Questions for the Childhood Obesity Summit

[LivingLoud]

Tomorrow I am going to the Childhood Obesity Summit in London.
They will all be there, the politicians, the NHS, Public Health England, the food lobbyists, the scientists and the campaigners
I'm going because as a volunteer for Sugar Smart I can get a ticket, I also want some answers.
So, my question to you....what questions would you like me to raise?
I'll try and corner the right people, get answers and post what I get back on the boards.

 

[ickihun]

Please can you ask why there is no longer any FREE sports facilities for young children. After school activities are at childcare rate plus some. If more than one child financially impossible for parents to commit to on low income. Eg. 9yr old has 1hr PE in term time only. Not enough encouragement to keep active. Swimming pool costs have increased just to part privatisation so had to stop. Bicycle too small and no money to replace until a family members help after xmas. So no continuity in activity. Dark nights no safe playing areas for 9yr olds without costs hundreds of pounds.
Children are encouraged to hide in their bedrooms til they're old enough to go on-line to socialise.
Where can children mix/socialise safely without a bill for the priviledge. Scouts are fully booked up as less places than children. Yoga or zumba for a typical boy if name pulled out of a hat.
Every child should be offered some place, somewhere!

 

[LivingLoud]

Please can you ask why there is no longer any FREE sports facilities for young children. After school activities are at childcare rate plus some. If more than one child financially impossible for parents to commit to on low income. Eg. 9yr old has 1hr PE in term time only. Not enough encouragement to keep active. Swimming pool costs have increased just to part privatisation so had to stop. Bicycle too small and no money to replace until a family members help after xmas. So no continuity in activity. Dark nights no safe playing areas for 9yr olds without costs hundreds of pounds.
Children are encouraged to hide in their bedrooms til they're old enough to go on-line to socialise.
Where can children mix/socialise safely without a bill for the priviledge. Scouts are fully booked up as less places than children. Yoga or zumba for a typical boy if name pulled out of a hat.
Every child should be offered some place, somewhere!

Oh i so agree with you.
Its not rocket science is it. There are, of course, a tiny percentage of kids that just have crazy fat making metabolisms. But for most its simple, they eat too much of the wrong thing and don't get enough exercise for all the reasons you have listed. I've also noticed with my 7 year old that if he doesn't get a run around by 11 he goes stir crazy. We need more exercise in schools. I see what gets said about that report back.

 

[azure]

Hi I'd like you to ask why the government isn't promoting half size proper meals in cafes and restaurants rather than allowing them to serve Kiddies Meals that are generally full of ****. Children need real food.

I'd also like you to,ask whether they've considered giving extra money to promoting breastfeeding (as breastfed babies are less likely to be/become obese) and getting rid of some of those disgusting follow-on/toddlers milks or at least stopping the advertising of them.

Also, I'd like you to ask why the government aren't investing in bringing back cookery lessons to schools as I think some parents struggle with cooking so rely on processed foods too much.

Thsnk you

 

[Squire Fulwood]

Children seem to like the type of foods that are prepared. Nuggets, dippers, noodles, fish fingers, fish cakes, pizzas, sausages, chips etc and all washed down with fizzy drinks. Can something be done to educate parents to the fact that this kind of diet is much heavier in carbohydrates than it might appear. Many of these foods are spiked with flour and/or rusk in order to bulk them out and make them cheaper to manufacture.

When do children see any of the real food that this site advocates.

 

[serenity648]

School meals...................why cant school meals be tasty and nutritious?

 

[Squire Fulwood]

School meals...................why cant school meals be tasty and nutritious?

Funny you should mention that because I was talking to someone about that recently. Ever since the Jamie Oliver assault on school meals they only seem to eat tuna salad or that is what I am led to believe every time the BBC reports on it.

 

[Squire Fulwood]

I was in a chippy one day when a group of children came in and caused a bigger queue so I had time to talk. I asked them what was on the menu in the school next door that caused them to go outside to a chippy. I was told that they didn't know what was on the menu and that wasn't the problem. The young girl (leader) said that for £1.10p she got this big bag of chips from the chippy but when she went to school dinner she only got five chips.

 

[azure]

Children seem to like the type of foods that are prepared. Nuggets, dippers, noodles, fish fingers, fish cakes, pizzas, sausages, chips etc and all washed down with fizzy drinks. Can something be done to educate parents to the fact that this kind of diet is much heavier in carbohydrates than it might appear. Many of these foods are spiked with flour and/or rusk in order to bulk them out and make them cheaper to manufacture.

When do children see any of the real food that this site advocates.

They eat what they're used to (until they get older, at least). So my children do eat real food.

 

[Squire Fulwood]

They eat what they're used to (until they get older, at least). So my children do eat real food.

Well that's at least one I can talk about.

 

[ickihun]

Funny you should mention that because I was talking to someone about that recently. Ever since the Jamie Oliver assault on school meals they only seem to eat tuna salad or that is what I am led to believe every time the BBC reports on it.

My 9yr old gets tuna wraps, fish with football mash. I hope not frozen processed mash? No choice for parents with regards to meal decisions.
How can meal be balanced when they don't know what's been served at home?
Mine has toast or cereal for breakfast but occasionally eggs instead. Mine aren't diabetic nor prediabetic so they produce and process insulin properly. Then fish or chicken dish for dinner, with veg but not overloaded with veg as it puts them off. They eat treats given by their only grandparent on a weekend.

 

[mist]

How do children get obese? Doesn't it take years of dedicated overeating to achieve such a status?

That's what I want to know.

McDonalds I'm looking at you!

 

[Brunneria]

How do children get obese? Doesn't it take years of dedicated overeating to achieve such a status?

That's what I want to know.

McDonalds I'm looking at you!

You may find this video interesting.
In it, a practicing gp states that when she sees 'a fat kid' she doesn't automatically see a kid who has a bad diet. Instead, she sees a kid with insulin resistance.

Because of course, there are plenty of slim kids/people with bad diets, aren't there?

 

[Indy51]

Doesn't it take years of dedicated overeating to achieve such a status?

Actually, these days it doesn't - with all the hormone disrupting chemicals in today's environment, add C-sections, add insulin resistant mothers, add formula feeding instead of breast feeding, add all sorts of other environmental factors and babies are often obese at birth or within months of birth. Neonates have environmental chemicals in their blood at birth. Feed them juice and rice cereals and ****** processed food and children are now being diagnosed with Type 2 at 18 months of age. The statistics are terrifying

 

[Squire Fulwood]

How do children get obese? Doesn't it take years of dedicated overeating to achieve such a status?

That's what I want to know.

McDonalds I'm looking at you!

Professor Lustig says that he is getting six month old babies in his clinic now. He specialises in obese children. He says the reason is that the mother dips a pacifier (he's American and means a dummy) in syrup and stuffs it in the baby's mouth to shut it up.

 

[serenity648]

Obesity cause is far from straightforward. If most of a population eat a certain way, and only some of them get obese, or diabetes t2, then something more than weight gain is going on.

Not all, in fact, most obese people dont become diabetic t2. I wonder why? and a whole 15% of those who become type 2s are thin. This jumping to conclusions and blaming people should stop, and proper research without pre-concieved theories should start.

It occurred to me last night that, evolutionarily speaking, those who lay down fat easily are the survivors of famines. So the fat grabbing gene is a good thing, and has been for thousands of years.

 

[AndBreathe]

How did it all go today, @LivingLoud ?

 

[LivingLoud]

How did it all go today, @LivingLoud ?

Here's my match report:

The stats are horrible, here is a taste
- 1 in 10 kids arriving at reception are obese
- 1 in 5 leave primary school are obese
- the poorest kids are twice as likely to be obese than the wealthier kids
- it's getting worse
- NHS guy in charge of diabetes confirmed 4m diabetics + 5m pre-diabetics

the government obesity strategy was inadequate with many important measures around reformulating and fair marketing removed. Sarah Wollaston MP who leads the health committee made the valid point that we need to make the best of this. The key initiative was reducing sugar in food by 20% by 2020.

Lots of ideas for schools with targets and assessment by OFSTED to encourage schools to be healthier.
A fair bit of avoiding the issue from the food and drink people - key issues for them is reformulating products with less sugar
Everybody agreed that it is complicated, which i think was a way of saying it is difficult.

Mostly it was academics spending huge sums on research that was obvious - err people eat to much bad food + policy makers having to be to keep the food and advertising industry engaged by being nice + plus a small bad of great people working in charities with little budget who I am trying to help in my own little way.