AIBU to ask what you think of change 4 life’s two 100 calorie snacks campaign?

[Whichschool2020]

Just that really.
www.nhs.uk/change4life/food-facts/healthier-snacks-for-kids/100-calorie-snacks?gclid=CjwKCAiAhMLSBRBJEiwAlFrsTqs_fnt21P4WV_BemO5Y9dDhFcbwbqOSpokPT1KtNVQk2dNPmSD_ahoCS1cQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds#yPkpO8E27jIrGUT2.97

Toffee it also** says limit intake of milkshakes so a school providing them everyday isn't great is it?

Actually sick of writing ice cream and milkshakes. Hoping It's made me never want one again.. not likely

Just read through all the new replies. It’s always an interesting debate. I guess the main message is like many PP have said, aimed at people who may be giving their kids full sugar coke- while Diet Coke isn’t great, calorie and sugar wise it’s better than coke. If they just said only water, maybe people would ignore it and just carry on with the coke.

Same with the 2 x 100 calorie snacks- better to tell people to limit to 200 cals than say no snacks or only fruit or veg as snacks.

I do wonder though whether some people will replace coke with diet/no sugar versions and then over compensate With other stuff- as in ‘oh they had no sugar squash so it’s ok to have an extra biscuit’ or whatever.

I think it would be very interesting to do a study over a year with 3 groups of overweight kids who all drink full sugar drinks, keep one on full sugar drinks, replace one groups drinks with artificially sweetened drinks and one just plain water. It would be VERY interesting to see the difference (if any) between the water and artificially sweetened drinks group...

As for the ‘competitive healthy eating’ vibe on mumsnet, I agree. My kids do eat healthily but equally they are not super human. I am lucky they don’t like fizzy drinks or juice. But have just taken DD (8) to McDonald’s for lunch. It does seem to be a bit of a competition, but for me, I just want DC to grow up with a healthy, relaxed attitude to Food, making healthy choices 80% of the time and maintaining a healthy weight.

Oh cut out all the false amazement that all children are not as perfect as yours are. Wow, ffs.
These guidelines are not designed for MN kids, who are all slim, healthy and Olympic level athletes who choose carrot sticks on the very odd occasion they need a snack before tacking their second marathon that day.
The guidelines are for the dreadful people on the dark side ( who do exist, wow) who feed their children endless sugary and fatty snacks.
Those children - who don't worry, are categorically not yours, don't worry - might benefit from advice to cut snacks down from endless to two a day and from calorific to max 100 calories each.
I repeat, these are not MN children, so no cause for concern on this thread, as we all know YOUR children are slim and active etc etc etc
Wow indeed

Of course they are MN kids.

With millions of users how could at least some of then not be.

I think this thread alone has been indicative of the kind of things that are said that are at best proving the inawareness handbag worse normalizing things

For instance

Bottomless pit teens
Keeling over
Very tall
Growing children
Works for us
My kid would he starving after that

Etc

There's no point in any campaign if I'm honest if there's no other action taken. What use is a poster or a school confiscating "contraband" when nothing is being done about ensuring that people are taught how to cook or what ingredients to watch out for end

These snacks cost a bloody fortune in relation to other products and are useless as a meal.

It's just gonna make people feel like crap. Great so now they know to give their kids a rice cake in stead of Doritos but they can't cook a healthy meal on a budget. Wow helpful

@ cathf

I have one with SN. It amuses me that the doctor has told us to eat lots of fruit to alleviate digestive issues (but not bananas as they can make it worse) and the dentist tels me not to feed him fruit, especially not as a stand alone snack. When I point out the contradiction to either they tend to get upset.

For one child they can't even give consistent advice. How can a nation wide campaign give whole body advice for every child

I do think where you find overweight kids you find poorly treated other issues both physical and mental either in the child or parent. Often sudden serious injury, hypermobility or other issuesuitable that affect movement. it becomes a chicken and egg situation. You move less cos it hurts, you put on weight cos you move less, it becomes harder because you put on weight. Better management of other conditions I have no doubt would improve obesity statistics

There’s also the issue of allowing kids to get a little bit hungry being a good thing! Last year I gave in more than I’d like about snacks before dinner and surprise surprise they weren’t actually hungry enough and so only ate half their meal and then wanted more snacks and so the cycle contributed. Now that I’m super strict about ONE small snack only before dinner, they don’t even ask any more once they’ve had that. And eat better at meals.

And a lot of kids snacking is habit and boredom, same as it is with adults.

Like I’ve said I think twice in this thread, my kids are not super amazing never eat any junk kids. Today DD had coco pops for breakfast (inlaws bought them at Christmas and gave us them to use up ) no snack (!!!!!) and McDonald’s for lunch. BUT she’s now just had strawberries for her snack and will have a healthy dinner. And a day like this is maybe once a month.

It's just gonna make people feel like crap. Great so now they know to give their kids a rice cake in stead of Doritos but they can't cook a healthy meal on a budget. Wow helpful

There is a whole internet full of healthy recipes and step by step video tutorials on how to prepare and cook them.

If grown adults can't be arsed to research them for the sake of their own kid's health, there really is no helping them.

Learning to cook and provide your kids with decent food and ample exercise is all part of parental responsibility.

Well that's just it isn't it worra

The ones who don't give a shit and cant be arsed will continue to not give a shit. What use is a rice cake or two when they are going home to pure nonsense.

MN will continue to think that it doesn't apply to then for all the reasons listed

And those who do care but are in a position where life is extremely hard will be conned into spending their very sparse money on a load of crap they don't need, and struggle for whatever reason to get a decent meal together.

Kinda proves that it's all about lining pockets cos I don't really think it helps the kids

Yes you could be right Giles

I don't know what's going to happen in these kid's futures but one thing is for sure, if their parents don't get their act together and get their kid's weight down now, no-one else can do it for them.

For me, it’s also about the sheer amount of ‘stuff’ available now, and portion size. I think a lot of people on this thread have concentrated on people who need educating about what healthy food is etc.

But I know plenty of middle class parents who wouldn’t dream of giving their kid a can of Coke, but a chocolate chip cookie the size of their kids’s Head from a ‘naice’ cafe- fine.

Everywhere you go, there’s food available. Everywhere. My main is when there just isn’t a healthy choice available or when it’s better financial value to buy more crap, eg at Cineworld I wanted water for DC as part of their box (can’t remember what it was called) and nope, had to be a juice drink. Ended up buying the water separately.

Or when it costs the same (or pennies difference) to buy a small popcorn as it does a medium with a bag of chocolates or whatever. Of course people can say no. But lots don’t.

Everywhere you go, there’s food available. Everywhere

Oh definately

There are many threads about how food has become a lazy way to pass time. Snacks at toddler groups and sporting activities etc

People pay for activities and instead of an hour or two being passed doing sports half of it is spent eating.

There's no avoiding it.

Lots of caring parents who can cook still have overweight children because they fall down on portion size, or snacking or exercise.

I agree with you,worra.

There's enough information out there to feed your kids healthily. It just takes motivation and application, like most things.

I actually rather wish the Govt would either stay out of this debate, or actually do something about the problem.

We're better informed than ever, but still we seem to be heading for a crisis.

I'm glad it's been correctly identified that this advice is not aimed at MN kids. However what annoys me about these campaigns is how they have the power the completely confuse those they're aimed at. You could read your leaflet and think you've got it nailed, then come across some slim, educated parent at the park handing their healthy kid full fat snack after full fat snack like me, sorry!

A sound-bite leaflet is no substitute for genuine public education. But that's costly I guess.

There's enough information out there to feed your kids healthily. It just takes motivation and application, like most things.

I think a lot of families need to be personally engaged with, but HV services etc keep being cut

One of the things that has changed for us is eating out

As a teen I ate out maybe 3-5 times a year, DD eats out 3-5 times a month!

We have agreed not to eat at a particular restaurant as she noticed the portion sizes got enormous.....cheap but gigantic - so we eat in other places where the portion size is more 'normal'

Doesn't fit in any campaign but works for us

I too find portion sizes crazy. We go to cinema and theatre quite a bit. I always take snacks - weaning pot of choc peanuts and a drink. It's not even financial any more - the bags of sweets at these places are huge and the kids and me will eat for the sake of it.

As a teen I ate out maybe 3-5 times a year, DD eats out 3-5 times a month!

Ha! Here is the opposite. Maybe 3-5x a yr for DC, whereas at least weekly when I was a kid (1970s).

I don’t personally think eating out is a problem per se. I really believe the obesity crisis is down to sugar and lack of exercise. In the past it was common for working class families to have fried egg, sausage and chips for tea and they weren’t fat. These days we eat so much processed foods and a lot of it has added sugar.

I make milkshakes at home sometimes. I blend together a cup of ice cream, cup of milk and some fruit and it tastes lovely, but most recipes will say add sugar and most bought milkshakes will be full of sugar. You don’t need it though as there is already a lot of sugar in the ice cream. Why are you adding sugar to sugar?

If people are worried about obesity then cooking at home is the best thing you can do because you know exactly what you are eating then. You can make good, filling foods with no added sugar. If your main meals are pretty much sugar free (there’s a little in bread but not much), then even if you eat one sugary snack every day, you’ll be well under your sugar allowance for the day.

The problem is that kids are having sugary cereal and sugary drinks for breakfast, sugary yoghurts, sugary drinks, sugary puddings for lunch and then something processed and full of sugar for dinner and that’s before all the sugary snacks they have.

A lot of people are quite confused about what is and isn’t healthy. They think a shop bought cereal bar is healthier than a homemade ham sandwich or that pasta in shop bought tomato sauce is healthier than than sausage, peas and chips for dinner.

shadow I was part of such a family. It was literally chips with everything. Other food was deep fried too.

We were mostly thin. Overweight kids were unusual.

This was my typical day's food on a weekend:

Two pieces toast and tea with two sugars.

Egg and chips.

Bread and cheese.

A sandwich.

However portions were TINY. There were no "afters" and no snacks. Plates were smaller than now. We walked everywhere and played out as kids.

On a school day, my "tea" would quite often be a boiled egg and two pieces of white bread and butter. My mother worked and although she could do a decent roast, did not beat herself up about the quality of food in the week. Nobody did.

Another thing: there was definitely a moral component to greed or lack of restraint around food.

My family were religious (or had been) and greed was definitely not good. We were expected to wait for our next meal.

I think nowadays it's accepted that snacking is a way of life and that hunger or even just peckishness is unendurable.

We seem to have lost any sense of restraint around food.

It's so sad.

And why the hell are they pushing low fat options? When the actual fuck will the NHS catch up with the rest of the world and realise that fats are not bad for you, sugar (and by extension any processed carb) is.

My parents were brought up during times of rationing, so I think mine is the first generation to have virtually unlimited access to all types of food. Our bodies of course are seeking out calorific food to lay down as fat to protect us for times of famine.A famine that now never comes.
It is very very difficult for some people to ignore the urge to eat when it is an instinctive survival urge.