Health & Food Nutrition

niamh.foley · 05-08-2014 10:40am #1

after doing a few online courses on coursera on Nutrition,
Watching a few movies on Food and Nutrition on NetFlix and listen to Jamie Oliver on TedTalk,

26.5% of Irish girls and 16% of Irish boys under the age of 20 are classed as overweight or obese. These figures compare to a western European average of 24.2%.

it got me thinking why do we only have PE in school's up ontill junior Cert,

what is stopping the HSE and Minister of Education getting on board and creating a Sports & Nutrition module in 2nd level education ?

love to hear what you all think.

Stench Blossoms · 05-08-2014 11:39am

$$$$$$$

mdolly123 · 05-08-2014 12:29pm

Sadly PE time gets more and more limited coz of insurance and basically crap facilities in schools. Was lucky to have purpose built gym when I was in secondary but it seems to have fallen into decrepitude since then and it all comes back to money. Many kids have no interest in PE at secondary either, they would rather be on their phones or gaming

Mellor · 05-08-2014 1:04pm

People under 20 are overweight because of their diets, not because they stopped ding PE after junior cert

TimeToShine · 05-08-2014 1:25pm

mdolly123 wrote: »

Sadly PE time gets more and more limited coz of insurance and basically crap facilities in schools. Was lucky to have purpose built gym when I was in secondary but it seems to have fallen into decrepitude since then and it all comes back to money. Many kids have no interest in PE at secondary either, they would rather be on their phones or gaming

It's all in the diet anyway but I disagree, if you throw a class of 25 a football and tell them to play soccer for an hour you'll find maybe 3-5 at most won't want to. It's when PE teachers get all high and mighty and try to enforce a joke of a "curriculum" that people start to lose interest. Force people to play ultimate frisbee, rounders etc. (not that I have anything against them) and it's no wonder kids aren't bothered.

Keep it simple. PE teachers are only PE teachers and need to stop acting above their station.

niamh.foley · 05-08-2014 4:46pm

Mellor wrote: »

People under 20 are overweight because of their diets, not because they stopped ding PE after junior cert

There you have because of their diets !

not knowing how and what to eat, some people don't even know what myPlate or the food pyramid is.. its about time we gave young people the tools they need to make the right choice in food and allowing them to pass it onto there kids,

have a walk around time on a Saturday Morning or Mid-day and walking past Burger king have alook inside and you will see about half of the kids in there are over weight stuffing there face with Chips and a Bacon double chesse burger. not's not a hope in hell will they burn that 1,350cals + off in one day..

coffee_cake · 05-08-2014 4:48pm

The food pyramid telling them to eat more bread and pasta isn't going to help

Crann na Beatha · 05-08-2014 9:04pm

This post has been deleted.

SamforMayo · 05-08-2014 9:40pm

Everything cant be handed over to schools. What is stopping parents teaching children about healthy eating, exercise and modelling it as a part of every day life? The obesity crisis starts at home and can only be solved at home in my opinion.

Alf Veedersane · 05-08-2014 9:47pm

SamforMayo wrote: »

Everything cant be handed over to schools. What is stopping parents teaching children about healthy eating, exercise and modelling it as a part of every day life? The obesity crisis starts at home and can only be solved at home in my opinion.

A large part of the problem is a lot of parents are clueless about nutrition, which means in many homes the blind are leading the blind.

It'd be better to give kids a bit of knowledge at least.

I presume they still have a religion class in the junior cycle? Or some variant thereof? Waste of a class.

SamforMayo · 05-08-2014 9:55pm

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

A large part of the problem is a lot of parents are clueless about nutrition, which means in many homes the blind are leading the blind.

It'd be better to give kids a bit of knowledge at least.

I presume they still have a religion class in the junior cycle? Or some variant thereof? Waste of a class.

Well then the simplest thing would be to make home economics compulsory and revamp it. But regardless of how hard you try if the message isn't coming from home this approach will help very few. I know this from trying to police a healthy eating policy in school, lists of banned foods provided, lists of healthy lunches provided, parents spoken to individually about the importance of healthy eating and still some insist on sending in rubbish.

Alf Veedersane · 05-08-2014 10:01pm

SamforMayo wrote: »

Well then the simplest thing would be to make home economics compulsory and revamp it. But regardless of how hard you try if the message isn't coming from home this approach will help very few. I know this from trying to police a healthy eating policy in school, lists of banned foods provided, lists of healthy lunches provided, parents spoken to individually about the importance of healthy eating and still some insist on sending in rubbish.

That just goes to prove you can't just leave it to parents. There would need to be a large scale dissemination of nutrition information to have an impact of any description and even then any turnaround will be slow. But that won't happen any time soon given the efforts made by the government to do anything this far.

SamforMayo · 05-08-2014 10:09pm

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

That just goes to prove you can't just leave it to parents. There would need to be a large scale dissemination of nutrition information to have an impact of any description and even then any turnaround will be slow. But that won't happen any time soon given the efforts made by the government to do anything this far.

I don't know the solution but I do know of the many efforts schools in my area have made to provide healthy eating courses for free, numerous sporting activities for free, providing free fruit to try to get kids interested but to be honest they were poorly supported. The parents that didn't need the info turned up. I feel kids should be weighed more often and early intervention for those overweight. Parents will take more heed of a doctor than a teacher.

niamh.foley · 05-08-2014 10:15pm

When it comes to the home I think people well parents are getting lazier ordering from the local chipper and gettin chinese food maybe in fridays

maybe thr only time they cook is on a sunday and at best we could be taking frozen food,
if you want to get your kids eaten healthly start growing, make smoothies for them jucie fruit and veg, take them to the farmers market,

Why do they still think there is a need to preach about a god for 45 mins in class and not a need to tell people yournkillingnyourself with the sh*t your putting imto your body, alot of school habe a lot of land start getting kids out planting and growing fruit and veg around the school garden

At the end of the day overweight people are costing the tax payers millions every year and clogging up the HSE,
Nothing agaisnt people that are over weight, they are just blind to what the food inc are doing to them and there families.

RidleyRider · 05-08-2014 11:16pm

Most people in my school didn't want to so PE at any time anyway.

They read books or something useless like that:pac:

JJayoo · 06-08-2014 1:13am

Yup in our school it was either kick a football around or sit down.

Health & Food Nutrition

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