To not be surprised our kids are so fat

[Babycham1979]

When they're fed utter crap like this;

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-2957301/What-school-lunches-look-like-world.html

No wonder obesity rates are so high,mand no wonder so many British children are incredibly picky when they're fed processed shite as is evident in these pictures. Imagine some of the pickiest UK children being handed a bowl of miso soup, or prawns, or plantain?!

Is the issue budgetary, or culture? Either way, we're failing our children.

bumble I'm a lone parent to 5dc on minimum wage. It's possible. Very possible

I think if the world was such that all people who ate the same and did the same exercise ended up weighing the same then I wouldn't get so pissed off about people connecting greed and obesity. But it just isn't true. People have totally different calorie break even points on the same exercise.

If the world was such that everyone who only ate when hungry and stopped when not, was the same weight I wouldn't get pissed off with the greed obesity connection. But again it just isn't true. Lots of people have to stay hungry all the time in order to stay the same weight.

The amount you can eat without gaining weight, and whether or not your brain correctly recognises 'full' are genetically preprogrammed. It is phenomenally harder for some people to remain a healthy weight than others. While that is true I refuse to think of the overweight as fundamentally less moral than the normal or under weight.

endler how old are you? I'm 47 and don't remember crisps being in anyone's lunchboxes. I'm not sure there was much available in the shops in 1975, not that was common lunch time food anyway! I remember my mums not at finding new foods in the mid 70's, but it was all processed and a bit 'different'.... Vesta curries etc

I have a few meet ups this week and every activity has had food involved, it is ridiculous. Even going for a walk now seems to to consist of a visit to a coffee shop or a pub.

We had a thread a while back proving that it was cheaper to eat crap than to cook basic meals.

Take aways are more expensive than cooking from scratch, but biscuits, white bread and lemon curd is way WAY cheaper than lentils, tomatoes, pasta etc. And you can totally forget fresh fruit!

And yet rarely a week goes by without reading 'advice' from posters on MN, pack snacks to keep children quiet and occupied when they're going somewhere that they might play up.

Just last week someone asked how to cope with her 4yr old in the swimming pool changing room, while she dried and dressed her baby. Instead of suggesting she try to get him involved in helping, or even to take a toy or book, the advice (yet again) was to take snacks to keep him occupied.

MN has enough adult comfort/boredom eaters, who struggle to give up the habit, without raising another generation of them.

Never mind hourly snacking. My DD eats every 10 minutes. and kicks off if she doesn't. And is slim. Am one of these parents carrying food everywhere.

some people need to eat little and often, others need a few big meals.

Neither big meals nor snacking are inherently evil - but forcing people best suited to one into the other is a recipe for obesity.

We lived on an island and had "the van" come round on a Friday - I remember the "treat" of having a bottle of limeade pop between us and a bag of golden wonder salt and vinegar crisps - so flavoured they made your lips go numb.

It was the only time we ate outside of mealtimes - once a week, our Friday treat.

but we also had the grease swimming abomination that was spam fritters for school dinners....

Look around you and you will notice a general trend that healthy peoples weight is directly proportional to three things; how educated they are about nutrition and fitness, their willpower and lifestyle choices.

You see skinny and heavy people across a broad swathe of society. From skinny and ignorant with plenty of willpower, to very intellectual types who have chosen a lifestyle that involves high calorie foods and low exercise.

The most important point is providing good education, especially now that food packaging is so well labelled compared to in the past. To some degree good nutritional and fitness education enhance your willpower as you can consciously make decisions about your lifestyle choices whether they are healthy or not rather than blaming others.

CliveCussler and MrsGoslingWannabe: Neither melon, nor corn is "veg". Melon is fruit. Corn is starch (it's grains, the same thing pigs are fattened on). So is potato, btw, it is not "veg", it's starch. The UK lunch is in fact sadly lacking in vegetables. Processed frankfurters are absolutely vile (read the ingredients) and I suspect the ones in the picture were the kind that come mixed with the baked beans in the same tin - even more vile.

viler.

26Point2Miles - I remember the taste of sliced apple. We having been at sport all day mum would come into the living room with a big bowl of chopped fruit, and my sisters and I would all squeeze onto the couch and start pinching bits untll it was all gone! That first slice of apple was always so delicious!

ice a bag of apples in my asda is £1..... Same as a big bar of cadburys.

A bag of pasta 29p.... Bread 45p

I suggest that thread was all about excusing bad eating and you all saw the 'proof' that eating crap was cheaper because it was engineered that way.... So the people that had their heads in the sand could stay that way!

26Point2 - Yes, I agree it is possible. It is probably harder though and people opt for cheap convenience food instead. I, personally, don't/wouldn't but I've just read plenty of threads where people have insisted that it just isn't possible to only stick with healthy food when you're on a tight budget. I know my grandparents managed it but apparent;y everyone on a low income starved before Iceland came along!

Sandwich, crisps and a choc bar was school dinner. My dc would actually snack on fruit, which would have been unheard of for my peer group. I don't remember anyone bringing fruit to school.

I am always impressed that my children will eat fruit because they want to over chocolate, or will eat salad, or broccoli, or take cherry tomatoes from the fridge! I do believe the healthy eating campaigns have worked.

I think for some people the "it's too expensive" argument is more to do with lack of skills to know how to make a meal on a budget, or lack of willingness to try to do so.

Or just laziness?

I didn't think the UK lunch looked too bad. I personally wouldn't eat the hot dog, but beans, jacket pot, corn on the cob & some melon?

That's all high carb, so it's actually a high sugar meal. Not good at all. No protein in there and green veg would be better than corn

It's high carb, for sure. But there is protein in the beans. And active kids need carbs. I don't get this thing where people pick apart one meal because it doesn't contain this, too high in that, deficient in this. It's about balanced diets, not every single meal being perfectly balanced in everything.

One thing that always gets me is that there is always a pudding offered with school dinners. Why? I really don't understand it.

One thing that always surprises me on MN threads about packed lunches is that many people see crisps as a normal (and potentially vital) part of a daily packed lunch. I'm not British, and this has been a real eye opener. When I was growing up, there was never pudding with lunch (including hot lunches at school) and things like crisps would be a huge treat in a packed lunch, you might get a biscuit for morning tea and fruit with your lunch.

I was being polite with my lack of willingness - but yes for some laziness certainly plays a part.

I agree about the need to provide a pudding for lunch every day, I know people argue that fruit is available or they aren't forced to have it but for a lot of children if a pudding is there then they will want to eat it (and who can blame them!) even if they are low sugar ones in school it still sets the habits of always having a pudding after dinner.

I always had crisps with my packed lunch at school. I realised last year that whenever I had a butty I would always grab crisps to go with it, I have lost a lot of weight in the last 2 years but that was the hardest habit to break.

Well just using that one meal as an example .... If it's all sugar, as this is then it feeds the sugar addiction. I bet whoever ate that lot was hungry again within the hour. Defeats the object of feeding them in the first place if it's leaving them craving more...

Ah yes. Like a cup of tea and a biscuit.... Coffee and a cake....burger and fries.... Quite clever the food industry!

OK, last time I studied food science was 25 years ago. I know thinking has moved on since then when low fat was good, carbs were good so clearly I need re-educating.
When did what I would call "starchy veg" (potatoes, sweetcorn...) get relabelled "starch" and equated to sugar and therefore of no nutritional value and in fact on a par with crack?