Government tackling obesity missing a key element

[HeeeeyDuggee]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53546151

Government have announced measures to tackle obesity

AIBU to think that although it’s all well and good banning buy 1 get 1 free and advertising before 21:00 what they really need to do is make fresh fruit and vegetables and good quality meat cheaper for people to buy.

It may be a regional thing but buying enough veg for the week here costs a fortune and it goes off within days. Where as you can buy a massive packet nuggets and chips for much less.

Pre covid it was bad enough for lots of families but given the ramifications on jobs and the economy I think lots more families will struggle to afford decent healthy food.

Ps not a fat persons bashing thread I myself am over weight

All the multi-buy offers stopped at the start of lockdown so folk weren’t encouraged to bulk buy. Tbh I think this initiative is much more about hiding the fact that food costs are about to sky rocket than anything to do with obesity “what your food shop has gone up £20, a that’ll be because you can’t get BOGOF deals any more - no nothing to do with Brexit, or corona-payback”....

The problem I found is if I tried to make say a lasagne from scratch it would cost much more than buying a £1.99 one already made. Firstly the pre made one would taste better, secondly it would cost less and thirdly it would be quicker

If cooking for one person ready meals are often cheaper, because the sauce you have to use within 3 days and you won't be able to save some for next time etc; but for a family meal it can be cheaper to make than buy a big ready made one. Ready meals, although often very salty etc are not neccessarily 'bad', in the way that you can keep track of calories and macros easier, and also add some frozen veg (under £1 for a kg bag which lasts many meals). There are some good YouTube videos though about very tasty, nutritious and quick to make meals that are within a tight budget, such as £15 a week. Admittedly most are veggie meals, but it's really helped my meal planning when money has been tight.

Let’s lay the blame at the right peoples door. People haven’t suddenly decided to be fat and lazy enmasse . This is a societal shift that encompasses many factors. In the 70’s when people were still slim the changes were slowly happening. Processed food was starting to gain a foothold. It came in bright colourful packages and promised emancipation for a million housewives chained to the stove. Household chores could now be done by machinery, labour intensive jobs were also being replaced by machinery and we were no longer an industrial nation, we had leisure time. The combination of actual food being replaced by processed food and exercise being massively reduced has had a huge impact.

They need to ask overweight people what will actually help them.

I'm sure we'd be slimmer country if the TV was shitter and we got more sleep. If they wanted to be radical they could stop all television streaming at 10pm. At the very least, the rioting it would cause would burn some pounds.

I think a lot has to do with the way we shop, the attitude to meals and preparation of them in the
uK. The pre-covid norm in my culture is to shop for what you need every day or two. There are brilliant local bakeries, fruit/veg shops, butchers on every street. They are open till late evening so it’s easy to pick up what you want on the way home from work. There is no culture of ready meals and when an M&S food shop opened it lasted a few years and had to close as there wasn’t the demand .

Now people shop for longer periods to keep out of shops but everyone can make easy, quick, cheap and nutritious meals. Yesterday for a very small cost I made soup with onion, red peppers , lentils, tinned tomatoes and tinned butter beans. I made flatbread to go with it and a salad and some cheese.

We are on a very tight budget. In the UK I shop at Aldi and get bulk sizes of pulses, flours, rice at local shops. We need to put back cooking into school. It’s knowing how to cook cheaply and well that the upcoming generation needs.

I'm obese although I am now in the process of losing the excess weight. I've always cooked healthy meals from scratch. The problem was all the shit I ate in between meals. Chocolate, donuts, crisps, anything high sugar or high fat. There was something inside me which drove me to eat that stuff that I just couldn't control.

I was treated as having an eating disorder for years, but it didn't help. I was treated for depression, but it didn't help. I was treated for anxiety and it didn't help. My weight was out of control and I couldn't get control of what I ate. I would lie in bed at night trying not to be sick from overeating and feeling really shitty about myself. I was offer surgery (not in the UK, it's more normal here) but I refused it as it would not address why I couldn't stop eating and so I'd just feel more sick more often.

Finally I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. Great, now I've done this myself, I thought. But from day 1 of being treated for it my life changed. That drive in my head that I couldn't control switched off. Literally overnight I went from eating junk between meals until I felt sick to eating nothing between meals. And the weight started to fall away.

My consultant says this is quite common. Some people get sleep apnea because they're overweight but many are overweight because they have sleep apnea. I was being roused from sleep every 2 minutes all night, every night, for pretty much my entire life. That drive I couldn't switch off was the survival part of my brain trying to find energy because it wasn't getting it from sleep.

My dc learns about nutrition at school. Hasn't had a cooking practical lesson for ages (pre lock down) as there is a national shortage of HE teachers.

You may not think there are people in this country who cannot access a supermarket, but there are.

Not enough to account for the number of overweight people there are.

@AmberShadesofGold

The government would do better to look at the ways junk/sugar food companies push billions of pounds into targetting children, through advertising and links with events, that create a link in their minds between happy childhood memories and shit food. The result is that once they are an adult, those same food stuffs become reassuring because they have such a strong link with times they were happy as children.

It's psychological warfare and needs to be stopped. We tackled the way alchohol and cigarette companies did similar things - there is no reason why we couldn't stop junk/sugar companies too.

I think @AmberShadesofGold makes a really good point here.

I lot of eating is psychological. People eat when they are bored, tired, stressed, for a 'wee treat', a 'cheeky'/'naughty' nibble etc.
Very often it is not because they are actually hungry.

then add that to the stresses of being poor / unemployed / feeling marginalised when you've no hope of a holiday to look forward to yet alone a better job / buying your own house etc (ie long term goals)
and you can see why people might turn to that 'take away' / munchy pack / whatever, even though they know its expensive for what it is and really unhealthy. If you don't feel much hope for the future (or you dont feel you've much of a place in it) then what does it matter if you binge on Dominoes / bogof beers etc?

I am not saying that people shouldn't take responsibility for their own health but you can see how and why it happens - it IS linked to poverty, not just due to the lack of £ for good quality ingredients but also due to depression too

All the multi-buy offers stopped at the start of lockdown so folk weren’t encouraged to bulk buy.

Not ALL. The lockdown didn't affect multipacks at all. There were still the 4 or 6 packs of beans, soups, etc. There were still the multipacks of chocolate bars, crisps, etc.

"Meal deals" still continued as normal, i.e. sandwich, crisps and fizzy drink for £2.50, or the indian/chinese takeaway deals in supermarkets continued, i.e. the sainsbury and M&S ones where you buy two mains and a rice etc.

Yes, the buy 2 get one free or buy 4 for £2 deals stopped in many places, but they were different as they were where there were discounts for buying multiple single items.

It's also giving people the time and space in their lives of course

not of course, "to cook".

I disagree that ready made lasagne is cheaper than cooked from scratch. You're not comparing like with like. The ready made one will be a single serving, or a very low quality 'serves two' version.

There will be hardly any meat in it. It might cost £4/5 to make your own, but it will then have 4 portions, so feeds more people, can do lunches for a few days, or you can freeze. If you don't have a freezer or don't want lasagne for lunch every day, perhaps have something else, but it's not proof that it's cheaper to buy ready made food.

Jack Monroe did a Guardian piece comparing popular ready meals with home made versions.

The home made versions were almost always cheaper, contained more veg and didn't contain nasty palm oil. Only a ready made sweet and sour chicken was cheaper, but only by a few pence, and probably for a far inferior product.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/07/jack-monroe-ready-meal-challenge

Fruit and veg isn’t that expensive if you aren’t buying anything out of season/labour intensive. Pulses are much cheaper than meat (of any quality). It’s definitely cheaper to eat healthy from scratch than eating ore prepared processed food.

The reason why most people don’t eat healthily or cook from scratch is because they don’t want to. But it’s far easier to come up with excuses “oh I can’t/I don’t have the time/I can’t get the ingredients.” How do people think they manage in other countries where ready meals and processed foods aren’t available?

There is literally no excuse in this country for not cooking from scratch. Not one.

There’s a difference between having a treat and having a takeaway once a week for instance, which many MN’ers will admit to doing. Takeaway doesn’t come cheap, you could spend that money on actual food rather than over processed crap with far too much salt and sugar, because that’s what takeaways are.

If people cut their portion sizes they could afford to cook because the food they have would go further.

How many people spend £2/3 a day on Costa coffees for instance.. No wonder it’s called costa, it costa bloody fortune. .

Nobody said people have to go without those things, but people have no concept of moderation.

And it’s not just obesity that you’ll be tackling, it’s the potential for high blood pressure, heart disease, and do you know that the more salt you eat the more fluid you retain, which also adds to your weight?

Look at the salt and sugar content on the packets of food you eat. One chicken stock cube for instance contains a 3rd of your suggested daily salt intake.

And by cooking from scratch it doesn’t mean you have to go to extremes and make your own noodles and pasta for instance, There is always middle ground.

Frozen veg for instance if you can’t get hold of fresh. Fresh stock instead of cubes, dried herbs rather than fresh. And there are compromises

Chicken thighs rather than breasts are cheaper, and actually cut up chicken thighs are far more succulent than breasts. Stir-fries cost pennies to make and are healthy, although there is some salt in soy sauce but balanced out with the rest of the day is fine.

Cook things in the slow cooker. Beef stu/chicken casserole/curry will all cook from cheap cuts of meat. And a slow cooker costs as little as £15, you don’t need an instant pot for 200 quid...

Leftover veg makes good soup. You don’t need a soup maker, a stick blender and a saucepan works rather well...

people who have health conditions which mean they have to watch certain food types manage to do so, and in the beginning it’s a learning curve, but it does become a way of life and you don’t even notice it, iyswim.

Changing your weight and health has to be a lifestyle choice.

I didn’t say multi-packs, I said multi-buy deals, which is exactly what BoJo is targeting with his initiative.

Slowcooker. Or, buy frozen cheaper meat which doesn't need slowcooking for that weeks.

Or, don’t buy meat. If you’re on a budget it’s the first thing that could and should go.

The government really missed a trick with the lockdown supplies boxes - they should offer a month of weekly "healthy recipe ingredient boxes", like HelloFresh but fairly basic healthy food.

People would throw away the stuff they didn't like or didn't know what to do with and go out and buy a load of processed crap from the supermarket or takeaway instead.

You can lead a horse to water...........

It could have olive oil, balsamic vinegar, good quality salt, black pepper, and then jars of the most commonly used herbs and spices. Just to get people started, then they could replace things as they ran out and it would be much more manageable than a huge initial outlay.

Balsamic vinegar! I doubt that families used to eating processed food would know what to do with this. They need basic instruction on how to choose and cook fresh veggies and inexpensive meat into simple but nutritious meals quickly.

On a side note, hearing that GPs are recommending riding a bike to help with obesity...have you tried buying a bike recently? They are like gold dust at the moment, and that was before the announcement

One thing that would help poorer people is for supermarket brands to standardise their prices for fruit, veg and basic staples across their shops. People who can only access a Tesco Local rather than a Tesco Extra shouldn't be penalised when buying healthy food. If the brands won't do it then the government could set standard prices for a published basket of basics at a rate that's affordable to buy weekly on basic UC/JSA/carer's allowance and subsidise those products smaller independent shops if that's required for them to be viable stock. Even better if they combined the standard basket with a range of easy, quick recipes for food that unadventurous people will realistically eat.

From a personal perspective, I was obese, bordering on morbidly obese at one point. I was referred to an NHS dietician who was useless.

Yep, same here. I've been under two different dieticians and both were patronising and just repeating the "advice" on NHS websites. You could literally have sat someone in front of me (even a robot) just reading NHS webpages. Neither made any real input, neither bothered to ask about my own circumstances. It was literally just "eat less, exercise more and come back to be weighed again in a months' time". Complete waste of everyone's time.

But GPs and specialist diabetic nurses are just as bad. I've been completely upfront and honest with GPs, dieticians, nurses, etc. about my binge eating which caused by massive weight gains even since childhood. None could offer any sensible advice. No point telling me to eat less and exercise more when I'm going to stuff my face on a mars bar multipack and crisps 6 pack when I get home! Our practice's specialist diabetic GP saw me once and all he could "advise" was to go onto Facebook and try to find a binge eating self help group! Wow, how brilliant is the NHS!

@SeasonallySnowyPeasant

One thing that would help poorer people is for supermarket brands to standardise their prices for fruit, veg and basic staples across their shops. People who can only access a Tesco Local rather than a Tesco Extra shouldn't be penalised when buying healthy food. If the brands won't do it then the government could set standard prices for a published basket of basics at a rate that's affordable to buy weekly on basic UC/JSA/carer's allowance and subsidise those products smaller independent shops if that's required for them to be viable stock. Even better if they combined the standard basket with a range of easy, quick recipes for food that unadventurous people will realistically eat.

Are Tesco prices different across the country as well, E.g. an apple in central London versus an apple in rural Yorkshire?

@valkadin has hit the nail on the head, based on my anecdotal observations

Emotional eating
Alcohol
Perceptions of what is overweight
Snacking between meals
Perception of portion size
Eating out

I'm slim, but have to work really hard to stay this way. Whenever I eat with family/friends/work colleagues, most people:

1. Eat around twice as much as I do (particularly noticeable in eg. indian restaurants, where I always leave half and take the rest home, whereas everyone else eats all of theirs at the restaurant - and immediately, right there, I've halved my food costs)
2. Drink more of either alcohol or sugary drinks.
3. Snack more between meals (I notice this at work mainly).

I have met a couple of people who just seem to be able to eat what they want, and are very slim, but it's unusual and some I know are marathon runners anyway, which seems to be the only exercise that makes a lot of difference.

On the subject of cost, if people halved their portion size, stopped eating snacks between meals, and drank less alcohol/sugary drinks, then they'd save a ton of money straight away.

There are things the government could do:

1. a massive advertising campaign so people get used to seeing what a real portion size is
2. Work with restaurants to halve portion size, or keep main meals below a certain number of calories.
3. Some kind of public education campaign around feeling hungry i.e. fasting can be good for you, when done correctly, and feeling hungry is a normal healthy thing to experience once in a while - this would have to be tackled in a very sensitive way though, to avoid normalising eating disorders.

I went to wetherspoons the other day, and some of the burgers and chips meals were 1500 calories! That's pretty much my calories for a whole day - it's no wonder I can only ever eat about half of it. But many people won't stop at eating half, they won't even realise that it's a ridiculously large portion for an average person.