Families need more help with tackling childhood obesity?!
Discussion
Thankyou4calling said:
When i was a kid (and my three brothers) we all went to school, walked home (about a mile and a half) played football in the garden until it was time for tea.
Tea consisted of for instance 2 sausages, mashed potato and peas. For pudding we might have fruit salad.
Then we would play football again and go to bed, not much TV.
We were never allowed to go to the fridge and take food, just ate what we were given and we were pretty active. There weren't really any fast food joints apart from the chippy (this was the 70's)
Contrast that with now. Kids won't normally walk to school, they have a lot more pocket money than we had to buy sweets and crisps, the portions they get for a meal would be huge compared to mine and they won't be anywhere near as active.
Us? We got pocket money, walked to the sweet shop and spent it on a Saturday, that was it. Didn't buy mars bars and Kit kats, it was a few penny chews etc.
I think there is plenty of "Help" for people, everybody (apart from the truly thick) knows what to do but first it is hard to do it and secondly lots just can't be bothered.
Personally, i think just leave people to it, if they get fat so what, they can waddle around but it's not the end of the world for most.
just accept it.
The info, the help is all there just let people carry on either getting fatter or not, it's their choice.
Hmmm? I was a 70s child too, b.1970. Pretty similar childhood to you it would seem. Walked to and from nursery from the moment my brother arrived and needed the pram more than me. Lots of sport at school, rugby, football, tennis, cross country running. Cycled from a young age, the whole pocket money thing? I was lucky to get any, usually earned from lugging empty cider flagons up the 'offy' to get the deposit back for my dad. Meal portions were regulated because we were a large family (7 kids all told) so there were scarcely ever any leftovers to snack on. Puddings/biscuits were planned, so grazing from the cupboards was a non-starter, and opening the fridge without permission was verging on suicidal behaviour.Tea consisted of for instance 2 sausages, mashed potato and peas. For pudding we might have fruit salad.
Then we would play football again and go to bed, not much TV.
We were never allowed to go to the fridge and take food, just ate what we were given and we were pretty active. There weren't really any fast food joints apart from the chippy (this was the 70's)
Contrast that with now. Kids won't normally walk to school, they have a lot more pocket money than we had to buy sweets and crisps, the portions they get for a meal would be huge compared to mine and they won't be anywhere near as active.
Us? We got pocket money, walked to the sweet shop and spent it on a Saturday, that was it. Didn't buy mars bars and Kit kats, it was a few penny chews etc.
I think there is plenty of "Help" for people, everybody (apart from the truly thick) knows what to do but first it is hard to do it and secondly lots just can't be bothered.
Personally, i think just leave people to it, if they get fat so what, they can waddle around but it's not the end of the world for most.
just accept it.
The info, the help is all there just let people carry on either getting fatter or not, it's their choice.
Still we did eat junk on occasion (small cheese'n'tomato frozen pizzas from Iceland spring to mind). Plus too much white bread and potatoes (56lb sack of them in the corner of the kitchen, and we got through 'em at quite a rate).
Exercise, over and above what was imposed by walking to school and PE? Being sent out of the house in the holidays, and not expected to return outside of mealtimes. The 'gang of four' cycling all over the place from our early teens. An hour to the beach, a day trying to spy on the "peaches" at the nudist part of the dunes, and an hour back, all fueled by a manky sausage roll and a can of Coke. Trips up into the hills (South Wales, so fairly challenging terrain) just for the hell of coming back down them at speed. And then dog walking. Or running,as by then I was 'training' to join the army. A 6 mile run with a barrel-shaped Labrador four or five times a week, and to top it off, cycling the 3 mile return trip to Granny's house whenever my uncle was away working, to help Granny draw up her insulin (she was blind).
The death of the single-income household plays a large part in obesity problems, in my view. Now that obsessing about how much your house is worth is the driving factor in life, and mortgage rules were relaxed to allow consideration of the second income, people (parents) are pushed out to work, and they tend to work further away than folk did back in the 70s. So they go by car. And drop the kids off on the way. At childminders who often have multiple charges picking up and dropping off at multiple times so cannot take their charges off to parks being active. They spend time indoors instead,on games consoles or sat in piles of Lego. Travelling to work takes more time,so hungry people look for quick fixes when they get home, and those quick fixes are often laden with calories, fat and sugar. Peaks and troughs in blood sugar levels induce lethargy, and folk are less inspired to exercise, and the cycle begins. Kids born to such parents are then set a poor example, and develop their dysfunctional relationship with food/exercise long before it is forced on them by a lack of work/life balance in adulthood.
Society has changed. I well remember my Nana telling us off for having butter AND jam on toast/in sandwiches. "When your dad was little, we still had rationing. You could have butter OR jam - not both!" Sadly society's diet hasn't adjusted in line with activity levels. My grandfathers worked in tinplate works and heavy engineering. My dad was a factory worker (Ford) and my uncles had active jobs too. Steelworks, pest control, police officer. Mum, and my aunts, worked up until their first children, and were then kept busy walking back and forth to school and lugging shopping (then a daily activity, bakery, butcher, greengrocer) home. We had one car, as did most households, and that was for dad to get to work, and to take us nice places at weekends. It NEVER got used to 'nip to the shop' because there were more local 'corner shop' establishments back then so never far enough to warrant starting the car. Now most families have two cars, and both partners go out to work in them, and very rarely walk anywhere. Kids (mine included, sadly) seem to have a poor grasp of the geography of their own towns because they seldom have walk anywhere. Supermarkets and 'shopping malls' also erode the amount of exercise required to lead one's life, creating small, super efficient spaces where once you'd have needed to walk miles to buy the same stuff on a traditional High Street.
I'm not sure what part the government could/should play in this. Suffice to say that ordinary people need to accept that life itself has changed, accept that and amend their diet/exercise regime to reflect that.
FWIW, I eat what the hell I please, cycle a fair amount (124 miles per week average over the last 4 weeks, and that's low because I've got bruised ribs) and I've managed to lose weight at a reasonably low, but steady rate over the past couple of years. And Friday night is ALWAYS take-away night in my world!
AW111 said:
Marry a diabetic with coeliac disease - you eat healthy, low-gi meals every day 
I'm in the hospital for a camera up the arris next week. They want a look, because I had persistent squits. Since I had the first consultation, I've cut a lot of the carbohydrate out of my diet, and as a result, eat bread fairly infrequently. I've noticed that the symptoms go away when I'm not eating bread.RizzoTheRat said:
My wife teaches at a 6th form college, they've changed to a healthier menu in the canteen and removed all the vending machines that used to sell chocolates and fizzy drinks. The teachers are all moaning that they can't eat chips and sugary drinks and loads of the kids wander over the road to McDonalds for lunch 
Farnborough 6th Form College? Both my boys went there, the youngest is off to uni next month. To be fair, Maccie D's is a 1.2 mile round trip so they're getting some exercise fetching their burgers and fries......they're probably eating healthier meals than my boy to be honest. He just took ham sandwiches made with white bread, and a chocolate bar, most days, and didn't have that 1.2 mile walk to fetch it.
That's a good post and as you say in many ways similar to me.
I was born in 66, one of 5 kids.
We simply didn't see the amount of food a youngster gets nowadays.
I remember we would go to the seaside for the day and all day was spent on the beach, in and out of the water, playing about. We weren't eating every five minutes, we had a picnic. A few jam or fish paste sarnies, orange squash and a packet of salt n vinegar.
We didn't eat tin the car on the way home either, there was simply a lot less food available.
Money would have been a factor but more importantly was that we were fed at mealtimes, do these even exist now?
We touched on portion sizes as well. look at what people tuck away now. A bag of crisps is a family pack, people don't drink a small glass of wine, open a bottle and 'Glug' it's gone, Pizza's are massive, people go to the supermarket 3 or 4 times a week, they eat while they are walking around, always something in their mouths.
Go abroad and play spot the Brit, it isn't difficult. they will stand out a mile! They will be at the cheapest cafe getting a full English for 4 euros, be covered in tattoos and have a belly that is a testament to their lifestyle (i'm generalising of course)
But why should they be helped? No point really, they won't do what someone tells them, they are fine eating, drinking playing on their phone.
I was born in 66, one of 5 kids.
We simply didn't see the amount of food a youngster gets nowadays.
I remember we would go to the seaside for the day and all day was spent on the beach, in and out of the water, playing about. We weren't eating every five minutes, we had a picnic. A few jam or fish paste sarnies, orange squash and a packet of salt n vinegar.
We didn't eat tin the car on the way home either, there was simply a lot less food available.
Money would have been a factor but more importantly was that we were fed at mealtimes, do these even exist now?
We touched on portion sizes as well. look at what people tuck away now. A bag of crisps is a family pack, people don't drink a small glass of wine, open a bottle and 'Glug' it's gone, Pizza's are massive, people go to the supermarket 3 or 4 times a week, they eat while they are walking around, always something in their mouths.
Go abroad and play spot the Brit, it isn't difficult. they will stand out a mile! They will be at the cheapest cafe getting a full English for 4 euros, be covered in tattoos and have a belly that is a testament to their lifestyle (i'm generalising of course)
But why should they be helped? No point really, they won't do what someone tells them, they are fine eating, drinking playing on their phone.
Thankyou4calling said:
That's a good post and as you say in many ways similar to me.
I was born in 66, 5 kids.
We simply didn't see the amount of food a youngster gets nowadays.
I remember we would go to the seaside for the day and all day was spent on the beach, in and out of the water, playing about. We weren't eating every five minutes, we had a picnic. A few jam or fish paste sarnies, orange squash and a packet of salt n vinegar.
We didn't eat tin the car on the way home either, there was simply a lot less food available.
Money would have been a factor but more importantly was that we were fed at mealtimes, do these even exist now?
We touched on portion sizes as well. look at what people tuck away now. A bag of crisps is a family pack, people don't drink a small glass of wine, open a bottle and 'Glug' it's gone, Pizza's are massive, people go to the supermarket 3 or 4 times a week, they eat while they are walking around, always something in their mouths.
Go abroad and play spot the Brit, it isn't difficult. they will stand out a mile! They will be at the cheapest cafe getting a full English for 4 euros, be covered in tattoos and have a belly that is a testament to their lifestyle (i'm generalising of course)
But why should they be helped? No point really, they won't do what someone tells them, they are fine eating, drinking playing on their phone.
I too was born in 1966, and your experiences echo mine when growing up. Set meal times, nothing in-between except water and perhaps bread and butter if we were playing outside all day. I don't think we hardly sat down most of the day!I was born in 66, 5 kids.
We simply didn't see the amount of food a youngster gets nowadays.
I remember we would go to the seaside for the day and all day was spent on the beach, in and out of the water, playing about. We weren't eating every five minutes, we had a picnic. A few jam or fish paste sarnies, orange squash and a packet of salt n vinegar.
We didn't eat tin the car on the way home either, there was simply a lot less food available.
Money would have been a factor but more importantly was that we were fed at mealtimes, do these even exist now?
We touched on portion sizes as well. look at what people tuck away now. A bag of crisps is a family pack, people don't drink a small glass of wine, open a bottle and 'Glug' it's gone, Pizza's are massive, people go to the supermarket 3 or 4 times a week, they eat while they are walking around, always something in their mouths.
Go abroad and play spot the Brit, it isn't difficult. they will stand out a mile! They will be at the cheapest cafe getting a full English for 4 euros, be covered in tattoos and have a belly that is a testament to their lifestyle (i'm generalising of course)
But why should they be helped? No point really, they won't do what someone tells them, they are fine eating, drinking playing on their phone.
walm said:
rxe said:
walm said:
I am no Chris Froom but 80 miles in a day on a bike isn't for the faint-hearted.
People actually do "training" for the London-to-Brighton bike ride and that is only 58 miles.
That's the point. 40 years ago that sort of distance on a bike didn't require training, preparation and a 4 grand bike. Its the sort of thing a bunch of kids did at the weekend because they were all as fit as a butcher's dog. These days people think the London to Brighton is some superhuman achievement that requires sponsorship.People actually do "training" for the London-to-Brighton bike ride and that is only 58 miles.
40 miles at 15 mph (which is a really, really easy speed to maintain on the flat) - 3 hours. 3 hours there, 6 hours swimming, 4 hours back - probably burned through 6000 calories. Which of course is why they were skinny.
But I still think you are massively exaggerating.
I just don't believe ANYONE "thinks nothing" of 7 hours in the saddle.
Although perhaps it is just my fat ass that would really struggle!!
chris watton said:
I too was born in 1966, and your experiences echo mine when growing up. Set meal times, nothing in-between except water and perhaps bread and butter if we were playing outside all day. I don't think we hardly sat down most of the day!
We were told to get out and we were threatened, lest we return before tea time.Now, many wrap their kids in cotton wool and project manage them.
otolith said:
Did you weigh the cereal? And the rice?
This really pisses me off. This is a still from an Alpen advert.
This is an actual official sized portion of the stuff, 140-ish calories of it - the bowl on the right.
Easy to see how people pour themselves a 500 calorie breakfast without even being aware of it.
Seems to me that you had a breakfast of mostly starch and sugar, a lunch of starch and a little bit of protein and a dinner of more starch and sugar. You might find that you are less hungry if you eat less carbohydrate, less sugar and more protein.
Out of interest, I once did the 'weigh the cereal' thing to work out how much extra I was eating above the 'portion size'. Turns out it's roughly 3 to 4 times what's recommended. And I'm under no illusion that I eat too much of it neither. Nor that my 'healthy' granola is stuffed full of sugars of one sort or another. I overdo the milk on cereal too. But I don't care much as it's usually stuffed into my face as fuel for long bike rides, so I'm deliberately looking to 'overdo' the calories at breakfast. Same as those sachets of porridge. One isn't enough, two is a little too much, and tamped with sugar if, like me, you like the sweet-tasting flavoured varieties. Thing is, if I'm not off exercising that day then a couple of slices of buttered toast will do me 'til mid afternoon. I base what I eat on what I need, not mindlessly falling into a habitual breakfast routine.This really pisses me off. This is a still from an Alpen advert.
This is an actual official sized portion of the stuff, 140-ish calories of it - the bowl on the right.
Easy to see how people pour themselves a 500 calorie breakfast without even being aware of it.
Seems to me that you had a breakfast of mostly starch and sugar, a lunch of starch and a little bit of protein and a dinner of more starch and sugar. You might find that you are less hungry if you eat less carbohydrate, less sugar and more protein.
yellowjack said:
Out of interest, I once did the 'weigh the cereal' thing to work out how much extra I was eating above the 'portion size'. Turns out it's roughly 3 to 4 times what's recommended. And I'm under no illusion that I eat too much of it neither. Nor that my 'healthy' granola is stuffed full of sugars of one sort or another. I overdo the milk on cereal too. But I don't care much as it's usually stuffed into my face as fuel for long bike rides, so I'm deliberately looking to 'overdo' the calories at breakfast. Same as those sachets of porridge. One isn't enough, two is a little too much, and tamped with sugar if, like me, you like the sweet-tasting flavoured varieties. Thing is, if I'm not off exercising that day then a couple of slices of buttered toast will do me 'til mid afternoon. I base what I eat on what I need, not mindlessly falling into a habitual breakfast routine.
It's not really a problem if you're aware of it. But a lot of people aren't. Even if you don't keep it up, the process of weighing and accounting for everything can be quite eye-opening, particularly if you tend to cook from scratch. A "knob of butter" looks a bit different after you've seen how much difference five or ten grams makes... Likewise a bit of flour for thickening.
otolith said:
I'm in the hospital for a camera up the arris next week. They want a look, because I had persistent squits. Since I had the first consultation, I've cut a lot of the carbohydrate out of my diet, and as a result, eat bread fairly infrequently. I've noticed that the symptoms go away when I'm not eating bread.
Gluten related?21TonyK said:
Burwood said:
are you serious-a school dinner/lunch? Wow, that's nice-10/10
Yeah that's a Friday (still fish day in schools). We still have proper fish and chips once a month bur other days its things like salmon fillet with parsley sauce or we do a healthier home made oven baked version of KFC which of course all the kids go mad for.No reason why school meals cant be good and healthy, I work on a budget of £1.21 a meal including a dessert.
My version of KFC with fresh vegetable rice.
Same thing in the army with budget too. We'd pay somewhere around the £2.50 to £3 per day mark out of wages for food, but the master chef was tasked with providing 3 meals per man per day from his budget which was based on the central 'Daily Messing Rate' of £1.50-ish. The only way he could do this was by cooking fewer breakfasts (lots of squaddies can't be arsed to get up early for breakfast) and subsidising the meals more men attended with what he saved.
Those meals in your pictures look nice. Small portions (to my greedy eye) but nice. I was always frustrated at my younger son's attitude to food. He was very fussy, and seldom came home anything other than starving. Yet we knew there was stuff he could eat because the school was pretty good at publishing their menus, and what they did cook wasn't anywhere near as terrible as what we faced at 'school dinners'. Worst one I remember was 'hedgehog pudding'. It was meant to be either cottage or shepherd's pie, but because dinners were cooked at another school and kept hot to serve at ours, the meat often dried out to the point of being inedible, looking like hedgehogs roasted with the spines still on!
Halb said:
otolith said:
I'm in the hospital for a camera up the arris next week. They want a look, because I had persistent squits. Since I had the first consultation, I've cut a lot of the carbohydrate out of my diet, and as a result, eat bread fairly infrequently. I've noticed that the symptoms go away when I'm not eating bread.
Gluten related?Thankyou4calling said:
And so many people have food allergies and intolerances now.
Gluten, wheat, dairy, nuts, eggs.
They never seem to be allergic to KFC, Pizza, McDonalds or Greggs sausage rolls.
Fine with that.
Dunno about that, seems to be a particular obsession of middle class women. Gluten, wheat, dairy, nuts, eggs.
They never seem to be allergic to KFC, Pizza, McDonalds or Greggs sausage rolls.
Fine with that.
Halb said:
Science is progress. People have always had intolerances. Now they can be diagnosed.
There are an awful lot of people who actively hunt down their next illness, disease, intolerance or disability as it allows them to justify their circumstances.Most are surrounded by like minded thinkers who when told agree.
Many people who claim to have a food intolerance don't have one, they are fussy eaters. It allows them to devour certain foods and when they get fat they can put it down to their "Condition"
It's another excuse.
Thankyou4calling said:
There are an awful lot of people who actively hunt down their next illness, disease, intolerance or disability as it allows them to justify their circumstances.
Most are surrounded by like minded thinkers who when told agree.
Many people who claim to have a food intolerance don't have one, they are fussy eaters. It allows them to devour certain foods and when they get fat they can put it down to their "Condition"
It's another excuse.
In my circle of people whom I know, I doubt any of them are making their conditions up. I would guess there are people who are hypochondriacs or similar, as in all things, and they make up a tiny proportion of the people who say they are sufferers.Most are surrounded by like minded thinkers who when told agree.
Many people who claim to have a food intolerance don't have one, they are fussy eaters. It allows them to devour certain foods and when they get fat they can put it down to their "Condition"
It's another excuse.
yellowjack said:
I'd happily go out for 7 hours of riding, and think little of it. I can just about keep to a 15mph average on a flat-ish 100 miler. Seeing people with 'training plans' for the likes of London to Brighton and any number of sportive events makes me giggle at first. Then it fills me with sadness because they really do need that help to ride 60 or 70 miles? I'm more than happy to grab my bike from the garage, pump up the tyres, and set off for a hundred miler with a few muesli bars and a charged phone. Pace-wise, I'm pretty slow, too, although I compare favourably with others when I'm properly trying on off road MTB sections. Plenty of decent amateur riders can average 17 to 20 miles per hour on long, lumpy road rides. And bulk often doesn't come into it. My BMI is 26.0 (overweight) but my body fat % is 20% which is near 'Excellent' on the machine used to measure it. Yet I'm 'dropped' on occasion by older chaps who'd look more at home in a cardiac ward, judging by their body size.
London to Brighton training = don't get smashed the night before, make sure the bike works. I've done it a few times, spent a lot of the miles walking in bike traffic jams. Awful experience. If you're going to do it, start in the first wave and just spank it down there in a few hours. Ride back to Gatwick and get the express home.Etape Training - different matter. I was doing 200 miles a week and an evening run was 10 miles absolutely flat out until you nearly puked. Never quite managed the 30 average for a 10, but I was 28.something pretty regularly. Long distance rides were daft things like London to Ludlow trying to keep a reasonable average of about 18/19. The Etape itself was 190km and 5 alps the year I did it.
otolith said:
Yes, on the same basis you can have nine Mars bars for breakfast and be OK.
The point is that very many people systematically overeat. And we have an obesity problem. And we have cereal manufacturers quoting portion sizes that nobody understands to be a portion, not least because the adverts show a f
king great bowl of it. That's the problem with trying to pin the problem on one factor - it's many factors. It's not the fizzy drink, or the oversized cereal portion, or the 190 calorie cups of coffee, or the bits of crisps or biscuits or chocolate between meals, or the take-out or lack of portion control or the pint or glass of wine - it's all of them, cumulatively.
Pretty much. Till reading this thread never even bothered to read cereals portion sizing / weight bowl of cereals. Those pictures really drove message home. The point is that very many people systematically overeat. And we have an obesity problem. And we have cereal manufacturers quoting portion sizes that nobody understands to be a portion, not least because the adverts show a f
king great bowl of it. That's the problem with trying to pin the problem on one factor - it's many factors. It's not the fizzy drink, or the oversized cereal portion, or the 190 calorie cups of coffee, or the bits of crisps or biscuits or chocolate between meals, or the take-out or lack of portion control or the pint or glass of wine - it's all of them, cumulatively.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff