What will it take for people to understand the importance of diet?

[velcrobott]

Just watched ITV's Tonight on 3 teenagers who had a diet of fast food be totally transformed after 4 weeks of normal, well balanced diet.... yesterday it was Supersize me on C4 and today there was the report that more and more kids below 10 are obese... and my son's friend is already obese so are his mum and dad.... how terribly sad and yet I don't think his parents either get it or are keen to improve things. My son's friend was handing out breadsticks yesterday and this was his breakfast..... I am sure she sees nothing wromg with that....
Sorry had to rant...

Kerfuffle, just dont buy the stuff in the supermarket. If you do feel like something sweet, bake a cake (less additives etc, than in the shopbought variety) ... there are some very easy and quick recipies around and have one slice ... instead of buying biscuits and finishing the whole packet .... I have lived in France for quite a long time and I also think that actually sitting down with the family to a "homecooked meal"( all it has to be is meat/fish/beans with some veg (frozen if you want) makes a huge difference to snacking on crisps, etc.
What kills me here is that whenever I go to someones house for a cup of tea, they pull out the bikis .... and yes, it is hard to resist

Kerfufle - I know all about addiction.... it's nasty but you could drink a large glass of water BEFORE you binge... and see if that comes you down?
If anything the water is good anyway and I find sometimes it stops me...

I had this conversation with a work colleague the other day. My ds is 21 months her 2 are 2 and 4.She says that she "only" gives them Ribina toothkind because its the same as water, the dental association endorse it. I didnt disagree with her (HELLO!) but did mutter about reading some where that it was terrible for teeth. When she asked me what ds has.
Ds has never had fizzy pop or fruit juices in any form. He has water and milk. He has a bag of quavers maybe once a fortnight. He rarely has chocolate and i never give him sweets......then he goes to the MILs with DH for a coffee.
It infuriated me initailly but now i have resigned myself to the fact that unfortunately that is the job of the granny, to fill grandkids full of rubbish.
Any way work colleague completely shocked and said how strict i am blah blah blah.....I defended myself by saying that im not really, its just the way i have always done things and that ds doesnt know any different so its not an issue. However the time will come when he will want rubbish. Even then i will be strict (!) but am glad that at least his first 2/3 years were predominantly crap free.
We both agreed in the end that you cannot do right from wrong and guilt guilt guilt is at every juncture for us parents.

Yes,yes, yes, yes, all of you! My son changed completely when I changed his diet - not just behaviour, but physical stuff too like upset stomachs, tummy aches and constant coughing. And now I eat more junk than him and I'm sure it makes me moody and miserable sometimes too! DS1's appetite increased dramatically once I cut out preservatives, colourings and flavourings - he had always been a really picky eater who could never be bothered, but suddenly he was eating 2 Weetabix and a bowl of porridge for breakfast and happily wolfing down vegetable soup and casseroles full of swede and celery. He does have sweet things, but I do my own baking so I know what's in them eg plain muffins. I could bore for ever on this subject, coz if I managed to change his diet, anyone can change their kids' diet - you just have to believe the stakes are high enough.
I think some of the worst foods are the things people assume are quite healthy (not all you posters of course!) like low sugar squashes. They usually contain at least one preservative, one or two artificial sweeteners and sometimes flavourings too - all of which would be worse for my son than a bit of sugar. Once we cut out diluted juice and moved to water only, with milk at breakfast, my son was filling himself up a lot less with sweet drinks.
I'm not smug about it, because it is a lot of work and I don't always eat as well as I should myself - certainly drink too much wine.
Saw Supersize Me last week and, after reading Fast Food Nation, that has really put me off McDonald's.

I am appalling really when it comes to diet. However, in the last year I have been making much more effort and am now growing some veggies etc. Once I was no longer single I cooked much more from fresh and DS loves bits of roasted pepper etc. I think it's hard sometimes when we all lead such busy lives.

More important though is the lack of education regarding cooking skills. I work with lots of teenage and young Mums in my job and it's frightening how many of them tell me they cannot cook. I'm even thinking of asking for funding to run a simple cookery group. It's frightening to think that without the ability/knowledge of cooking the children may end up with a hugely processed food diet.

I have been confronted by the face in RL time and time again at my attitude towards diet and drinks though.
I never comment on it unless directly questioned because it does apear to be smug, of this i am acutely aware.
Its just a decision i made early on and its one i have stuck to. I refuse to be made to feel guilty about it and so i tend to keep it to my self.

my ds's (v expensive) nursery sometimes bake cakes, lovely I thought, good for them - but I'd wondered why a 4 yr old boy referred to them as "Barbie cakes" till we went to Tesco yesterday and I saw the pink packaging of Barbi-ness staring back at me in the "home baking" section. It seems that nursery baking now simply involves opening a packet, adding water and chucking in oven! Am I naive to be shocked - at the laziness of the staff and at the blase way they are unnecessarily filling the kids up with nasty additives (check out the E-numbers on the back of Barbie!)?

very interesting thread
I have just recently made minor changes like no more white bread and light rye instead, and no more sweets kept in the house ds1 has lost his chunky look and ds2 is starting to eat more. It's not that I feed them processed food they are just not open to much variety

Have you seen \link{http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/0,9957,475349,00.html\these items on what not to feed and what to feed your kids from the OFM

Have just made a batch of wholemeal pizzas with a bit of flax seed flour.

bloody hell that'll teach me not to think I can paste a link in yet without looking at the instruction box

this is it

Donbean - hasn't it come to something when we feel we have to apologise for our 'smugness' in trying to feed our kids half-decent food? I feel exactly the same way as you do. I try very hard to make sure ds eats good healthy food 99% of the time. But I do hate the way those of us who see fostering healthy eating habits from a young age as important are seen as smug or obsessive or killjoys.

misschief, I'd complain in your position. Outrageous imo.

Snafu, I keep agreeing with you, it's getting boring now I agree, I don't know why it's smug or sanctimonious (that's the other word that crops up) to feed children healthy nutritious food to help them grow! When tf did that become NOT the norm? Probably about the 70s or 80s actually. I don't think chocolate is the devil's work, I like it and I think home made cakes are fine too but most packaged cake ingredients are shocking.

Agree 1oo%, however im not one to be made to feel appologetic in any way for the way i bring up my child. I avoid such subjects to avoid bad feeling as such because i can be quite (lets just say) to the point in my defence. Ive had to do it so often ive got quite good at it!!!
Suzywong can you post your recipe for wholemeal pizza bases please (or will this be another wong mystery recipe)?

Ummmm..... not much to it really I didn't write it down so next time I do it I will and then post it.

cheers hun. Got some wholemeal flour in the cupbourd and need some recipes to get the stuff used.

www. Great minds, etc...

"smug" and "obsessive" are the exact right words that i feel when questioned about this, snafu yes.
Sometimes though you've just gotta kick ass and not put up with these people.

think annabael karmel has recipes for healthy
pizza, can't remember which one.

DS is nearly 13 mo and the only sugar he's had is some in a bit of rhubarb (which was still somewhat tart - he loved it though) and some in his homemade birthday cake (he didn't have any icing!).

He eats really well - he crawls excitedly up to the table at breakfast for his unsweetened porridge and fruit. He eats natural yoghurt, sometimes sweetened with raspberries, he loves savoury things and often balks if his banana is too sweet.

I think this is partly down to the child he is (I'm not that smug ), but I do also think that because he doesn't know that junk exists, he hasn't developed a taste for it. Interestingly, he had one of those orange baby organix crisps the other day (no added anything, orange-flavoured, etc) - he didn't like it at all. I did wonder if the texture put him off.

He drinks breastmilk, cows milk if I'm not around and water. He knows not of the existence of juice or squash (I hate squash - always have done. I'd get asked "orange or lemon" at parties and ask in a tiny voice for plain water!).

And I have had the "You can't stop him eating things, he has to try them, etc" from well-meaning but deluded relatives who want to give him Muller Light yoghurt! I'd be really if it wasn't so sad that they think this kind of thing is a treat

I'm sure he'll go through the "fussy toddler" stage but ho hum. If I don't make a big issue of it and I don't offer him biscuits and sweets, I'm sure he'll eat sooner or later!

And I do think that if people ate better, there'd be less violence and aggression in society. And the recent research that shows that transfats dull the brains of those who eat them made me SO cross - these big companies keeping people stupid by feeding them non-foods to make huge profits?!

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Well I can really praise dietary changes. My dd who has special needs and concentration problems and changing her diet has made such a change it's untrue.
We are having no processed foods and I am not cooking everything fresh. Anything she does have is organic.
Even the school have noticed big changes so I think diet plays such a big part. My ds who is 7 and suffers with eczema has also really benfitted as it has really cleared up.

claudi2 and velcrobott- I do drink loads of water, I prepare homecooked meals everyday and I prepare fresh fruit and veg purees for my dd. If I baked cakes i would eat them (one slice- behave!) It is chocolate that is the problem. It is a question of self control, nothing else.Troubl is I don't have any.

kerfuffle, I can sympathise, as I have the same problem ... what I usually do is buy a 100gr. bar of chocolate(Lindt preferably) at the supermarket and eat it all at once .... if by any chance there is some left over I throw it away before I get home
I also find that if I can manage three/four days without chocolate, I have more will power to resist ...until the next breakdown .... I am pregnant at the moment, so I have not had any PMS and I am determined not to give the Baby too much of a taste for it. DD1 loathes the stuff so hopefully this one will be the same

Great thread! I have two with opposite food tastes - dd1 ate healthly from the start - organice babyfood - no sweets, only fruit for snacks etc etc, along came ds2 who was a nightmare to feed and could only get him to eat jarred babyfood - didn't like anything healthy and hardly ate anyway - they still have very different food tastes now but ds is getting a little better - not much! For snacks I buy in Space Bars - dried fruit strips in fairly trendy wrappers, and dd takes sesasme seed bars for mid-morning snack in Juniors

Thought this article in the Independent this weekend was really interesting:

Nutritionist to tackle unruly classrooms
By Karen Hall and Richard Garner
01 May 2005

A controversial nutritionist with a track record of "curing" disruptive pupils has been enlisted in the Government's fight against growing indiscipline in the classroom.

Patrick Holford has been asked by Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Education, to advise on whether poor-quality food - including cut-price school lunches - could be responsible for the decline in behaviour which is seen as the main problem facing the education system.

Delegates to the National Association of Head Teachers' conference in Telford, Shropshire, yesterday complained that schools must deal with ever-increasing numbers of uncontrollable and occasionally violent teenagers.

Some heads demanded that parents be sent to weekly classes that will help them to teach their children the difference between right and wrong. In the past three months parents were also responsible for more than 50 cases of assault or abuse against teachers.

Last week, TV viewers watched Mr Holford transform the behaviour of three disruptive 14-year-olds, who had been thrown out of school because of behavioural problems. He achieved the transformation in only a month by cutting out sugar and stimulants such as caffeine, and adding vitamin supplements.

Children's eating habits are already the focus of ministers' attention, with the Chief Medical Officer having warned that the epidemic of childhood obesity constitutes a "time bomb" for the health service.

Last month the Prime Minister promised an extra £280m to improve school dinners after the outcry created by Jamie Oliver's campaign against junk food and his Channel 4 programme Jamie's School Dinners. It emerged that the average primary school lunch costs 45p a child.

The Government has set up a task force to prepare advice on minimum nutrition standards for school meals. But, as revealed in The Independent on Sunday, the Department for Education and Skills does not employ a nutritionist.

Now the department has written to Mr Holford, a private consultant, asking for his help.

Mr Holford believes that mental health disorders are related to a person's biochemical requirements. Instead of drugs, he prescribes dietary changes plus vitamin and mineral supplements. "The sad truth is that scientists have been carrying out this research for over a decade," he said.

"But it takes a television programme to bring it to everyone's attention. Poor nutrition is definitely a contributory factor towards crime and mental health problems in later years."

He wants policymakers to raise the importance of nutrition. "If it doesn't happen governments will be bankrupt," he says.

"They will be crippled by the rising costs of Alzheimer's, obesity and soaring crime rates, which will force them to look at the true contributory causes."

Mr Holford is already helping the Government's Food Standards Agency draw up plans to publish health warnings on all foods that have a sugar content of more than 10 per cent.He also hopes that the Government will introduce a tax on sugar.
3 May 2005 20:16

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