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

I only discovered Lurpak wasn't 100% real butter the other week. I was shocked. I thought, given the price of it, it must be the purest of the pure of all butters.

I'm sticking with own brand.

There must be a cohort of people though, for whom ‘treat’ foods equate to love and caring.

I worked with someone who was very overweight and still is, which is bringing its own health problems. Three of her four children are obese and six of her grandchildren.

These people aren’t short of money and they aren’t short of time either. They regard taking their children to fast food outlets, ice cream parlours and chip shops as showing their love.

The government is encouraging people to have children via the child benefit, statutory maternity leave, publicly funded schools, etc. It's in the interest of any country not to have a declining birthrate.

You may not like it but advertising and indeed the government have an enormous influence both subconsciously and not on what you get at the supermarket.

I agree parents absolutely need to take responsibility and make good choices, but this is only possible on a broad scale if the right framework is in place.

Exactly. It is very easy to simmer some meat, and veg, once cooked, get a stick blender, and whizz. This can then be kept in small containers in the fridge for a couple of days, and the rest frozen, and defrosted in the morning for use later on in the day. it is cheaper, and can be made using whatever meat, or vegetables on offer in the supermarket.

You may not like it but advertising and indeed the government have an enormous influence both subconsciously and not on what you get at the supermarket.

No, I can assure you they don't...
Neither for that matter does anything I see on social media.

While some may need the Government to do their thinking for them it, equally, needs to be accepted that others can and do think for themselves.

Nobody ever thinks advertising affects them, which makes the £36bn a year spent on it in the UK seem like quite the waste of money...

I agree. The amount of stay at home mums, when I was young, was normal. My mother worked from home though, and always cooked lovely meals, made from scratch. That is how I learned to cook. It is not easy if both parents are out at work everyday, but there are ways to eat well, even if it is homemade burger patties, with salad, that is far better than a substandard cheap takeaway, of a night.

'Choices', are not made in a vacuum.

We rarely cook things like casserole often as they take ages.

Fast food for us on days we get home late without anything pre prepped is something like omelettes, scrambled eggs, toasties, grilled fish or meat with salad/ bread, pesto pasta.

I usually always have stuff either batch Cooked in freezer, or leftover from day before in fridge for speed.
Ie we had curry and rice last night, I double batched both curry and rice. The curry leftover went in freezer for another night, rice in fridge. Tonight I can make fast egg fried rice with using up veggies in fridge, and fried rice always works better with cooked rice anyway. It’s also cheap and way of no waste of veg.

Ds has various allergies which has also forced us to eat less processed

I agree. I also thought that, if you are literally watching every penny and unable to overspend, you might be more inclined to feed your children food you know they will eat, so there’s no waste and no chance of running out of food. It’s just so awful.

Casseroles are super quick if you have a slow/pressure cooker. Throw all ingredients in, then come back when it’s cooked.

I think this is so sad. It will only be solved by a three prong approach IMO:

1. Education - really educate so that people genuinely understand and are keen to eat well. Cookery lessons included in this.
2. Promote and subsidise non-UPF foods by taxing the endless crap foods. The revenue can then be used to subsidise fruit, veg, etc.
3. Social adjustments - reduce the hours people are forced to work so that they have time to plan, cook and eat well, as well as exercise. This will be the most difficult one and will take thought but it will save money in the long run.

I understand the link between poverty, deprivation & UPF consumption. But if children are obese they have too much to eat not too little - too much of the wrong kind of food.

I think there must be different circumstances between obese children and children not reaching their potential height

You can get both if diet quality is poor - insufficient key nutrients

Being firm with kids is also key. My neighbours were always very disciplined about not allowing their children to have any sweets whatsoever and they were made to sit and eat vegetables.
If they didn’t, they would go to bed hungry. Roll on 12 years and they have two girls who actively asked for vegetables, and don’t particularly like sweets.
I was less disciplined and I now regret it.
However, I have always cooked our own food. anyone who says it’s more expensive cooking for yourself and using veg is just being absurd.

Whilst this seems to have worked for your neighbors, it's also really common for that attitude to backfire and go the complete opposite way. It's the forbidden fruit theory, theore you say they absolutely can't have it, the more they want it. To a degree everything in moderation will foster a healthy relation with food, and if you're having a largely healthy diet with whole, non processed foods, the odd 'treat' won't cause any lasting damage.

As many PP have pointed out, there are a multitude of factors that have caused this problem. I fully agree the government need to be held to account because it is a public health issue and one which is already costing the health service a fortune, with spending inly heading in one direction.

Attitudes to food also need to be changed. From the outset, the 'fed is best' mentality prevails (I am referring to solid food, not breast vs bottle which is entirely different). No a child eating UPF is not best - they only restrict themselves to this food because they have been exposed to it repeatedly. Also, weaning your baby on a diet of pre-prepared jars is also not good for them however you may dress it up. Posters are so quick to jump down the throat of anyone who may dare suggest that this food is not good for their child.
Moving on to a bit older, teaching children that UPF/high sugar foods are to be enjoyed in moderation is also not setting them up for a lifetime of disordered eating. These foods should not be readily available at every meal and by keeping them away, children are not being deprived or encouraged to binge when they get older.

Education on food and cooking is truly appalling. Why are children not taught how to chop vegetables and cook meals from scratch, how to economise when using appliances so each time the oven is turned on, the electricity is justified by filling it up, pot in pot cooking to cook multiple things at once. You hope they won't fall on hard times financially but these skills are what will get them through if they do. This was all missing when my generation were at school so the majority cannot pass it down to their children. If school does not teach it, they will never learn.

Sadly this will never happen but society should not need two adults working full time for a household to stay afloat. They should be able to survive on max 1.5 x average wage. I would hope men to be just as likely to reduce hours as women so it does not get filed off as our responsibility. That extra time makes such a big difference in having time to prepare food when running a house

No a child eating UPF is not best - they only restrict themselves to this food because they have been exposed to it repeatedly.

Yes, I remember when my daughter was tiny and just started eating older relatives being desperate to feed her crap! Ice cream, chocolate, chips! And the grief I got when I asked them now was unreal! They went on about how precious I was, and how it didn't do their kids any harm 😳

People want to have a can of coke that isn't extra taxed

Sadly I experienced exactly the same when weaning both my children. I was repeatedly accused of being over protective, precious, even told I was depriving people of having a relationship with my child! For some stupid reason, people equate giving sugar and junk as showing love and affection

It's both. If there are things the government can do, then they should. It's a problem that affects all of us even if our own families are healthy. The assumption is that parents with overweight children are just not trying, or don't care. On the whole, that is inaccurate and unfair.

Poverty and the cost of food is obviously a contributing factor, but so many parents do not have the time, energy, or skills necessary to provide healthy, home cooked meals every day. Some parents work multiple jobs to make ends meet and grew up in households where their own parents were also short on time, money, and skills. They didn't have the opportunity to learn how to cook and sure as hell don't have the time now.

I was incredibly lucky to grow up with a SAHM who was very knowledgeable in the kitchen. 99% of our meals were cooked from scratch, often using vegetables from the garden. She was teaching us how to do it while we were still very young, and we also had fairly decent cookery classes at school. I am very aware of how rare this is now. Being able to choose that life as a parent in 2024 is a luxury, and that is so wrong.

I also think there needs to be a radical shift in the way children are taught at school. Sitting at a desk all day does you no good at all; learning shouldn't have to be a sedentary activity. You don't need sports facilities (or even PE lessons) to get up and move around. Think of how many office workers put on weight when working from home over lockdown, when they only real reduction in their physical activity was their daily commute and a bit of socialising. Just walking - being on your feet, moving your body - can make the world of difference to both physical and mental health.

Unfortunately I think this is all going to get worse before it gets better. There needs to be a real crisis before everyone properly pays attention and tries to do something about it.

Rather than put the onus onto the consumer, the government should put measures into place at production level.
I'm not sure what because I'm not an expert on food production, but just like we no longer use plastic straws because the responsibility was passed onto the producers, we should no longer be consuming highly processed crap.
It's not food. It's not a treat. It tastes good on our tongue because of the manufacture processes but it's harmful for our bodies.
A treat for our bodies is something like a portion of protein with lots of veg. High in vitamins and nutrients that our bodies can actually utilise and benefit from.

It might not be the government's direct responsibility.

But a lot of the picking up of the pieces when it all goes wrong falls very much to them, and the tax payer - not just in terms of paying for the NHS, but also the number who leave the workforce (completely or on reduced capability/hours) because of conditions that are caused or exacerbated by obesity.

So I think it is very much in the country's interest to have a government which seeks to counter, where it can, the factors that are making our society obesogenic

Poverty and the cost of food is obviously a contributing factor, but so many parents do not have the time, energy, or skills necessary to provide healthy, home cooked meals every day. Some parents work multiple jobs to make ends meet and grew up in households where their own parents were also short on time, money, and skills. They didn't have the opportunity to learn how to cook and sure as hell don't have the time now.

I read an interesting article regarding "food deserts" in the USA but the overall point applies the UK as well. Many parents from deprived families find that food and drink is the only resort they have to show their children love. Left to their own devices, children would obviously consider junk food, fizzy drinks, chocolate and sweets a special treat. It's the one tiny source of happiness that families living in poverty are still able to afford. Parents who feel guilty about depriving their children of material things or experiences will attempt to compensate with food and drink. Of course, this goes off the rails very quickly but the driving factor is more complex than lack of knowledge about cooking.

One thing you often observe at leisure locations (soft play, funfairs, parks etc) is that those children being allowed to eat pure junk actually appear extremely happy. Giving children sugary or unhealthy treats is a surefire way to make them happy and it's easy to see how the parents end up doing this in a misguided attempt to feel some sort of joy amidst the constant struggle of everything.