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 have to be honest that the rise of Just Eat and such like and the enormous variety of food you can order has increased how much we get a takeaway. When I was growing up in the 90s we got a Chinese once in a blue moon. We get a takeaway probably twice a month and more if ill/fatigued etc.

This is nonsense. Millions of cuisines- Asian, Arab, Mexican- know how to add flavour to non organic food with spices and herbs.

Out of interest what would you make in 10 minutes? I succumb to takeaways when fatigued/ill etc.

Wow this is really scary. Young people too sick to work already. How on earth are we going to finance the failing health of the next ? This is a perfect example of the short termism of austerity. Unfortunately the effects aren't truly felt until way down the line when everything and everyone is screwed!

I agree. I can't understand why there isn't more outrage.

A Co-op opened near me recently. Huge excitement to have a 'local' shop. I looked around and all I could see was 'fake' food. 90% of it was fizzy drinks and crap. We are doomed.

@User8746422 you are just trolling now. All UK apples, organic or not, will have been be kept in cold storage as we cannot grow apples over the winter and spring. Organic plants are not magic.

But ok for the DC to suffer??

I also started listening to rangan chatterjees podcast this morning about the loneliness epidemic and the huge impact on mental and physical health so that's fun 😬

It's a scandal. I don't think people realise basically 1 child out of 3 is in poverty.

Not quite. As more people become aware, and engaged with knowing what is in the food that they are consuming, that knowledge will hopefully trigger a change in how people shop, and the food that they give to their families. The first step has to be an awareness of the damage being done to people, through low quality, processed food.

Usually stirfrys - protein (chicken fish or prawns) plus a variety of vegetables. Served with rice or egg noodles. Okay, the rice will take 15 minutes or so, but I don't have do do anything once it's started.

Or a frittata. My go to super quick meal.

Or chicken plus vegetables with whole wheat pasta or brown/wild rice.

I badge cook chicken pieces and caramelized onions (+/- garlic) so I have key ingredients to hand.

But the snack size and frequency have both grown enormously. People used to have ‘a biscuit’ which to be fair usually meant two. What it didn’t mean was the whole packet. Crisps were a small bag not a multipack or grab bag.
When I was at secondary school in the 80s my year group was kept back after assembly and harangued by a teacher for the heinous crime of ‘eating in public in school uniform.’ It must have been a transitional moment because we had no idea we weren’t supposed to do this. It was a grammar school and many of us had long commutes so what this meant was that we were officially not supposed to eat anything between school dinner at 12 and getting home at 5. Can you imagine that now, when parents wait outside the school gate with snacks for their kids at 3.15 (and many of them will have had snacks in an afternoon break in any case)?

There are a lot of factors, but the easy availability of ultra processed, ultra palatable food plays a big part. British supermarkets have markedly bigger aisles of processed shite than do continental ones- perhaps European countries have legislation to control aggressive marketing that we don't?

A while back someone published excerpts on Facebook of his diary as a young man walking the Ridgeway Path in the 1970s with his two mates- it was really entertaining, but what stood out for me was the low availability of food. They were on a low budget, and seemed to exist on mostly rice. On the rare occasions when they encountered a shop that was open they couldn't afford much- maybe some oranges, or on one occasion they found a chip shop and enjoyed the luxury of chip butties! In the photos they look incredibly skinny.

Nowadays, every village Spar would sell you 100g Dairy Milk for a quid, or a 2 for 1 offer on Pringles, or a packet of value biscuits for 50p. The shape of young men- supposedly the fittest and skinnier of us- has completely changed- they're a lot more chunky. A lot of it is gym honed chunk, but still...

DS is 14, now has his own pocket and occasional job money, and the school bus drops him off outside the Spar. Every fucking day he comes back munching a Snickers bar or a packet of value biscuits, and often has a fizzy drink on the go, too. It drives me bloody mad. He's not overweight (yet), but it's doing his health no good at all.0

Elevenses was more structured though.

There's a mindset difference in pausing mid-way between meals, having a sit, eating some food off a plate, compared grazing on the go and eating from packets.

By pausing and structuring, it's easier to regulate what you're having.

Plates were smaller which led to smaller meals. My 1980s "student plate" has a large rim, so the flat surface is the same as the medium plates we have, but the outer circumfrence is the same as the full size dinner plate. Some meals I use the smaller plates, but often if I use the bigger plates for the family, I dig the old one out to naturally hold my portion back (older children needing a higher intake than me, they used to use the small plates). It still gives me a full looking plate without looking like a restriction.
Those small IKEA plastic bowls- they can fit a whole can of food. The capacity is surprising and its easier to eat more than you think you are.

That leads me to another musing- the size of things like lunch boxes. People naturally fill the vessel they have. I've seen huge lunch bags filled with every type of food- sandwich, fruit, crisps, chocolate bar, cake, yoghurt pouch, peperami and babybels for a few miles walk/ picnic. I ended up taking the children's bags for them and putting them in my rucksack because they were so heavily weighed down and struggling to walk with them under the weight of the food.

Many parents seem terrified to let their children starve on walks of only a couple of miles.
For context on a 10 mile run this week, I used one of my two nakd bars in two hours of constant running. A 2 mile walk at child pace is not going to have children depleting their glycogen stores!
I'm also seeing more parents being doubtful about going ahead with outdoor activties in standard weather conditions. Yes it is safe to go for an hour's walk in 10⁰C rain- send them in their coat (cohort can afford coats, just not used to being out of nice cars)

I read Ultra Processed People recently and the stuff about the “food swamp” was compelling - when the prevailing food environment is UPF it is really difficult to avoid. UPF is readily available, heavily marketed, cheap, easy to prepare, has a long shelf life and tastes nice - you can absolutely see why time poor cash strapped families turn to it.

And I absolutely agree that the government needs to step in to publicise the dangers of this stuff and then regulate it. The extent to which “big food” controls not only politics but most of the scientific research in this area is terrifying.

‘Elevenses was more structured though.

There's a mindset difference in pausing mid-way between meals, having a sit, eating some food off a plate, compared grazing on the go and eating from packets.’

Yes, there was a thread recently about someone being annoyed by a colleague eating noisily at her desk.
It became clear that many people now see it as a norm or indeed a human right to be able to eat constantly at your desk if you want to. It didn’t used to be. There used to be more of an assumption that you would take a break and it was more likely the employer would provide a staff room for you to do it in.

One advert that has really pissed me off recently is the one for buying train tickets through Uber. "With all that money saved, the snacks are on you!"

Why do you need snacks on a train journey?! Yes, if it's a long one you might need to take or buy lunch, but it's the normalisation of snacking EVERYWHERE that boils my piss.

I do supply teaching and I can go in to a year one class one day and the children are tall and strong with shining skin and hair and I can go to a different year one class the next day and the children look fragile and dull. The white kids are grey with sunken eyes.

In some schools not one child will eat any of the provided fruit or vegetables. Sometimes I give nursery children a sticker if they drink some milk. They walk around sucking down cordial all day instead.

In school nurseries, the lunches are not free so most have packed lunches. Some children will have just two packets of crisps for their lunch or just a six pack of Oreo's. I'm at the stage now where I'm pleased is they have a greggs sausage roll.

I don't recognise that at all. Me and my friends have never abused our DC but can 'control' them just fine.

Cheaper meat and produce often don't taste like anything and that's why children refuse to eat them.

That's absolute nonsense. There is more flavour in cheaper meat, not less.

I agree about the point of sweets being given out in school for birthdays. That should be stopped. The last thing that young children need is more sweets. Birthdays are always happening, celebrate them outside of school.

Just out of interest what are schools serving food wise now? My kids went about 10 years ago and they used to eat total crap at school. Processed junk that they would have only had rarely at home

@dreamingofsun They’re still dire, judging by ours. Dominated by UPFs, pudding every day etc. A particular low point was the ‘chicken sausage’ in a dry UPF bun...

DD is the only one in her year group, apart from one autistic child with food sensory issues, to bring a packed lunch. She’s Year 1 and we’re in London, so meals are free. Lots of the parents are pretty affluent, but there’s a lot of ‘I’m not making them a lunch when there’s a free one at school’. Many families with two FT working parents who are very time-poor, so the convenience of the school food, however crap, always wins out against a packed lunch that you have to cobble together yourself.

I know we’re considered extremely precious by some of the other parents for withdrawing DD from the free school dinners, but we’re fortunate that we have the time, food knowledge and resources to provide her with something healthier.

I knew things had changed drastically when I started to see people arriving at the Remembrance Day Parade in my city (major military presence) with sausage rolls, burgers and takeaway coffees. Honestly, can people not cope for 45 minutes without refreshments?

However, the worst I have seen was three ladies eating sausage rolls during evensong in a cathedral

When I was a child shopping in the city centre was a treat in itself . . . getting new shoes or a coat was a major event. We never bought snacks whilst out. Nowadays any trip out, however small, seems to involve snacks, treats, a takeaway or coffee (I confess to being guilty of the last option!)

There was the whole thing about Jamie Oliver and school dinners - but are they any better now? This is what DC in poverty eat often as their main meal.

I thought Primary school food was not great (lots of not great quality and processed food.) But once they get to High school it's even worse. Just loads of cakes of every kind, same with soft drinks, sausage rolls, chips, hot dogs! I'm considering trying to do something about the food at my Dd's school but not sure what I could do? At the end of the day the catering company is a business and cakes sell!

I agree about the point of sweets being given out in school for birthdays. That should be stopped. The last thing that young children need is more sweets. Birthdays are always happening, celebrate them outside of school.

Agree with this. The whole ‘Healthy Schools’ initiative just doesn’t seem to be a thing any more. Our PTA runs endless cake sales, and when our year group recently won the competition to raise the most money from this, the kids’ reward from the PTA was a big bag of candy floss each to eat in school!