change 4 life campaign

[sixfoot]

IVE JUST TRIED TO GET IN TO THE WEB SITE AND HAVE FAILED MISERABLEY. MY MOTIVE BEING TO LET THEM KNOW THAT I THINK THE MESSAGE IS FLAWED. HAS ANYONE ELSE TRIED THE SITE YET. I SHOULD HAVE THOUGH YOU LOW CARBERS WOULD BE THERE IN YOUR DROVES

 

[catherinecherub]

I have seen the website and if you click "contact us" there is only a telephone number, 0300 1234567 and it is manned Mon - Fri from 9.am - 6.00pm.

 

[IanD]

NO PROBLEM GETTING IN - THE PROBLEM IS THE DISINFORMATION.

What do we actually want the public to do?

We want parents and children to eat better and move more. We need to influence them to incrementally change their behaviours around food and physical activity.

We recognise that the behaviours we are asking people to change – how they shop, how they cook, how they eat, how they travel, how they play – are not easy. Some of them are hard to do once; all of them are hard to change for life. They will need incentives to change and sustained support as they try to embed those changes in their lives.

Using the findings from the research, we are developing a set of behaviour change goals and messages - such as eating five fruit and veg a day, taking 60 minutes activity a day, cutting back on fatty foods.

Presumably the message is EAT MORE STARCHY FOOD with your 5-a-day.

Now our single mums are being encouraged out to work, and do more home cooking, AND take the children for an hour's run & football in the park, the problem of obesity should soon be solved.

 

[IanD]

References needed :!:

The link between obesity and preventable illnesses, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, is undeniable...

 

[VBee]

My mother in law was on about this yesterday. She avoided looking at me, but she did mention diabetes. There were soooo many things I wanted to say. This is the woman who shoves leaflets from Weightwatchers in front of me and tuts when I mention low carb because "I don't know better than the doctors"... I could just give her the BloodSugar101 book to read. :roll:

 

[phoenix]

References needed

Ian, if you really want references, read DIET, NUTRITION ANDTHE PREVENTION OF CHRONIC DISEASES.
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/who_TRS_916.pdf
This is a World Health Organisation document: government policies will be informed by it.The evidence for the causes of obesity , and the causes of the various chronic diseasese are summarised and evaluated.( table 7 for obesity, tables 9, 10 and 11 for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, categorise the strength of the evidence) You will then need to read the individual chapters and perhaps follow up the research papers to properly evaluate it for yourself.
You may not agree with their evaluations, thats your privilege as an individual, governments necessarily have to rely on 'expert's to evaluate the evidence for them.

 

[phoenix]

It is right to be sceptical about all claims but not to make unfounded contradictions.

It has been reported that Garry Taubes suggests scepticism about his thesis too (I'm careful here because it was in a Daily Telegraph interview)
'When people challenge the establishment, 99.9 per cent of the time they are wrong. If I was writing about me, I'd begin from the assumption that I am both wrong and a quack.'

I actually doubt there is as much business interference in the conduct of individual experimental trials reported in the more credible journals.( but internet publishing has led to a proliferation of less well respected ones)

(anecdote alert ) I mentioned this issue to my son ,an Oxford lecturer in a scientific field. His present research is funded by long standing trust funds, as is much of the research in the older universities.(in both the UK and US) His earlier research was funded by the STFC, no big business involved at all.
Apparently this suggestion had been discussed recently at dinner .There was no support for at all for it and some anger at the suggestion that they could be so easily influenced, particularly when publishing in the higher rated journals (the lower rated ones, were 'of course' not worth publishing in). Research scientists tend to be 'bolshy', argumentative individuals who often do not acept the percieved wisdom or common sense arguments.

 

[IanD]

References needed

Ian, if you really want references, read DIET, NUTRITION AND THE PREVENTION OF CHRONIC DISEASES.
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/who_TRS_916.pdf
This is a World Health Organisation document: government policies will be informed by it.The evidence for the causes of obesity , and the causes of the various chronic diseasese are summarised and evaluated.( table 7 for obesity, tables 9, 10 and 11 for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, categorise the strength of the evidence) You will then need to read the individual chapters and perhaps follow up the research papers to properly evaluate it for yourself.
You may not agree with their evaluations, thats your privilege as an individual, governments necessarily have to rely on 'expert's to evaluate the evidence for them.

Thank you, Phoenix. I have skimmed through the report.

Looking at the Annex summary (pp 147-8) they report that:
Convincing correlations with diabetes are achieved by: obesity; abdominal obesity; inactivity & maternal diabetes.
Reverse convincing correlations are with: voluntary weight loss; physical activity.
Probable convincing correlations are: saturated fatty acids, intrauterine growth retardation.
Probable reverse correlations are: dietary fibre; fruit & veg.

They have not observed a diet correlation with "energy dense foods" nor wholegrain cereals.

The obvious conclusion is that it is unhealthy to be overweight & sedentary. I don't think any of us would disagree. Also there is a high incidence of overweight & inactivity so that ALL observed health conditions could be associated with that observation.

The real questions are: "How can the nation's diet be adapted to achieve a healthy weight, & how can regular increased physical activity be promoted widely :?:

 

[phoenix]

Thankyou for looking at it Ian, I get a bit fed up with reports of what people say that scientists say rather than what they actually do say! If you have time look at the correlations between obseity and 'energy dense foods'

How can the nation's diet be adapted to achieve a healthy weight, & how can regular increased physical activity be promoted widely?

the same report agrees with you they suggest what needs to be done,

For children and adolescents, prevention of obesity implies the need to:
promote an active lifestyle;
limit television viewing;
promote the intake of fruits and vegetables;
restrict the intake of energy-dense, micronutrient-poor foods (e.g.
packaged snacks);
restrict the intake of sugars-sweetened soft drinks.
Additional measures include modifying the environment to enhance
physical activity in schools and communities, creating more opportunities
for family interaction (e.g. eating family meals), limiting the
exposure of young children to heavy marketing practices of energydense,
micronutrient-poor foods, and providing the necessary information
and skills to make healthy food choices.

Which is what I suggest the present campaign is seeking to do. Whether or not it iwill be successful is the question.
From my own experience many children can tell you what they should eat and do, my 6 year old grandaughter can. However, unless parents provide the right guidance and eat a good diet themselves then neither will the children. ( I think most of us will sometimes eat the 'wrong' things because of ease or palatability , 'luckily' I've got a BG monitor to put me back on track).

I have known fairly large numbers of children (from Ealing and Harrow, so not a milllion miles from you) who come to school carrying their fizzy drink bought on the way for breakfast, have crisps, jam sanwiches on sliced white and a chocolate bar for lunch, returning home via Mc Ds for something with chips. ( a mixture of fat and carbs but very few nutrients)
There are also those people who really don't understand the message 'crisps are potatoes aren't they' or as I saw on one TV programme a hugely obese man eating a tub of Kentucky Fried' His wife was saying how they were following doctors orders and eating chicken .