JUst started on BBC2 - The Truth About Food - How To Feed Your Kids

[treacletart]

The Truth About Food

9:00pm - 10:00pm

BBC2 South

3/6 - How To Feed Your Kids

Series in which 500 volunteers and a team of celebrities discover how and why what we eat can change our lives. In a look at what children will and won't eat, Deadringers star Jan Ravens gets first-hand impressions of how to open children's minds and mouths to new foods. The programme discovers how young Isaac broke his broccoli boycott, goes through gastronomic nightmares when Jan's two teenage sons go feral on food, and overturns some myths about what children should eat.

Was really looking forward to this programme, but found it very disappointing. It didn't really tell us anything interesting.

pianist, i agree completely,. The previous ones in the series were good though.

They did a little more than that - they demonstrated that despite oodles of sugar consumed at one party, the parents failed to discern any corresponding change in behaviour.

I think that's sufficient. They weren't trying for the Nobel prize

I thought the sugar experiment was interesting. There has been a lot in the media recently about limiting the amount of junk food that children eat whilst at school, especially sweets, chocolates and fizzy drinks because many teachers think that children's behaviour worsens because of sugar overload once they have consumed these products.

The children at the sugar fest party did not race around like cats on speed because the entertainer was able to control their mood. If there was such a thing as sugar overload leading to hyperactivity, would he have been able to do this, especially with such a large group?

Also, don't forget that at the nearly sugar free party the children were whipped up into a frenzy despite having consumed very little sugar.

I agree the experimental conditions were not rigorous but for me, it demonstrated that people often use diet to blame for seemingly hyperactive behaviour when more often than not, it is probably down to how children are approached, spoken to, directed or engaged. In my humble opinion, of course.

but while your analysis of that experiment is really interesting, spidermama, the actual show didn't cover it to that degree. they just said. 'lar-de-dar, look at the parents, we tricked 'em, the bourgeois dullards. FACT.'

it would have been far more interesting had they approached it from your perspective, challenged teachers, let's say, with the evidence. cos i'm quite sure that the teachers could have challenged right back.

I was quite happy to go along with bourgeois dullards line tbh

I enjoyed the programme. I thought the experiment was relevant. If sugar really did make the children hyperactive they would not have behaved as well as they did for the fairy party. Sugar on its own does not produce badly behaved children. (dons helmet and awaits onslaught)

Are you still ducking Chopchop?

I agree with you btw [runs and hides].

eh?

(filly smells Bad Science...)

so am I correct re the experiment

condition 1 : they gave kids sugar and then sat them down to a craft activity

condition 2 : they didn't but got them hyper neverthless with impressions?

eh ? wtf does that show?

that consuming at least some sugar does not render you utterly unable to join up the dots? that kids can get hyper even in the absence of sugar?

i mean, i am not planning to base my kids diet on primetime tv anyway but, this is utterly utterly piss poor science. If you presented such an experiment for, I dunno, a level psycology you would be laughed at.

Aitch - I was also interested in the spaghetti experiment for the same reasons as you. Having read all the Rapley stuff, I just sat there thinking 'but were they bottle fed and forced to eat purees - then no wonder!' See what all this blw has done to me!!!

This programme is not about presenting the type of science that will appear in peer reviewed journals.

I personally think the sugar experiment was thought provoking because we are told that children's behaviour deteriorates once they have consumed lots of sugar. However, they showed that by engaging the children in placid activities resulted in placid children. Of course it is not rigorous science, it is a TV programme aimed at Joe Public but I think the message that sugar should not be solely blamed for hyperactive children is apposite.

ok well if its not rigorous enough to be peer reviewed it proves nothing

i'm pretty sure the narrator said 'SO, children cannot control their own appetite - FACT' at the spaghetti one, because it made me shudder a little to hear as it was plainly such bollocks.

i work in the telly area ... the people who made the show are plenty smart enough to construct a half-decent experiment, they just think we're too stoopid to understand it which pisses me right off.

and csws, i DID NOT think 'they were all force fed...' good lord woman, are you wanting to start a war? we BLW-ers are peaceful folk, are we not? and for the record i truly believe that my dd in the future, faced with all her pals and a plate of spag bol after a hard day's running around would eat as much as she could get her mitts on. that's why Rapley encourages people to eat as a family, because food has a social function alongside being a fuel. another reason why the experiment is shit... who doesn't pig out at big get-togethers?

HW is me by the way...

Oh I thought it in a very peaceful way .

Have you considered seeking therapy for your hunker obsession btw?

she was being attention-seeking last night (most unusually... ) and i was ignoring her in a horse whispering manner. she cried. mwah-hah-haaaah.