

I firmly believe we will discover in the next decade or so that artificial sweeteners while lower cal and not spiking blood sugars are unhealthy in some other way.

#Youngandfree my youngest is now over 18.

There still remains the issue of huge numbers of eateries (not to mention places like holiday parks with only one restaurant and a captive audience) where the children's menu reads like Jamie Oliver's worst nightmare.

Why can't we get this sorted out? Why do so many places have such shit children's options on their menus? Why can't we campaign to change this ingrained habit in the minds of restaurant chains and independents?

Pp have made many good points and I think the rise in childhood obesity will have many causal factors.

I think one of them is love. Quite a lot of us express love for others through food - we take people out for dinner, we make cakes on their birthday, we give chocolate as a present. When it comes to a hungry/tantrumming/upset child it can be very hard to say 'no'.

There's also evidence that parents are not able to see that their child is overweight. Obviously we're biased about our own children, and that extends to their weight.

BlankTimes
The Jamie Oliver campaign was a turning point for me. It changed the meals I made for the family and still try to eat food as close to its natural shape and colour as I can. I'm not saying I do this every single meal every single day but try to live that way as much as I can.
I could not understand the resistance Jamie received from some mothers. Some were passing burgers or something through the school fence from what I recall. I was pleased that someone with a bit of clout was saying to the government ' why are you feeding kids this shit?'
I would often have some work to do in a couple of private schools and would be invited to have lunch. The meal difference was astonishing from what was being served in my childs school!!

I have my own theories on this subject, but I mainly just think that the pace of life has sped up so people don't have time to harvest and appreciate free food. My grandparents grew fruit and veg in the garden and as food came into season it was made into meals. They ate tons of fresh produce because it was free. Now I couldn't grow food on this scale even if I wanted to. I have a tiny garden like all the other houses on this estate. We live by the sea and sometimes we see people fishing but nobody really has the time to catch their own supper anymore. Anglers are doing it as a hobby. Food like strawberries, rhubarb, runner beans and raspberries even plums and some apples, they are sold as luxury items in the supermarket, so expensive you would never believe they could be ten a penny in your own back garden... if only it were big enough, and even if it were, who has the time to grow veg, wash it, prep it, preserve it. We rely on our supermarkets and they let us down because they don't want us buying fresh, it's too wasteful and eats into their profits. Supermarkets want us to buy bread and cakes, food which can be made by them, sold with a huge mark up, and we do because it's marketed to us and it's tasty, the supermarkets make sure it's tasty by adding tons of fat and sugar and by conducting hundreds of taste tests. Some individuals have huge willpower and avoid the supermarket temptations. Most do not.

Three reasons, in my opinion

1. people don't cook from scratch any more
2. children aren't as active
3. portion sizes are totally over inflated and children are given adult sized portions. For context, an appropriate portion size of pasta for a 5ft3 adult woman is 60g dry weight.