Need your opinions about Change4Life ads aimed at parents

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Sunday Telegraph would like to know our thoughts, particularly about the ad that's been running in women's mags of a girl biting into a cupcake with the strapline "is a premature death so tempting?".

Effective? Unnecessary scaremongering? TIA for any comments.

I think you are partly right but its more complex; when I tried to book my boys into something similar the different age groups had to be ats eparate venues at the same time.... all venues were out of town based so inaccessible by bus....... the ones they did access instructors etc turned up veryt late making it ahrd for working aprents to wait....... don'tmost famillies have mixed ages / needs?

It was a logistical nightmare and would have been so easy to get right

PAthetic ad, pretty little girl who is obviously not overfed on junk, rather nice looking cake.

We filled in the how are your kids thing. I filled it on on a Tuesday the day dd does ballet (dance activity good) but because of timings and venue) we all go to McDonalds for tea. Ds is taken home by grandparents to avoid him having to wait in a boring ballet waiting room and plays on computer. The result for him was near on social services being called!!!!

Now on a Wednesday it would have been reversed, ds goes to Gymbobs, dd plays on her ds in the waiting room!!!

save the money on shit advertising and put in place national parenting classes compulsory upon reciept of child benefit.

morons.

eating cake - and then having an otherwise balanced diet.

playing on games console - and having otherwise lots of excersise

Hmm. I hate these ads - I have an underweight (very) 6 yr ds who eats everything put in front of him, he averages about 8-10 portions of fruit and veg a day, not yet come across any fruit veg he doesn't like but he is asking about everything he puts in his mouth and will I die if I eat this sort of questions.

They need to be teaching cooking, shopping etc in schools, pushing everything in moderation.

I'm a bulk cooker and cook most meals from scratch (helpful as he has allergies) but the odd McD's/KFC etc will not kill him.

How about tackling the marketing and advertising of frankly horrendous processed foods to children?
What's the point in education if on the other hand we have cereal ads telling us that sugar filled cereals are healthy because they have a tiny bit of fibre in them?
These things are the realdanger - at least a cupcake is what it is. It's not pretending to be 'full of goodness'.

And perhaps the exercise thing could be more positive.
Like showing kids actually enjoying exercise.
The ad doesn't show an alternative to the 'bad' things.

I think its very ludicrousness - immediate link with small cake and early death - makes it far too easy to dismiss, and get irritated with, and so it backfires. The kids look very healthy - how the hell do you know they haven't just been swimming/playing football/jumping on a trampoline for an hour, and are going to have a great healthy dinner. It's daft.

And if the boy was sitting still reading a book, he'd still not be using any more calories - less, in fact. Should we demonise reading too?

and when you have 16 year old parents who have never cooked so much as cornflakes what is the more likely evening meal? fish fingers and chips or a spag bol?

I really disagree with this post, I had DS when I was 17 and had never had to cook before but as soon as he was weaning I learned to cook and he gets a healthy, home made meal every night.

It's nothing to do with age, it's attitude that matters.

Please don't put all young parents in a box.

fish fingers not too bad a meal at all, surely?

LPP valid point although my age groupd did have cooking lessonsat school- shit ones often but lessons- and I think thats important: why should youngsters have to go out and get special classes or whatever, it should be accepted and taught as part of the normnal lifes kills needed to survive. Better spend money on that than poor quality advertising IMO

The ads are ridiculous, as others have pointed out.

I agree with peachy though, in our primary our dc are taught to make buns, muffins, smoothies, fruit cocktail etc. They start in reception and can make all of these unaided by the end of year 2. Which is great, the whole thing has been funded by the friends who had the kitchen built and equipped and also maintain it, the idea being to give them basic skills and get them interested in cooking.

In our secondary school from year 7 to year 9 our dc are taught to make.... you guessed it... buns, muffins, smoothies... It is laughable. Post year 9 there is nothing unless you take a GCSE in Food Tec. Worse than that (IMO) is the "healthy" angle, for example they are taught that all you need to do to make a flapjack healthy is add dried fruit - not lower the amount of syrup or anything, just add raisins and so it goes on through the course. My favorite lack of education yet was making "healthy" sausage rolls. They had to take in ready made pastry and frozen veggie sausages so they could wrap the sausages in the pastry and cook them. This took two lessons - one to plan and one to do. I mean, COME ON, what on earth is the point in showing a 13yo how to wrap a frozen sausage in pastry and sling it in the oven?

LPP, I think Muffins point was meant more as a social comment than a personal attack. It is true that our children are not taught about food in school the way they used to be and it does, often, leave them unprepared.

What they need to learn is the basics- what the food terms mean (rubbing in etc), what the cuts of meat are and how to prepare (esp cheapest ones), ditto fish and veg, make a basic sauce / pastry / loaf / make proper baby food (well why not?) etc etc etc

all the things that then enable you to use a proper cookbook (as opposed to certain sleb ones that are OK for some but generally use 57 ingredients none of which can be bought in asda and at elast one from a specialist store 45 miles away, in tiny amounts that won't keep past Thursday)

Patronizing, offputting, and as educational as Eastenders, tbh.

Cakes will KILL you little girl! Eat Ryvita instead! 'tis bollocks. (I'm sure that quote won't get into the Telegraph.)

Hi mamas and papas - this is my first post so waves!

I am having a bit of a war re: the NMCA, Change4Life my Local NHS and what the government is doing re: childhood obesity in general.

I'm a mum to a DS who is 4 and apparently 'morbidly!' obese...

Are the Sunday Times still looking to get information from people about this?

I'm also interested to see if anyone elses LO's have been measured under this scheme with innacurate results??

I have an ongoing load of letters between myself, the department of health and my local MP, as I am trying to get accross the point that you cannot neatly group all young children into tick boxes and that measuring their BMI (which is how the Change4Life come up with their research figures) is by no means an accurate way of deciding whether a child is obese or not. By using BMI, people like rugby players would always come up as obese as it does not take into consideration muscle mass, genetics or the persons build in general.

I am a bit stuck and going round in circles and very keen to hear from anyone who is not happy (or even people that feel its all a great idea etc...!) as I said really interested to hear the public opinion on this childhood measurement scheme/change4life

Cx