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

Well, my visitors are gone and I finally summoned up courage and weighed myself.

Surprisingly, I've only gained 3 pounds - but it feels (and looks!!) like much more. I'm out of shape. I have acquired love handles. Where are my 'lovely' muscles?!

I'm definitely not the lean machine that I was 6 weeks ago. Back to working out with Caroline and Anna tomorrow! I wonder how long it'll take me to make up lost ground?

Here are some policy ideas:

1. reduce inequality (read the spirit level to see massive amounts of research on how this affects not just obesity but almost every outcome)
2. ban advertising of UPFs
3. subsidize British grown whole foods
4. this is not well researched but I think fun, set up reasonably priced upf free food court/ hawker centres all around the country where families can go out to eat together (similar to what they have in Singapore).

100% this. It is so so difficult to be constantly battling an unhealthy food environment.

We wouldn’t need to keep having a debate about unhealthy food being viewed as forbidden fruit if the societal norm was to cook with fresh ingredients on a daily basis and the food high in sugar and fat was viewed as an occasional treat by society. Instead, we have cheap fast food readily available at the click of a button, a culture where people are eating food from a wrapper literally everywhere they go all the time.

By trying to encourage healthy habits in our children, we are fighting against the storm on a daily basis. Birthday parties are special occasions and I don’t restrict my children so they are not the outliers. The question remains why are we offering snacks of crisps, biscuits, an unhealthy meal of pizza followed by ice cream AND cake all washed down with a sugary drink and then giving them sweets to eat on the way home on top?! Why are we ostracised if we don’t want to succumb to this trend ourselves?

I am from a developing country where unhealthy UPFs are imported and obesity is a disease the wealthy suffer from. Fresh produce costs pennies and is readily available. There is no culture of eating every 2 minutes. It is a world apart. Of course there is malnourishment due to poverty which is a completely different topic but if you look at the middle income, they all eat a home made fresh meal every single day. If they want to drink cordials/juice, they make them at home. Same for biscuits and cakes

I think we also need to remember that when UPFs started appearing in the 70s-80s, they were absolutely welcomed by women who were suddenly being expected to work and simultaneously do all the household chores at home.

I remember a few years ago Delia Smith brought out a cookbook for quick recipes and was absolutely lambasted for suggesting people used pre chopped frozen veg and mashed potatoes. But maybe that's the half way house.

Expecting people - well let's call it was it is as it's women who are expected to do these things - to work and think and prepare non UPF meals every day is a big ask. Giving helpful time saving options and suggesting improvements, rather than criticism is probably the way to go.

@rookiemere absolutely and we need to stop pulling people down over the little things.

I once commented on another thread that I prep my veg and salads in advance to make cooking easy - I pre cut and portion it all and have it ready to cook when finishing work as time is an issue. This leads to comments on losing nutritional value because it’s prepped. Same for comments on people using frozen veg - which are actually unfounded. These options are million times better than a take away or ready meal.

As I said on a previous post, criticising one minor ingredient in a meal because it has an emulsifier or preservative - the meal is still a win. Let’s not criticise because we can

As usual, women are beating up other women over the choices they make... You used a or chopped casserole mix and fed your child that? Only a freshly cut carrot is good enough! Preferably one you've grown in your garden on organic soil.... So frustrating!

Have you got any information that you can link here about that? I have not heard of this, and would struggle to believe it tbf.

Sorry, but how is bread and butter pudding prohibitively expensive? A block of butter is around £1.65 (Aldi and Sainsbury’s), and you don’t even need a whole one. (And I don’t remember it being much more expensive at any point during the last couple of years - maybe £1.85?)
As for salmon, I agree, it is pricier. Chicken - depends what you make from it surely?
A small amount of diced chicken breast mixed in with rice and stir fried vegetables isn’t crazy expensive either. Same goes for minced meat bulked out with vegetables or pulses.
I know it all adds up, but frozen pizza and chicken nuggets aren’t free either?
And I don’t even think an odd frozen pizza is necessary the work of devil by the way.
I'm just often a bit baffled on threads like this where the only two options seem to be everything-organic-made-from-scratch-zero-UPF or cheap frozen ready meals, with seemingly nothing in between.

That is absolutely wild, well the pizza makes sense because dominos has always been expensive but the Pringles and the hot chocolate that's crazy. I think that posters was trying to say it's very rare that people do that not that it never happens

I grew up in the 80s but had older than typical parents so our childhood was less modern than our friends in many respects, especially meals. When my friends were getting frozen pizzas, poptarts, kellogs cereal, and all that other lovely stuff we envied our food was home grown and made from scratch and there was almost never any Upfs in the house.

Like, if we wanted to snack we could cut a slice of the soda bread made that morning and put homemade butter, cheese or last summer jam on it, or we could boil or fry an egg. Reaching into the pantry for a packet of something to open and scoff wasn't possible. And when you are a kid, the effort of preparing a snack like that, and washing up after yourself meant you would just grab an apple off the tree out the back instead. So snacking wasn't disallowed as such, but it was a lot of effort, when you could just grab an apple and a glass of milk taken that morning from the cows. 😀

@LadyKenya
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9535349/
Formula milk companies have made people believe that formula is as good as or a close second to breast milk, human milk for human babies, formula milk is better than not feeding them at all but it is so inferior to breast milk. Formula companies and the government will literally have other women tearing each other down over their feeding choices rather than providing proper education about the incredible benefits of breastfeeding, the issues associated with formula and providing proper support for women to feed their babies

@LadyKenya the formula companies also lobbied to change the terminology from “risks of formula feeding” to “benefits of breastfeeding”, which has the effect of (a) switching the default from breast to formula and (b) implying that breastfeeding provides a few optional extras. It’s insidious really.

Carrots are cheap. Potatoes are cheap.
We should only eat 100g of meat or cheese a day (about 4oz) in total.

But people happily buy 500g of mince to feed two adults and maybe two kids. Or a kg of chicken. Or 500g of stewing steak. And rather than having a chicken drum and thigh, we now eat four of them.

I lived right on the poverty line when I was very small. My Mum didn't buy spam fritters in a box from a freezer. She made them from scratch! (We didn't have a freezer). I remember eating lots of stews and macaroni cheese or cauliflower cheese for dinner. My Mum cooked us economical healthy food. She despaired when we ate all the fruit in the bowl. We did have biscuits but once they were gone that was it for the week.

Oddly we did have crisps and chocolate biscuits in our lunch boxes but I guess we just ran about so much we burnt it off.

When did it become a thing to give kids UPF for dinner rather than everyone having the same? Like liver and onions with mash? 🤢 When did it become normalised to have takeout at least once a week? Or to get cake from the bakery (my own downfall!)? And kids stay indoors and snack rather than going outside to play in all weathers. I don't think we really had formal snacks. A dairylea triangle was about as exciting as it got when I was small 😂.

I just don't think people really get portion size nor what eating properly actually is. Far too many sweets and treats and takeaways. Since we've cut back we've halved our shopping bill. People just don't have time to properly plan meals and we're all just so tired to cook properly. As a nation we're just poor and tired.

How many of those parents are heading straight to work after the drop off? Or are not actually within walking distance? My eldest children go to school 4 miles from home one way, it's a major A road with no footpath and the youngest is 4 miles from home the other way, down country lanes with no footpath, it's physically impossible to have them all to school on time without the car and I start work at 9! I agree on the exercise though, we take our kids out walking most weekends and they play outside a lot as we're in a village but in busy towns and cities, kids don't have the safe spaces to play like we did years ago due to increased traffic, green spaces being built on etc

I live in a working class area not far outside Glasgow. I work from home and my desk faces out over the street I live on. The street is busy all day long with the comings and goings of food delivery drivers from early in the day till late at night, it is pretty constant. There are 18 households on my street so the ratio of food delivery drivers to homes is pretty large and people are obviously getting breakfast lunch and dinner delivered.

Sure it is up to them and I don't know what else they have going on in their lives but eating that amount of takeaway can't be good for peoples health or finances. An occasional takeaway is a nice treat but if someone is habitually ordering MacDonalds, Greggs, KFC, Pizza or Chinese takeaway just to feed themselves day to day then I think that shows someone is getting hungry but has no food in the house and perhaps no skills to cook or meal plan and so feel like ordering in is their best or only option. To me it seems like it must be a chaotic way to live and that they are probably feeling overwhelmed and in survival mode where eating that way seems both the easiest / best option and a way to self soothe.

Not just financial poverty, but time poverty also.
It takes time and energy to make a healthy meal from scratch with natural ingredients.
Many people who don't have enough money are also having to work extra hours, extra jobs to cover the extra costs of living these days.
Then they don't have the money, time or energy to eat well, or feed their families well.
I saw a very good report on the TV news yesterday about the solution to the UK economic problems is productivity and that is not solved by just working longer hours for essentially the same income when the accumulative effects of consistently high inflation and excess supermarket profits are taken into account. Actually productivity is the opposite: working the same hours but achieving more and making more money. France became more economically productive when they restricted legal working hours to 35 hrs a week, for example.

Also depressing is the money saving apps that give cash back on supermarket purchases is all for UPFs, obviously big food corporations are not giving you cash back on tomatoes and veg.

I've just finished making a lasagne and can concur that cooking from scratch does take an age , particularly as I don't really like pasta so I prepare and grill aubergine for my bit, oh and I don't use pasta sauce because of the sugar so I put in passata, pesto and some Italian seasoning.

It's a family favourite, but really only doable because I don't work Fridays as it does take about an hour or more to prepare. Most people don't have that time to spend on a weekday meal.

I've a long commute so often I'm getting in the door at 18.40 and rushing to get a dinner on. I applied for hybrid working @chaostherapy and it gives me 2 days wfh - and so much extra time without the driving!

I can stick on a wash 5 mins before I start work, hang it out on my 11 O'clock break, start up a stew or a casserole on my lunch break, checking in on it for my tea break. After work, I can scoot around for an hour doing house work and still have all those things done before the time I'd ordinarily be getting in the door from the office. And sometimes I'll do a couple of dinners at the one time to just get ahead.

I've got a bit of a system down now. Mondays I wfh, so put on something to slow cook during the day. I do double portions of this for later in the week.

Tues/Wed/Thurs need quick meals, so pastas, stir fries, fish, omelettes, etc, etc. I'll have something batch cooked in the freezer to help out, usually one the nights. Fri-Sun I have more time and can cook up a storm if I want.

I use the freezer pretty extensively too. Like I know there's homemade tomato sauce and pesto in there that I'll press into service next week.

It takes practice to get to this stage though, definitely

If anyone is interested please see the link below for UPF hierarchy.

Ultra-processed foods - HEART UK

Food can be batch cooked healthily but people are time poor but batch cooking can be a real help. I hate to say it but I think at least one year of cookery classes in schools may help. It was compulsory in our school even although the school was not comprehensive everyone had to do at least one year of Domestic Science. I know parents are ultimately responsible but perhaps it would be helpful if everyone boys and girls had time made in the curriculum for learning about nutrition and cooking.

However,it's quite easy to start with some simple growing. When my marriage broke up I struggled to feed my children and started with growing some veggies in pots eg herbs, salads, carrots (I've grown them in large pots) and moved on from there. It's amazing what will grow in a pot and you you don't need a lot of know how just trial and error. - there were loads at the beginning!

That's a helpful link, thanks

People on Mumsnet are much more clued up on UPFs than in the wider world, in my experience (and I'm surrounded by affluent and middle class people). It's easy to think a Tesco Finest lasagne is good while a £1 Iceland one is bad, or that McDonald's chicken nuggets are bad but M&S goujons with some oven chips are not far from being a home cooked meal. It's really only in the last few years I've fully understood the difference - just because it's packaged attractively and costs more doesn't mean it's not carefully designed to override your satiety signals and make you crave more. It's much harder to overeat unprocessed foods. I love baked potatoes or buttery mash but I have a limit. But I can continue to eat Pringles even when I'm long past the point of enjoyment.

A couple of people mentioned pub meals being a thing in the past but I'm sure they would mostly have been cooked on the premises. Now so many places offer a huge menu of stuff from places like Brakes, just heated up or deep fried.

The sneakiest part of formula marketing is also behavioural. They know that once a mother gets accustomed to feeding her baby from a brightly coloured box, they will most likely progress to feeding from jars and pouches. The same companies that manufacture formula also produce those UPF laden baby foods and snacks. Their marketing goal is to gain brand loyalty starting from birth.

It works on the same principle of how phishing mails often have an obvious typo inside which alerts many people it's a scam. The people who STILL believe it's a real email despite an obvious mistake are exactly the ones they want because they're easy pickings. Mothers who believe that formula is really just as good as breast milk based on pseudo-scientific graphics on the box are the most valuable customers for the big food conglomerates.

It's actually more expensive to buy UPF. I've hardly any money this month so I've bought ingredients to batch cook and freeze what I normally buy ready made and my shopping bill is about half

@User8746422 oh god don’t get me started on the rows of baby crisps and biscuits 🙄
I think the problem is the lack of actual information. People have it rammed down their throat that breast is best but no one tells them why. The idea that FF is somehow more civilised is still prevalent in the older gen and people always want to feed the baby so I think new mums will often just go along with it because no one is specifically saying these are the benefits of breastfeeding and these are the side effects of formula milk so that women can make an informed choice. Add in to that very little understanding of milk taking days to come in/ culture of shame around public feeding/ the idea that FF babies sleep better and are more content because they are satisfied women’s worry that baby isn’t getting enough milk it’s no wonder the Bf rates are so low, it’s so depressing