UPF, poverty, obesity.... children’s healthy eating - an impossible challenge?

[PaminaMozart]

This is truly frightening: Food Foundation says height of five-year-olds falling, child obesity up by a third and type 2 diabetes by a fifth

The average height of five-year-olds is falling, obesity levels have increased by almost a third and the number of young people being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has risen by more than a fifth, the report by the Food Foundation said.

Aggressive marketing of cheap ultra-processed food, diets lacking essential nutrition and high levels of poverty and deprivation are driving the “significant decline” in children’s health, researchers found.

Obesity levels among 10 and 11-year-olds in England have increased by 30% since 2006, with one in five children already officially obese by the time they leave primary school, researchers found.
Cases of type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity, have risen by 22% among those aged under 25 in England and Wales in the last five years, the study added.

Babies born in the UK today will also enjoy a year less good health than babies born a decade ago, according to the report.
Baroness Anne Jenkin, a Conservative peer, said children’s health had “never been worse” but warned that almost no one was talking about it. “This is a timebomb waiting to explode if action isn’t taken.”
Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, said: “When the height of five-year-olds has been falling since 2013, and we’re learning babies born today will enjoy a year less good health than babies born a decade ago, every mother and father in the land will be concerned and shocked at what is happening to children through lack of nutrition, living through the hungry 2020s in food bank Britain.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/19/uk-children-shorter-fatter-and-sicker-amid-poor-diet-and-poverty-report-finds

So sad. The problems are so ingrained now it’s hard to see a way out.

Aggressive marketing of cheap ultra-processed food

Is this not within the government's power to control? Advertising of harmful products can be controlled or banned - see tobacco for an example.

I include in this advertising of services that provide this kind of food - TV is swamped by adverts for JustEat, for example. They'd probably argue that you can use JustEat to order a salad or whatever, but the reality is that it's mostly used for standard takeaways.

I'm not saying that no one should ever have a takeaway - I enjoy a takeaway myself - but these delivery services are normalising them as an everyday meal choice ("did somebody say 'Just Eat') rather than an occasional thing you have as a change.

It would be pretty simple for the government to solve, actually. All they'd have to do is make sure people are paid enough that they can feed their family without having to rely on frozen crap from the likes of Farmfoods and Iceland.

I know in MN world cooking from scratch is cheaper because you can make a family meal for four with a lentil and a half a tomato but in the real world people don't choose to feed their kids crap because they can't be arsed to cook. They do it because it's cheaper and it's all they can afford.

This is so sad to read. Unfortunately I don't think it's just diet that's to blame. Some children just don't get the opportunities for exercise nowadays ~ I live in a road next to a primary school and see parents driving their children to school . . . it's less than a five minute walk (with only one side road to cross, so there's no danger to the children). When I was a child we walked to and from school four times a day as we all came home for lunch. We walked to the shops with DM and helped to carry the shopping home. We played outside as much as we could ~ skipping ropes were very popular when I was a child and we learned lots of skills and tricks. At the weekends we did a lot of walking with DF, to and from the allotments, grandparents house and church.

Another major change from my childhood is the amount of snacks that children are given. When I was a child we had an occasional ice-cream in the summer, chocolates at Christmas and Easter and, apart from an occasional treat, that was the total amount of snacks. Nowadays children seem to get through a phenomenal amount of snacks.

I think less parents nowadays have the cooking skills that the vast majority of parents had when I was growing up in the 1950's/60's. We ate a lot more vegetables and fruit, most of it home grown and therefore seasonal. We had a lot of cheap, filling food . . . lentil soups, porridge, rice puddings, bread & jam. But the bread was from a local bakers and the jam, soups and puddings were homemade

Nowadays there is so much cheap processed food and reading the lists of ingredients is horrendous. I don't have any answers . . . I just feel incredibly sad for the children affected by this

Surely promoting healthy eating and providing healthy food for children lies with the parents?! For a good few years of their lives they're not aware of macdonalds, fizzy drinks etc etc set a good start in life and they'll be fine. Wean them onto fresh veg, fruit, etc Milk and/or water for first 5 years etc etc my teenage daughter still isn't a fan of fizzy drinks.
Yes, it gets harder as they get older and you have less control over what they eat outside of the house but the healthy eating seeds have been sown so they know a McDonald's is a treat etc

Personally I'm puzzled by the take-out/deliveroo culture as I can rustle up a delicious healthy meal in 10 minutes or so.

The article strikes a cord with me as I have a young grandchild who doesn't eat anything other than pizza, pasta and fruit. And ice cream. Maybe a couple of cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices at a push. But that's it - its all she will eat. (Her mother is the same.)

At 9 years old she is already overweight.

You’re not wrong about poverty being an important factor and yes an absolute disgrace, but it is not that simple. Very many of the children who are overweight and badly nourished do not have parents in poverty.

Parents aren’t operating in a vacuum. There’s a reason why they’re making bad choices that previous generations didn’t make, and it’s that the prevailing food environment has changed completely.

Another major change from my childhood is the amount of snacks that children are given. When I was a child we had an occasional ice-cream in the summer, chocolates at Christmas and Easter and, apart from an occasional treat, that was the total amount of snacks. Nowadays children seem to get through a phenomenal amount of snacks.

Not just children - snacking culture is endemic amongst adults now.

Concepts of my youth such as 'elevenses' which was a sort of contained, modest snacking I suppose (a biscuit or piece of toast with your mid-morning tea) seem to have been replaced with general snacking.

One change that I've noticed in the past few months is that neighbours are having breakfasts delivered. One family has breakfast deliveries several times a week. I can't imagine for one moment that these deliveries contain healthier options than could be easily provided at home with wholegrain cereals or toast, fruit, eggs etc

I find this really shocking as breakfast, for me, is the cheapest, easiest and quickest meal to prepare

It's a complex interaction of public funding into services such as HVs, schools, family budgets, school curriculum priorities, safe, motivating public spaces and personal priorities.

People need to be willing to see the problem first because without that, personal action isn't possible and there will be no political motivation to intervene.

I'm seeing worsening levels of health and fitness in my youth groups. Children whose uniforms are struggling with width. More children getting out of breath and struggling with physical activity- it's uncomfortable so they want to drop out and the cycle worsens. After lockdowns I encountered the first children who lacked the strength and agility to move themselves around a child-sized obstacle course and climbing wall- they didn't have enough strength to move their own body weight. That's so difficult to turn around and face positively. Adults struggle, but when it's a child that creates a mental template for life and it's hard to believe that you can have a different future.
With a couple of the children, family life is focused on the pressures of raising a sibling with additional needs, but it's not exclusively about families struggling with the resources of time and money.

A big cultural shift is needed because society is setting these children up with a tough start to life. It's also not culturally acceptable to challenge and even official interventions like the yR and y6 health check get disregarded with "big boned" "rugby player" type comments after parents recieve the letters.

The health advice for children is also poor- advocating additionally processed diet drinks and low-fat diet foods.

I think there is an issue with food labelling too - things being promoted as healthy which just aren't. Cereals, cereal bars, low fat products (loaded with sugar instead) ... I genuinely think people, parents and children alike, are confused. Also UPF confuses our bodies, satiety signals just don't work any more due to the complex overly processed foods we eat, meaning we snack searching for that satisfaction. Whole foods are the answer but time and money are the enemy to this.

It’s sad and worrying. And an economic time bomb.

I agree the government could do more with regard to advertising and controls, but we know that the vast conglomerates that produce UPF will do everything they can to stop intervention. We also know that the Government get it wrong: I started a thread recently about how the sugar tax has led manufacturers to reformulate drinks so that most drinks now have artificial sweeteners.

And while I agree about teaching nutrition and cooking skills, there is also the issues of time and mental energy. More households have two working parents, and eating well, requires planning, shopping, storage, preparation, cooking as well as budget.

I’m honesty not sure what the solution is, although reducing UPF must be part of any serious attempt at turnaround. what I do know, is that political soundbites won’t cut it.

I just read the report and they really hint that austerity has contributed to this by comparing to other countries that we were similar to. The graphs show a fair sudden change from the previous trajectory.

So it's poverty driving the food choices. It mentions some specific vitamins that are particularly low.

I agree that people will say you can feed a family cheaply with nutritious food but it would be a bit odd that people suddenly got worse at feeding children in 2013.

Upfs and macdonalds were about in 2010 too. So something changed to make people rely on them more.

Sugar in itself is addictive, but UPF foods is addictive by the power of ......... [I don't know.... but mega huge...]

I've read that many people's diet now consists of 60-80% UPF. And yet, some people don't even seem to know what UPF is, let alone the damage they cause - which is truly frightening.

Okay.....

Are you saying that the Government has no role in this? Is it acceptable to simply abandon children to their parents' poor choices?

It's not as simple as giving more money to people. It's an education problem as well.
Some people genuinely don't see the issue with sending their kid into Y3 with a lunch of a cold rollover hotdog, a pack of Doritos and a bottle of prime. My sister works in a primary school and sees this kind of thing all the time. The parents don't want to learn how to make a decent lunch, it's easier for them to "be lazy" and give the kids what ever they will eat or is easy to grab on the way to school.
some of these parents are drug abusers, alcoholics etc, it isn't even on their radar to make sure their kids are fed well..

The other barrier to government intervention is politics. The UK government has been reluctant to impose restrictions on what people can buy & eat for fear of being seen as promoting a nanny state (see: sugar tax).

100% this...

It is not just poverty. Go into a UK supermarket and 80% of the food will be upf. People are time poor so will grab what is easiest. With both parents working long hours time to purchase and prep meals is limited.

There is also the whole food culture issue in the UK. I personally only eat whole foods however I really struggle with getting my 4 year old to do the same. It is made so much harder by the fact at the childminder he gets too much upf and even at pre school food provided tends to be low in nutrients e.g white sliced bread with highly processed cheese or ham, presumably for budgetary issues.

It’s not either/or.
Things won’t change for individual children unless their parents are on board but there are reasons why parents are making these choices and unless these reasons are addressed things will continue to get worse.

Do you feel the same way about smoking, alcohol for under 18s or seat belts in cars?

The problem with the sugar tax is that sugar has in many products been replaced with artificial sweeteners, which are no better - arguably worse - for health and obesity outcomes.

Take squash - well diluted with water, there's not a huge amount of sugar in a glass of squash (and this was a staple in days when people were not drinking fizzy drinks all day) yet it's a struggle these days to find squash that's not full of artificial sweetener.