To think you can't ban food on trains?

[poshme]

In today's times (sorry rubbish at links) there's an article saying the outgoing chief medical officer wants to ban food on trains unless for medical reasons.
AIBU to think this is completely stupid & unworkable?
Apparently it's because we're snacking too much & too many children are obese.

I regularly catch trains with my kids- usually a 3-4 hr journey. Invariably it's a meal time, and part of passing the time is eating a packed meal. Yes- it's not the healthiest meal in the world & includes crisps & chocolate, but as part of a normal diet it's fine.

My kids are not overweight. In fact they're generally underweight.

If this is implemented they're never be able to enforce it surely?

Stress can be a big factor in lack of sleep though, Cleopatra.

Nope. Link to it if that's what you think. Not if we are talking diabetes and possibly cancer.

"Eat regular small meals—up to 6 per day. Eating regularly will help you keep your portions in check."

www.helpguide.org/articles/diets/the-diabetes-diet.htm

I don't know, my homemade stuff can be a calorific disaster if I do a handful of this and a handful of that and sometimes when I'm trying to lose a few pounds packaged food where it tells me almost exactly how many calories there are in a portion rather than my "I'm sure this ginormo portion of home made creamy pasta is 500 calories" approach can actually help.

@jinglinghellsbells it still is the height of bad manners to "stuff" a pasty. Eating it normally is fine. Stuff really does imply a degree of haste, or greed.

There is also the school of thought that leaving longer gaps between meals gives the body a break

I also think "snacking on a train" is the wrong target. Yes, it's not all the less well-off who are having an obesity problem, but looking around me on a commuter train into London, people are significantly less fat than if you venture out of the south east England commuter bubble.

Kids are also less active - gadget zombies dont move much and the roads are too dangerous to cycle on because everyone drives everywhere.

Usually far fewer calories in home made and no plastic packaging

Yes, but people are complaining about how uncouth and rude eating on public transport supposedly is, but then are talking about making sandwiches up at home for the journey. Home made or not they're still eating on public transport.

Definitely actually allowing myself to be hungry and not the "six small meals a day" thing helps me to lose weight. Six meals a day = six opportunities to eat too much.

JinglingHellsBells

There is absolutely no need to eat every 4 hrs.

Migraine sufferers are advised to leave no longer than five hours between meals and fast for no longer than 13 hours overnight.

Stuff just makes me think of someone putting a entire sausage roll lengthways into their mouth like an oversized hamster. I don't tend to see people "stuffing" down their food. The majority of people simply eat their food, not stuff it IME.

@metrorider Pepple with medical issues were excluded and I thought I'd made that clear. I have migraine. I find something like an apple or an oatcake works well.

Blaming the individual in society on obesity is totally counterproductive. The focus should be on the systemic problems -

Employment opportunities tend to be more centralised now meaning that the majority of people have to travel quite some distance to work so they don't walk, have less time to prepare meals, and spend more time on public transport.

Both parents usually need or want to work. There is less parental presence in the home and cooking healthy meals and packed lunches quickly is more challenging.

We need to work longer hours to earn enough to pay rent or the mortgage. Lower wages and insecure contracts mean that people will work longer hours, but also contribute to stress. Stress causes comfort seeking behaviour - eating and drinking.

We are bombarded with advertising for fast food, not only the brands but services like Just Eat that have normalised eating unhealthily regularly. Now you don't even have to walk to the car to get a McDonald's drive through - someone will deliver it.

Supermarkets push cheap, processed goods. My local co op (ethical my arse) sell a weekly £5 family meal deal. Great, nice and cheap. Always consists of pizza, burgers, frozen chips, chicken nuggets, ice cream, apple pie, fizzy drinks. So yes poor people can eat, but they are eating shite. Why not do a meal deal that consisted of a fresh chicken, some veggies and a bag of microwave rice instead.

Food manufacturers put shit tonnes of sugar and salt into processed foods. And even though we know this - it is still easier and quicker and cheaper to chuck some fish fingers from the freezer into the oven than buy fresh fish, debone it, buy eggs, crumb some bread, etc.

So where are the recommendations for structural changes to employment patterns? Who is demanding the passing of legislation to ban businesses from damaging behaviours? Nope - it's all about the individual putting up and shutting up. Have a shitty job, spend too much of life in traffic, heading home to your barely affordable home, and feed your kids shite, but it's all your own fault you're a fatty.

When we are in the middle of a climate crisis - why would anyone do anything to make public transport even less appealing and inconvenient?

One hour max on a bus if you're going from one end to the other? Lmfao.

The "local" train here, that goes to surrounding places in the south West is also the London train that takes anything from 2 to 3 hours to get to London without delays, which is doable, but add onto that an hour (or more) on the tube/busses to get to work having left at 5:15am and only arriving at work between 8 and 9 (if you're lucky) am I supposed to have my breakfast at work (unpaid) or on the train where I have nothing else to do? I also often travel a commute of 4 hours on trains + an hour on bus for work, the train journey is on local commute trains only. Please tell me when I am supposed to eat. That means leaving at quarter past 5 and getting home at 10 pm if I am lucky. If I stopped to eat it would be nearer to 12am I'd get home on the last trains which are always delayed and take longer.

So if all that can't be changed in the average person's lifetime does that just give everyone a pass to eat what they like.

It's pathetic when the CMO makes a suggestion and everyone trots out all the ridiculously complicated reasons why they can't possibly forgo a massive latte and a double decker on the train.

If you are commuting for 8 hours a day you have bigger problems to address, I agree.

It's OK for people to say that "education" is the answer, but there is still so much conflicting information which seems to change over time, so just what is the "right" advice?

We've had fats=bad so that led to people eating more carbs and sugars, which are now = bad, so fats are being reintroduced.

We've had eggs = bad, but now they're ok again.

We've had processes meats such as bacon = bad, but now they're ok again.

After decades, we're now finally being told that different calories affect the body in different way, so your 500 calorie Fish & chip meal does different things than your 500 calorie fried breakfast.

Some say you should eat regular small meals, others say you should eat fewer large meals.

How about some definitive advice that we can all work with?

Usually far fewer calories in home made and no plastic packaging

Depends on time, money and journey we are taking but we usually take bottles of water, may or may not have juice cartons then mix of homemade and bought snack stuff and fruit.

Sometimes it might be all homemade and others all bought but it's usally a mix - I don't think there's a obvious cut off point of good food/bad.

TBH I'm thinking portablity and durriblity as we have to carry it all - and no powerful smells that might upset other passengers or stuff that will make a huge mess.

My children though not sporty have to walk more than many their ages - they also use public trasport more because car isn't an option.

I did put on weight when I had a long commute by public transport. Eating on the train wasn't the problem it was more a response to the actual problem of long commute on top of a really long day where I often didn’t get to eat lunch – meaning less time for exercise, sleep cooking and huge temptation to pick something quick to eat at end of day when over tired and hungry.

When we are in the middle of a climate crisis - why would anyone do anything to make public transport even less appealing and inconvenient

It won’t though, it will be cleaner and not as smelly, surely that’s a plus?

How about some definitive advice that we can all work with?

Eat less move more?

The point is that our culture needs to change because people are surrounded by opportunities to eat, and that's what causes obesity. It's no good saying it's all about will power, it needs systemic change.

The problem is that snacking culture and convenience foods became popular to fill the gap left by women entering the workplace in larger numbers and therefore not being the ones making all the food. Back in the day your wife or mother would have made every meal, with even kids and men coming back for lunch.

We need to take food more seriously - I think banning workplace snacking and dining al desko would also help. Get people out of the office for a proper, full lunch and you'd be less likely to snack.

Personally I’d much rather ban eating in the auditorium of cinemas and theatres! Surely nobody needs to eat a bucket of popcorn during a 2 hour performance?

I also think "snacking on a train" is the wrong target. Yes, it's not all the less well-off who are having an obesity problem, but looking around me on a commuter train into London, people are significantly less fat than if you venture out of the south east England commuter bubble.

I think this is an important point Shearwater Obesity is strongly correlated with poverty and poor mental health. A more positive approach to helping deprived communities would have better outcomes.