General Chat

Will now be forced to display calorie counts for all their food in a bid to reduce childhood obesity. If it ever comes in then it will be interesting to see how many people it actually helps.

It’s late you’re tired and your child is hungry. Your local takeaway does a child’s half pizza and chips, burger and chips, sausage and chips etc a lolly pop and a child’s drink for £2.00. Are you going to stop and look at the calories or see a quick and easy way of keeping your child happy.

We all know that children’s waistlines are expanding sometimes to truly terrifying sizes but in my opinion unless we change people’s attitudes to food displaying calories alone won’t help.

What do others think?

Yes, a change of attitude is needed, all the rest is just picking round the edges.

I could rant for ages, but can't be bothered!

They should teach nutrition and proper cooking in schools.

Albeit many years ago, but in one secondary school my children went to, 'food tech' was looking at the contents of a shop bought pizza - and the children had to take a pizza box in :-(
As mine were never fed pizza, I had to buy one especially for them - and they weren't impressed - either time (they were in different years) - so we had the box.
They spent 2 minutes looking at the ingredients - never discussed what they 'actually' were - didn't go on to make a pizza from scratch and compare ingredients. They spent the next 2 lessons designing a pizza box!

When I worked in the same school years later, this 'informative' (sarcasm) task was still being taught. :-| :-| :-|

Showing the calorific content isn’t going to change children’s fast food habits. If it’s only occasionally, there’s no problem. The problems arise when it’s a frequent, regular event.

Food Technology lessens are a laugh. Even if food content is analysed, there often isn’t enough time to cook a more balanced dish. “Next week we’ll make sausage rolls.” Doh!

Although it sounds elitist, sending older children away to college/university is a wake up call. They suddenly realise they can’t afford takeaways every day & learn to cook pasta in all its variations. They may be getting the carbs, but not the fats. Fruit & veg eventually kicks in.

I don't think showing the calories will help at all. Parents who care are already only using these meals as occasional treats and those who aren't bothered won't be swayed by a bit of small print on the box.

A change of attitude is needed but I am not sure how you would go about this as people - me included - don't like being told what to do by the "nanny" state.

I think a lot could be achieved by a bigger emphasis on physical games and exercise. I know some primary schools now incorporate a "run a mile" programme into their daily schedule. It only takes 15 minutes of the school day but head teachers are saying there are noticeable improvements in both the children's physical fitness and their academic performance.

They should ask themselves how many smokers gave up smoking when the dangers were printed on packets, how many have been deterred by packets being plain. How many are put off alcolhol by warnings on bottles.
As vera says it is exercise that matters, plus as others have said a change of attitude. If the parents didn't eat takeaways regularly the children probably wouldn't form the habit.

We were impressed in Spain, and I know that this was easier for them because of the location and weather but, every day coach loads of school children, all ages, would unload onto the beach where there is an outdoor 'adventure' centre. they would start with exercises, then they would canoe, sail swim, race along the sand. Theyw ere never still and (I particularly took notice), I could not see a single over weight child or teenager among them.

Another thing we spotted at close of the school day was the nuber of groups being walked home from school. (By the way we also saw this in South wales - the 'walking bus')

As Vera has mentioned, those schools which instigate the run a mile programme have found how it improves their fitness and their work, and I did read that their parents also said they slept better at night.

Obesity and Type 2 diabetes are a big problem in Spain the UK is not unique with its problems. Spain is a large country not all of it is sunny and mild. Even in Murcia winters are cold and wet while Madrid goes from searing heat at this time of year to deep frozen cold in the winter. It has terrible smog problems so crocodiling the kids to school might not be a good move. Spanish kids by and large prefer video games and smart phones to exercise just like anywhere else.

What is very, very different in Spain is that families still (for the most part) eat together, at least one person in the household knows how to cook and of course the food is delicious. That makes it easier to control what people eat if not the amount. Spanish portions are uber generous.

Over the last 30 years cigarette smoking in England and Wales has declined from > 70% smoking to under 30%. Either the campaign against had some effect or there has been an unusual outbreak of common sense. Again there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of people convicted of drink driving although it has risen slightly of recent years. Carrot and stick does work.

The English have always had a prediliction for fast food from the street. Most of the authors writing about the past mention it - Defoe, Shakespeare, Dickens for sure. They don't like to cook, tend not to have the facilities and even if they do avoid it in the usual way.

Even worse there is a gene in the English which makes them crave chocolate more than any other country. Consequently the amount of sugar they eat is astonishing. Over half the country is overweight and a quarter obese. THat is why the NHS is running out of money not lack of funding.

Going back to Thatcher the government has been selling off school and community playing fields as building sites, closing sports centres or ppushing up the price beyond what many can afford. Some councils are even charging for park runs while there is a curious and lethal vendetta against cyclists. My GP surgery has 4 secure slots for bicycles and 100 parking places for cars. There is also a sign warning that pushbikes secured at unauth. positions may be removed. To be fair my GP has no problem with me wheeling my bike into his office and leaning it up against his own. LOL.

So we are where we are. Will the Fat Duck at Bray really start putting calorie values and traffic lights on its menus? Maybe as users of smart phone trackers and MyFitnessPal would be delighted. If McDos BurgerKing PizzaHut TGIF and all the rest did the same would it make any difference to the sales of lime pie? I doubt it.

The only quick fix for the NHS and people's health is a hefty tax hike on sugar and alcohol which has a snowflake's chance of success on a hot Monday in June.

The biggest problem is no one can cook from scratch it seems. You can make a healthy meal for a family in 30 mins from scratch, so rushing around isn't the reason ignorance is.

...something no longer taught in many schools.

Have they thought about how much this will cost? If the restaurants have to spend time working out the calories in everything and probably having menus re-printed they are likely to increase the prices to cover the extra work involved.

It's just another idea that seems to work in theory but only by those who don't have to put the ideas into practice.

Kath. x

When my OH makes a pizza she starts with the flour and makes her own base. When we are in France she also makes her own pasta.

There was no such thing as cookery lessons when I was at school. They just didn't do that sort of thing but I did learn a lot of practical astronomy and how to tie flies for fishing.

My granny was a proper chef, trained and qualified in Paris. She had an extremely low opinion of English domestic cooking. She taught me to cook - from scratch - and just as usefully how to buy food withut getting ripped off. The skills were fun as a teenager ( my cheese souffles were v popular) but incredibly useful at uni. Granny no.2 was a whizz at baking bread having started with a big black leaded range. She showed me how and one day as the owner of a 6 door Aga was able to make my own bread too. Modern cookers are not up to much for long slow heat.

I cannot really see why anybody with a grain of sense couldn't work out English staples such as meat pie, shephers pie, spag.bpg., chicken tikka and apple pie though. Schools are not there for teaching life skills that is the job of parenting.

If you can read you can cook!

I think Dermott would agree that reading is rapidly becoming a lost art for a big chunk of the under 25s unless you count decoding the gibberish of an sms text as reading. The same is even more true of writing.

Michael Gove's reforms to the GCSE, which will only fully kick in over the next few years, must be causing sheer panic in the teaching profession where "continuous assessment " amd tick box have been the rule. Moving on to actual reading and writing was never on the agenda.

Just a shame that Gove's reforms ( ability to construe a comprehensible sentence, basic knowledge of the subject matter ) could not be extended to the Cabinet, no.10 and media hacks.

RTR, "Schools are not there for teaching life skills that is the job of parenting"
So, tying flies for fishing, though not exactly a 'life skill', is a necessity is it? :-D :-D

Nutrition is a science, not a life skill.

Food technology imparts mathematics, and surely, if your granny was a 'proper chef', it could be an art?
My mum was a cordon bleu cook, she would call it an art - not one that I'm particularly interested in, but I cook every meal from scratch.
Mum, however, wasn't taught nutrition.
I'm not sure if nutrition was taught at my school, during food technology, I actually managed to avoid cookery at school, however, I learnt about nutrition (and had to do cookery) whilst training to be a nanny.

Whilst the girls did food technology at school, the majority of boys did carpentry. Is that a 'life skill'. Was the girls' lesson less 'important' than carpentry?

In reality, if children (through their parents) have lost the 'knack' of making proper meals, they're hardly going to learn good practice at home, are they?

Okay then if you can't read you can use technology to read it to you so if you can listen you can cook :-)

Hiking a sugar tax is not the answer when the substitutes for sweetness are toxic things like aspartame etc

Many families buy cheap white bread which doesn't have a lot of nutrition, they introduce crisps and fast foods to their toddlers at a very young age because they were given the same stuff, and just prefer to smoke, and buy expensive material things instead of fruit and veg. Education is the way forward.

Lizx

It may affect MY choice for me when deciding what to have as I try to be careful what I eat having lost a lot of weight and not wanting to regain it

Kiddies though I don't think will be bothered

If a mum has fed her kids on takeaways and big meals then don't think they will be bothered by the calorie listing

I agree with you Shirley.........it will help me too! :-) As Caroline says, if you can read you can learn to cook and with the internet there is more than ever before to help. I learned most from the Mrs Beeton book I bought when I got married and still have, not from my mother or school.

I don't think there is a lack of anything but interest and motivation, as it is easier not to cook! If parents have time to run their children all over the place to out of school activities, they have time to eg do a baked potato with healthy accompaniments or a one dish chicken casserole.

The difference nowadays is that children are allowed to demand what they want and often seem to have different meals to each other and to do that from scratch would be time consuming and more expensive.

Schools have enough to do and shouldn't be taking on parental responsibilities except in 'one off' situations. We are already paying higher salaries to teachers than many civil servants get for them to provide and change nappies, teach to talk, hold a spoon, provide breakfast clubs etc. Where do we draw the line? If parents are shifting their responsibilities to the education system, then maybe some of the child benefit should shift as well to cover the cost.

Displaying calorie counts will help some parents be more vigilant about what their children eat and they can then point to the proof if needs be, but it won't affect those parents who don't care.

Working full time and running a home with children is quite a challenge! When my two were small neither I nor my contemporaries would have dreamt of working till the younger was in full time school and then only part time to fit in with half term, holidays etc. In fact we would have been considered bad mothers for leaving young children in the care of strangers, necessary only in wartime as I can verify! Grandparents in those far off days were not automatically ear marked for baby sitting duties while mum worked, far from it!! occasionally maybe but not on a regular basis, nor would it have been wanted!! Therefore those stay at home or part time mums had the time and energy to run the family home efficiently including cooking proper meals, without feeling completely worn out. Nowadays, as my daughter would confirm, working full time, then coming home to washing ironing cooking and cleaning, together with weekends spent doing roughly the same with shopping and perhaps gardening thrown in, is actually exhausting, however much help you get from your other half! Yes children do have a lot of outside activities these days, and they do have to be ferried around , conscientious parents will do this willingly, grannies have been known to! as we all want the best for our children when the opportunity is there. Imo the odd take away can be a godsend!!

Many of the large chain restaurants already provide nutritional information.

It's not displayed in the premises but it's listed on their web pages.
EG: Weatherspoons.

McDonalds already have the nutritonal info printed on all of their packaging.
About a year ago they stopped listing the carbohydrate content.

They say they did this because the FSA advised them that it wasn't necessary.

Apparently, the FSA don't think that T1 Diabetics need to know the carb count ?