British children shorter due to poor diet

[Catosaurus]

Experts have said a poor national diet and cuts to the NHS are to blame. But they have also pointed out that height is a strong indicator of general living conditions, including illness and infection, stress, poverty and sleep quality. Food experts point out that a diet of cheap junk food makes people simultaneously overweight and undernourished.

Has it really become this bad? I’m not from England, but this is on the news today.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/21/children-raised-under-uk-austerity-shorter-than-european-peers-study

I have two DSs. Ds1 is only 5ft7 at 18. He’s always been a very sensible eater. DS2 is an outright fruit and veg refuser and mainly eats junk. He’s 16 and six foot.

It also has to do with fresh clean air and exercise according to the documentary Twin sisters I watched.

@KnittedCardi If you took out all the 'ethnics' Britain wouldn't be a tall nation Is there anything you people can't find to blame on minorities

But. Again. There’s not a huge amount that you can extrapolate from two people.

Both Ultra Processed People by Dr Chris van Tulleken & Tim Spector from the Zoe Study blame a lot of our poor nutrition, even in well off families, to the British eating comparatively larger amounts of ultra processed foods which are designed to make us want to consume more of them (as it makes money for the manufacturers) but confuse our biology with chemicals & molecules we're not adapted to process properly as they are only simulacrum of real ingredients.

I also blame education's lack of interest in decent food - not enough money for decent school meals (whether free or paid for - my Infant school's budget is covering 42p on every Universal Free School Meal as the catering company have had to put up costs but the government haven't matched it); time - secondary school lunchtimes are ridiculously short (for easier discipline) so there's barely any time to queue, eat & then have any time to relax so even those entitled to FSM don't take them. Plus they are the second or third generation that haven't been taught to cook properly / cheaply so have little hope of learning from school or their parents (who weren't taught to cook in "Food Science" rather boring old fashioned home economics.)

Exactly!

Brits of Anglo decent are shorter than Scandis, Dutch, Antipodeans, etc.

This is not what this research was about though.

I wonder whether the sudden drop in height is also due to all the childhood illness post Covid lockdowns. My son was ill every other week for over a year after starting nursery, and multiple doctors have told me the last few years is the worst for childhood illnesses they have ever seen. Surely being ill that much must affect growth.

I read this article a couple of weeks ago and couldn't believe that it didn't appear more in the news. Immigration isn't new. Younger generations now aren't guaranteed to have longer.lives than their grandparents - something that has been a trend for decades. How is this right? We are failing children.

Well it has appeared, in Scandinavian news at least..

We live on the edge of woodlands and are martial artists. Genetics plays a large role.

How are height and longevity linked?

It does. But this research is not about genetics.

@Wenfy that's really interesting. Now that I think of it, my 3.5 yo has only had d&v once and was breastfed until 18m.

I spent a few years as a single mother on only the lower rate of benefits/ UC, even though I had quite severe health issues and should have been on higher rate. This was when my son was young, and there were stretches of time I struggled to feed him well. Not to mention times when we’d be sanctioned for three months at a time and barely getting by. He’s an older teen now and things are better financially but I do worry his growth won’t reach its full potential. He’s 5’7

@Annaishere 5ft 7 is about the 9th centile for a man.
Where are you and his Dad on the centile charts?

UK children shorter than EU children | Mumsnet

there you go the link
of interest to me was a recent report that canadian children who are raised vegetarian are significantly smaller and need to be checked for malnutrition.

No I think it’s all a load of rubbish. It’s genetics.
mum only 5ft but I was fed proper from scratch home made healthy food everyday and my children have been fed exactly the same and are the same height as me fully grown.
their friends are all much taller then them and some of them grew up on nuggets and crisps in fact one of my daughters friends has an eating disorder where she’ll only eat salt and vinegar crisps and she’s 5ft 8 and only 13 years old.

I’m approx 5’6 - 7, his dad is 5’7 or 8

(@Sugarfree23 )

Overweight and obese kids are also taller so it's not necessarily a marker of good health if a child is taller than average.

Plenty of small, healthy well-fed kids around.

OK so your taller than the average female and he's taller than you and about the same height as his Dad.
What's the issue?
With the best diet in the world genetically he's probably not going to be much bigger that his Dad.

Yeah when I lived in the inner city of America found a lot of kids stuffed full of heavily processed low quality food were very tall.

I suppose I hoped he would take after me genetically but yes I guess there’s no way to say whose height genes he got.

Same I have to get my dd 7 age10 clothes (like a beampole but so tall) we have an ok diet not the best but seems not the worse going by this thread.