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

Yes, people born in the 70s and fed UPFs as DC are the obese adults of today.

They're also moving far less, driving far more, and eating far bigger portions. It's not as simple as laying all the blame at the feet of UPFs.

Yes, growing up we had a pudding after dinner every day. I only make a pudding perhaps every few weeks, although sometimes the DC have some yogurt after dinner.

I'm so happy for you, that you are now able to feed your DD as you would like. What a horrible situation to be in!

If the parents are not eating that way, why would they be suddenly inclined to feed their children things like olives, and lentils?

But the bigger portions aspect of that has a lot to do with the UPF marketers who have worked hard to normalise eating large quantities.

Oh, no, I agree, it is a very complex issue with many factors.

"They're also moving far less, driving far more, and eating far bigger portions. It's not as simple as laying all the blame at the feet of UPFs."

Yes. We are way more sedentary than we should be. This is bad for our mental well-being too as daily exercise helps us to deal with our stress hormones and provides endorphins.

Imagine how people could improve their and their children's lives by cutting out upfs, going for a daily walk and cutting right down on screen time. It's so simple in theory.

I think the point about energy drinks and bars is a really good one. For most people they are not necessary at all.

Mr Monkey is a pretty serious marathon runner (sub 3.15 and a volunteer pacer for a lot of big organised runs) and runs at least 60 miles a week. He only uses energy drinks and bars on actual competitive marathons and even then sparingly as he finds too much sugar upsets his stomach. For training and shorter runs he just has water, bananas and a decent quality protein and carb heavy diet (and a lot of crisps 😬).

^GalacticalFarce
"I don't know the exact make up of 1970's UPF but we would have a packet of angel delight between 4 of us, served with maybe a chocolate biscuit. Eaten as pudding after a home cooked meal of meat & 2 veg. We also only drank water with meals. "^

Wasn't it usual to have pudding every day? A small amount like you've described but after dinner daily?

It was usual to have a pudding, but a small one. We would have angel delight maybe once a week. We also had home made milk puddings, baked apples, milk jellies, stewed fruit etc. The puddings were smaller and not eaten in addition to multiple treats throughout the day.

But the point I wanted to get across is that the UPF elements - although present - were a fairly small proportion of the weekly menu overall. And were not particularly cheap options compared with real food.

They eat beige rubbish because parents think they wouldn't eat lentils, olives, spices

To be fair, olives are disgusting.

This is how it was for us (I was born in 1970).
Mum would get a pack of whatever, which had e.g. 4 tarts, or a small Mr Kipling cake which worked really well until the 5th child was born, but I think that would have been the only 'treat' on a normal day.

She cooked from scratch a lot too, but I think convenience food was such a boon for our parents (crispy pancakes, Vesta curry, fish fingers) that they embraced it because it saved so much time.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s (in the US, so ground zero for UPFs) and my experience was similar in that UPFs were add-ons to a diet of mainly real foods.

I might have cereal on weekdays but hot homemade breakfasts on weekends, Doritos were only at other children's birthday parties, a small packet of pom bear type fruit snacks but after a lunch of say tuna, bell peppers and real bread. The only crisps my parents would buy were a plain flavour local brand, and only occasionally for summer barbeques with fresh burgers, corn on the cob and homemade potato salad, watermelon for dessert or homemade strawberry shortcake (like plain scones). We did have fruit flavoured yogurts sometimes but not non-fat.

A lot of my friends were similar. Now it seems like a free-for-all over there.

There is definitely something about the food culture in this country that makes us more susceptible to eating UPF compared to our continental neighbours. I'm married to an Italian and he's horrified by stuff like jarred pasta sauce or chicken nuggets. It's not even cheaper than a bit of onion, tin of tomatoes etc although you do have to be able to buy olive oil and maybe some herbs. My DC were weaned on olives, fish, Parmesan cheese etc and even the baby purées of courgettes over pasta stars was drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and Parmesan. These are strong flavours so their palates were being developed. They're now teens who'll eat anything including broccoli, kale etc but again these are stir fried with ginger, garlic and soy sauce.

We do our absolute best to avoid UPFs, main thing we struggle with is bread but we don't eat much of that and I go by the 80/20 rule. But I've worked from home since my eldest was a toddler so have had time (and money) at my disposal. Reading Ultra Processed People really opened my eyes to how much we have been and are being manipulated by big companies. It's a complicated issue and I don't know what the answer is.

Fundamentally, this isn't a food problem, it's a cultural problem that no government has touched with a barge pole because "nanny state!!!1!".

We need a government that supports active travel as the default (and yes, that means it's going to be a pain in the arse to drive for YOUR journeys as well), that took what it did with the sugar tax and implement that for fat and portion sizes (including your nice middle class cheese), and stand up to the likes of Mondelez, CocaCola, Just Eat with legislation that has real teeth, and ensure planning laws support active travel and restrict junk food shops and takeaways.

Fannying about teaching home ec in school is a poor way to make any kind of change.

Reading Ultra Processed People really opened my eyes to how much we have been and are being manipulated by big companies. It's a complicated issue and I don't know what the answer is.

I don't know what the answer is either, but reading Ultra Processed People (or a government approved version thereof) should be part of the curriculum.

A real eye opener. Quite scary, actually.

It should be and I think as time goes on we'll find out more and more about the detrimental effects of UPFs on our bodies. Not just in terms of weight but impact on gut health and brain health.

I am convinced of a connection between the brain and the gut and the impact of poor food on mental health.

When I had my kids, we had decided to try using reusable nappies, gradually transitioning with our first from disposables (akin to the gateway drug to the baby aisle) to only using cloth nappies between around 2-5 months. This was really fortunate for us, as I no longer had need to enter the baby / 'utter shite' aisle when doing the shopping. Consequently, when weaning, I just gave my baby bits of food that we had anyway - I figured this is probably what humans had been doing for a long time and it clearly worked OK. I did boil a few sticks of swede for my precious, lucky little child (who ate them anyway, presumably not knowing that it's the devil's own veg), but mostly I just gave them the easily self-feedable foods we were having - green beans, broccoli, carrots, pork chop... They ate it, we carried on doing it.

Our childminder thought we were pretty odd for providing a pot of leftover veg and a few bits of chicken (i.e. real food) for our child's lunch, and we did do things like pack a chunk of cheddar and some cold, french beans as a snack, but eventually our childminder came around to the idea and said it was really nice to see our child tucking into their food.

I'm pleased we avoided being sucked into packets of stuff targeted at progressive ages of babies. I doubt I'd have avoided putting them in my trolley if I'd have been frequenting the baby aisle, and I think it was probably cheaper to give the baby some of what we were having than buy the packets. They've maintained pretty good eating habits thus far, and I hope that continues.

@massistar jarred pasta sauces confuse me as a lot of pasta is so fast, cheap and simple to cook.

Last night we had pasta and I made a sauce in 15 mins just a little more time than it took for the pasta to cook - I fried mushrooms with olive oil and minced garlic, added a few strips of pancetta, then added a tin of tomato pulp and a splash of red wine and simmered for 10 mins. Stirred though the cooked pasta and a little of the cooking water and it was done.

Exactly @Ginmonkeyagain. There's so much you can do, literally in the time it takes to boil your pasta. My MIL used to make her tomato sauce out of a bit of onion and a tin of Mutti tomatoes. The kids loved Nonna's pasta al pomodoro. And yes I know that you need good quality tomatoes and nice pasta but it's still cheaper than a jar.

Btw.. I'm from a very working class background and was brought up on crispy pancakes and boil in the bag curries. But I still remember my son literally bouncing off the walls after a fruit shoot at a party and thinking WTAF is in this stuff? It's awful awful stuff that should be nowhere near children.

School dinners are 70% junk food too though. Pizza, fish fingers, nuggets, pasta with jar sauce. Twice a week they have something that is actually freshly cooked such as roast dinner or shepherd's pie.

I guess it's a cost issue

@massistar ahh man, I love Mutti tomatoes, I always stock up when they are on offer!

Increasing childhood obesity and diabetes are alarming.

That Guardian article says we're shorter than Germans and Dutch people. Hasn't that always been the case? Average height in these countries has always been higher than the U.K.