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The last couple of weeks have been really interesting in the media regarding health, nutrition and fitness.
We were told that Britain needs to go on a diet.
Public Health England are asking food producers, manufacturers and supermarkets etc to reduce the calories in their products by 20%.
I’m “slightly” sceptical about how this will be achieved. I think a 20% reduction in size without a reduction in the cost would lead to government-endorsed bigger profits.
The easier way would be to simply change the printing on a product label to say 8 portions instead of 6 on a pizza.
How many of us actually pay any attention to the serving size?
Again, naively focus is on the calories of the product rather than the product itself.
I’m sure carrot farmers won’t be worried about changing their labels or serving size recommendations.
Something does have to be done but blaming manufacturers et al is not the way. We need to take responsibility for our own health particularly the food that we eat.
There needs to be a change in the way we are educated about food and diets.
Schools can help but they are already under too much to produce children that pass exams rather than lead lives as successful humans.
Subjects like home economics, learning to cook, manage finances, even sew a button on, are now rare on a timetable. K has just lost her weekly PE class of her timetable, we’ll know why at parents evening next week.
She’s only 4 and already the one physical activity class she had in school per week has been swapped.
She’s lucky, we lead a pretty active life and she gets lots of change to burn of excess energy and razzle.
According to PHE, 1 in 5 children arrive at primary school, 1 in 3 leave primary school are classified as obese.
I personally don’t think children should be put on diets, I think it sends the wrong message about food in to adulthood. I think that increasing activity should be a focus and educating children about how food affects the body. Encouraging them to enjoyment and the experiences of eating a wide variety of foods.
It’s hard work, I know that. Our kids arrived with some eating issues, after 18 months they”re in a much better place but it’s still an ongoing process.
We keep it simple, we try lots of different foods and have them on all of our plates and encourage them to try. It can take weeks of having the food on the plate before it is even picked up and played with. Long term it will be worth it.
We don’t make a big thing about it.
Hopefully, we’re instilling in them good practises that they will take on to adulthood.
Cancer Research UK have also been accused of “fat shaming”.
They produced a poster that showed the text “Ob_s__y – Guess what is the biggest cause of cancer after smoking”.
To see that as fat shaming is looking for a reason to feel picked on. The statement points out a statement of fact, being obese increases your risk of many forms of cancer.
How obesity is measured with the BMI is flawed but we don’t really need a number to tell us when we are obese or are carrying a few extra pounds.
The campaign was to make the public aware of the risks not shame anybody for being obese.
Obesity and diabetes are crippling the NHS according the media and they are both things that we have a direct control over ourselves. We can take control of the foods that we eat and lose weight, this reduces our risk of diabetes and cancer.
We need to take responsibility of our own and our families health not look for reasons to feel picked on.
I’m against bullying of all forms but this wasn’t bullying or shaming just simple a statement of fact.
I’ve put weight on since the kids moved in, I know that my joints hurt more than they did when I was a / and in better shape.
I’m not blaming anybody for that, I take responsibility for it.
Now Ive just got to take consistent action toward changing it.
Darren ‘a bit ranty’ Checkley
PS Sorry for the rant 🙂
PPS Again I find I’m struggling with adulting and finding the time and head space to write regular emails / blogs. Please bear with me, I’m trying to establish a regular pattern to office work and slowly getting there. I’ve also been spending a lot of time updating our nutrition plan and online programmes, they should be ready just after Easter.
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