Safe food.

20-01-2014 10:44AM #1

Do the Ad from safe food Ireland get on your nerves, you know the ones about children being over weight the latest one is the one about saying no to children in the supermarket, they really annoy me its nanny state over kill and its making parents out to be so stupid that they need to be told to give child size portions to small children. There was also a whole primetime program about the issue which was insulting of a lot of people.

I know there are issue with people becoming over weigh and I would support children being weighted by the public health nurse and the parents being discreetly informed if their child needed to lose weight but that's about it and that how we should deal with it.

force eleven · 20-01-2014 10:46AM

*grabs lo salt no butter popcorn*

Alf Veedersane · 20-01-2014 10:48AM

There are plenty of stuoid parents out there that know less than zero about nutrition. The kind that thinks a that a child-size portion is giving a child a 6-inch pizza while they have a 9-inch pizza.

R.D. aka MR.D · 20-01-2014 10:48AM

Do you also feel insulted by drink driving ads?

Tasden · 20-01-2014 10:51AM

Well obviously something has to be done because parents aren't saying no or doing what they should to stop their kids eating crap. So they're being patronised because they haven't being doing it thus far, no matter how obvious it is.

And the phn weighing and discussing weight is how its done, til a certain age at least, and its not working.
Also people know their kids are overweight and have a bad diet, one person saying it discreetly isn't going to make them change their habits. A national campaign may not either but I'd say it'd do more than a discreet word from a phn Tbh.

jigglypuffstuff · 20-01-2014 10:52AM

mariaalice wrote: »

Do the Ad from safe food Ireland get on your nerves, you know the ones about children being over weight the latest one is the one about saying no to children in the supermarket, they really annoy me its nanny state over kill and its making parents out to be so stupid that they need to be told to give child size portions to small children. There was also a whole primetime program about the issue which was insulting of a lot of people.

I know there are issue with people becoming over weigh and I would support children being weighted by the public health nurse and the parents being discreetly informed if their child needed to lose weight but that's about it and that how we should deal with it.

Well lets look at this logically

Children got fat

Children exercise less

Parents hold the responsibilty to change that

Parents dont encourage kids to exercise enough

Parents feed kids too much and not the right types of food

Parents are ignorant to basic nutrition and physiological wellbeing

Or to put it in your terms

Parents are so stupid that they need to be informed about portion size etc

So wheres your argument again??

20-01-2014 10:52AM

mariaalice wrote: »

its making parents out to be so stupid that they need to be told to give child size portions to small children.

You say that like it's not true.

Lots of parents give their children similar dinners to themselves. Lots of parents know nothing about nutrition (I know my mother didn't have a clue). Even the parents that do know about what they should be feeding their children often give up in order to give their kid something they like because it's less hassle. Yes, there are parents who feed their kids right, but is that any reason to ignore the issue? Just because some uppity parents might get offended because they care more about being seen as good parents than about getting on board with fixing what's starting to look like a national problem.

gramar · 20-01-2014 10:52AM

Looking at some of the porky kids about I'd say some parents do need to be told what to feed their kids.

Unfortunately nowadays fatty foods and treats are an everyday standard as opposed to being an occasional treat to be savoured rather than forming the main part of some kid's diet.

20-01-2014 10:56AM

Well a lot of public information Ad are silly, do you really think people slow down or stop drink driving because an Ad told them to, no they don't change in society does not happen like that.

The weight one is a very complex area and people blame simplistic areas such as the spread of Mc Donald's for example while ignoring the availability of chicken fillet roles in almost every garage.

Alf Veedersane · 20-01-2014 10:58AM

mariaalice wrote: »

The weight one is a very complex area and people blame simplistic areas such as the spread of Mc Donald's for example while ignoring the availability of chicken fillet roles in almost every garage.

That and the fact that you're legally obliged to eat the rubbish in McDonalds and garages because they're there.

It's hard to eat well when you're literally being forced to choose to eat badly.

20-01-2014 10:59AM

mariaalice wrote: »

The weight one is a very complex area and people blame simplistic areas such as the spread of Mc Donald's for example while ignoring the availability of chicken fillet roles in almost every garage.

The ad doesn't address a simplistic area or mention McDonalds.

It mentions that fact that children should be eating small portions and not be given loads of snacks. Sounds about right to me.

jigglypuffstuff · 20-01-2014 10:59AM

mariaalice wrote: »

The weight one is a very complex area and people blame simplistic areas such as the spread of Mc Donald's for example while ignoring the availability of chicken fillet roles in almost every garage.

Not at all complicated

People are just plain lazy and dont give a s**t about their appearance or health or the burden they put on the state or others, or the bullying they set themselves or their children up for...all very selfish really

Nobodys ignoring that?

Mr. CooL ICE · 20-01-2014 11:01AM

I've seen that ad, advising parents to give their children less food. Not even a vegetable was seen

stefan idiot jones · 20-01-2014 11:02AM

I thought this was going to be about empty jars of curry paste. I am dissapoint.

whirlpool · 20-01-2014 11:03AM

mariaalice wrote: »

Do the Ad from safe food Ireland get on your nerves, you know the ones about children being over weight the latest one is the one about saying no to children in the supermarket, they really annoy me its nanny state over kill and its making parents out to be so stupid that they need to be told to give child size portions to small children. There was also a whole primetime program about the issue which was insulting of a lot of people.

I know there are issue with people becoming over weigh and I would support children being weighted by the public health nurse and the parents being discreetly informed if their child needed to lose weight but that's about it and that how we should deal with it.

Childhood obesity - and adulthood obesity - is a very real issue and a very serious problem.

Comments such as yours are nonsense. It's not just you - there are thousands of people out there who just like you like to resist authority just for the sake of it. But it's nonsense.

Alf Veedersane · 20-01-2014 11:04AM

Here's the ad

How very dare they?!

Tasden · 20-01-2014 11:12AM

Also, I'd be the first to admit I sometimes give my child a portion close enough in size to mine, usually she'd leave most of it which is a waste anyway, but its just something in my head makes me feel bad about giving her less, ridiculous I know, but since the add I've made an effort to give her less. And I'm not a simpleton nor is my child fat or even chubby, she eats healthy and the right amount for her age/size, it was simply just a bad habit and the ad kicked it out of me so it can work.

seamus · 20-01-2014 11:19AM

mariaalice wrote: »

its making parents out to be so stupid that they need to be told to give child size portions to small children.

They are that stupid. People in general are that stupid. But it's also a problem of education.

Growing up, nobody ever mentioned portion size to me. Ever. "Eat until you're full". Isn't that generally what people take as a guideline for how much they personally should eat? Similarly for children, parents are generally told to feed the child if it's hungry. Feed your child until he doesn't want any more. The actual size of the portion isn't given much airing. So if your child will eat a nine-inch pizza, give him a nine-inch pizza.

Nuh-uh. As a parent you instinctually want your child to eat and you would rather they ate too much than not enough. But in our age of hyper-processed foods, we can't operate like that anymore, because "full" no longer means they've had enough for that meal. With some foods, "full" means I've eaten my entire daily needs in a single meal.

People also differ. Some kids will eat a lot. Others won't. So the "let the child eat their fill" approach doesn't work in either direction. Some kids will eat too little, most will eat too much.

There was also a whole primetime program about the issue which was insulting of a lot of people.

I guess you probably mean "insulting" in terms of telling parents how to raise their kids, but we need to get away from this idea that we should avoid indirectly insulting people. "That programme insults me". So?
This is part of the problem; doctors and nurses are afraid to tell parents their children are fat or that they are fat, for fear of offending them. Fnck that. If they're fat, you tell them. If a patient walked in and said they drank six cans a day, you'd tell them they were an alcoholic. So why when a clearly wobbly patient walks in, are they afraid to tell them they're fat?
It's up to the patient to work on it, and if you feel insulted by the truth, tough ****.

I know there are issue with people becoming over weigh and I would support children being weighted by the public health nurse and the parents being discreetly informed if their child needed to lose weight but that's about it and that how we should deal with it.

"Issue" is playing down the severity of the problem a bit. I don't like the word "epidemic", but it's a good descriptive word for the increasing severity of the problem.

http://www.cuh.ie/index.php?id=129&items=68
One in four primary school children are overweight. That's a big figure and a big problem. I was a fat child. Fat children becomes fat teenagers, become fat young adults, become walking heart-attack-time-bombs in their 30s. The fat doesn't magically vanish when the child gets older, it just becomes a bigger and bigger problem as they age.

The reason this is a major concern is because it means our already failed health system will be taking on more and more of a burden, sooner and sooner. When I was growing up, heart attacks and heart problems were things that happened to people in their late 40s and onwards. In the last ten years, I've heard of so many people going in for surgery, or being rushed to A&E and in their mid-30s, for heart problems.

When you're barely halfway through your statistical life expectancy and your heart is giving you trouble, well that's bad news.

We need to work on it now, ensure that children today understand nutrition, and the only way to do that is to go through the parents; educate the parents. You can talk nutrition to the kids in school all day, but when they go home they get fed by their parents.

hfallada · 20-01-2014 11:25AM

I think any advertising from a state body is a waste of money. Like the amount of stop smoking ads is ridiculous. But yet people who have worked with tobacco companies say stoping young people taking up the habit is more effective. I haven't seen any ads targeting youth smoking except for ones paid for by the EU.

Likewise Irish children are so over weight. But I imagine 90% of overweight children's parents have no idea their children are overweight. All Irish school children should be weight regularly and their parents told of their child is over weight

20-01-2014 12:39PM

hfallada wrote: »

I think any advertising from a state body is a waste of money. Like the amount of stop smoking ads is ridiculous. But yet people who have worked with tobacco companies say stoping young people taking up the habit is more effective. I haven't seen any ads targeting youth smoking except for ones paid for by the EU.

Likewise Irish children are so over weight. But I imagine 90% of overweight children's parents have no idea their children are overweight. All Irish school children should be weight regularly and their parents told of their child is over weight

That more my point, the ads are too simplistic as a way of addressing the problem, nobody seem to be looking at the changes in society, for example I walked two mile to and from school from the age of 4 and only had sweets after mass on Sundays, walking to school wasn't called exercise it was just part of life!, my mother did not think of food as nutrition, food was expensive and shops were mile away we grew our own potatoes not as a hobby but because we had too to feed a large family.

A relative of mine works as child-minder and she is told to drive the children to and from school, but she is to then drive them to a playground so they can play!!, young women are reluctant to give up smoking in case they might put on weight!, again young women offen try to give up bread ( bread has become a real baddie ) but wont give up drinking or binge drinking , blaming their weight on bread and chocolate and not acknowledging that alcohol is the problem, becoming obsessed with the idea that it all cause by fast food, when it is cause by eating too much of any kind of food and not doing enough an do on.

biko · 20-01-2014 12:50PM

Temper tantrum in aisle 12

Dravokivich · 20-01-2014 12:54PM

There is a massive problem with how a lot of parents feed their kids. I've seen grossly overweight 2 year olds and thought to myself, "how could someone do that to them" and then send them off to the shops to get sweets.

The reason why this message is "overly simplified" is dare I risk it, because a lot of these people doing this to their kids are rather simple. Sending them off for a chipper more days than not. Grease laden pizza's all the time. Then constantly drinking fizzy drinks.

Inactivity, granted is another thing that needs consideration, but with the shíte a lot of these kids are fed in the first place they aren't in much of a position to be active.

blacklilly · 20-01-2014 01:25PM

These campaigns are needed, our government have a responsibility to inform/educate our population on matters concerning health.

I've a few friends in the medical profession and some of the stories they tell about some parents lack of knowledge surrounding what I would consider basic nutritional information is astounding.

If these ads help those parents make better choices for their children then I'm all for it.

Irish Steve · 20-01-2014 02:08PM

It's nothing like as simplistic as it's being presented.

Part of the problem is that the culture has changed, and it's not deemed "safe" for kids to play outdoors any more, and in some areas, it might be safe, but there's no open spaces for the kids to play safely on.

Part of the problem is that it's not deemed "safe" for kids to walk a mile to school, or there's not enough time for them to walk, so the car is a "time saver". Yeah!

Part of the problem is that the roads are too darn dangerous for kids to be using them on bikes, so they don't get the same exercise in that area that they used to.

Part of the problem is that mum is not a house maker any more, she has to work to pay the bills, so pre prepared meals, canned drinks and snack foods are the norm, and they are loaded with "extra" like added sugar and salt that are no help to a balanced diet. In some respects, a sugar tax might not be such a bad idea, if it means that people get to know what is really bad in terms of the calorie content. It might be easier for the mum and the kids to pick up a can rather than for someone to make a glass of squash up from the concentrate and then add the water to it, the calorie difference is massive.

Part of the problem is that schools don't have time or facilities for "physical exercise" of any sort, no gym, no games, and in some cases, no competitive sports, as "losing might traumatise the child".

Part of the problem is things like console games, Play stations and the like, that encourage solo sedentary activity, so no movement, or interaction with others.

When these are all added together, there have been a lot of undesirable changes that have all combined to put modern families under huge pressure in comparison to the way things were, and while I'm not exactly stone age, my childhood was a long time ago.

20-01-2014 02:17PM

There's a number of issues with SafeFood.

First - how big a problem is food hygiene anyway? Does it justify the huge amount of money we appear to spend on telling people how to cook chicken, or to check a use by date? Do other countries do this?

Second - there's good evidence that their style of advertising does not work on the target audience. People do not absorb facts and figures or logical argument. That's why you will notice that multi-nationals do not advertise like that. They use emotion. Attempting to combat emotive adverts for junk like Coca-Cola with reasoned appeals to eat sensibly is (to steal a phrase) "like trying to fight a ghost with a baseball bat".

Third - targeting. It's always a dead giveaway when these agencies advertise on Morning Ireland. Let's be honest, I would guess that the majority of parents who need this advice on childhood obesity are not listening to Morning Ireland. Yet Safe Food will buy slots there every time, slots that are the most expensive on Irish radio. Why?

Bottom line is that safefood is a classic government agency trying to grow by expanding its remit into all sorts of areas that it shouldn't be in, and shows every sign of being run as a benefit for irish advertising agencies and media buyers.

IvyTheTerrible · 20-01-2014 02:20PM

Irish Steve wrote: »

It's nothing like as simplistic as it's being presented.

Part of the problem is that the culture has changed, and it's not deemed "safe" for kids to play outdoors any more, and in some areas, it might be safe, but there's no open spaces for the kids to play safely on.

Part of the problem is that it's not deemed "safe" for kids to walk a mile to school, or there's not enough time for them to walk, so the car is a "time saver". Yeah!

Part of the problem is that the roads are too darn dangerous for kids to be using them on bikes, so they don't get the same exercise in that area that they used to.

Part of the problem is that mum is not a house maker any more, she has to work to pay the bills, so pre prepared meals, canned drinks and snack foods are the norm, and they are loaded with "extra" like added sugar and salt that are no help to a balanced diet. In some respects, a sugar tax might not be such a bad idea, if it means that people get to know what is really bad in terms of the calorie content. It might be easier for the mum and the kids to pick up a can rather than for someone to make a glass of squash up from the concentrate and then add the water to it, the calorie difference is massive.

Part of the problem is that schools don't have time or facilities for "physical exercise" of any sort, no gym, no games, and in some cases, no competitive sports, as "losing might traumatise the child".

Part of the problem is things like console games, Play stations and the like, that encourage solo sedentary activity, so no movement, or interaction with others.

When these are all added together, there have been a lot of undesirable changes that have all combined to put modern families under huge pressure in comparison to the way things were, and while I'm not exactly stone age, my childhood was a long time ago.

Just on the "mum works" thing, that's not good enough, tbh. My mother worked full time, had four kids, and we ALWAYS ate homemade food. Sweets were only allowed on Sundays, and we only had fizzy drinks at Christmas.

Dravokivich · 20-01-2014 02:23PM

Irish Steve wrote: »

It's nothing like as simplistic as it's being presented.

Part of the problem is that the culture has changed, and it's not deemed "safe" for kids to play outdoors any more, and in some areas, it might be safe, but there's no open spaces for the kids to play safely on.

Part of the problem is that it's not deemed "safe" for kids to walk a mile to school, or there's not enough time for them to walk, so the car is a "time saver". Yeah!

Part of the problem is that the roads are too darn dangerous for kids to be using them on bikes, so they don't get the same exercise in that area that they used to.

Part of the problem is that mum is not a house maker any more, she has to work to pay the bills, so pre prepared meals, canned drinks and snack foods are the norm, and they are loaded with "extra" like added sugar and salt that are no help to a balanced diet. In some respects, a sugar tax might not be such a bad idea, if it means that people get to know what is really bad in terms of the calorie content. It might be easier for the mum and the kids to pick up a can rather than for someone to make a glass of squash up from the concentrate and then add the water to it, the calorie difference is massive.

Part of the problem is that schools don't have time or facilities for "physical exercise" of any sort, no gym, no games, and in some cases, no competitive sports, as "losing might traumatise the child".

Part of the problem is things like console games, Play stations and the like, that encourage solo sedentary activity, so no movement, or interaction with others.

When these are all added together, there have been a lot of undesirable changes that have all combined to put modern families under huge pressure in comparison to the way things were, and while I'm not exactly stone age, my childhood was a long time ago.

A lot of the points you presented are just as "simplistic."

A parent may bring their kid to school in such a manner if it's not a waste of time to double back and walk home to get a car, so they can head on in to work themselves.

The issue with mum working and not being able to put together a proper meal is a load of crap too. My girlfriend and I work full time and have no issue cooking and eating decent enough meals in the evening. This won't change much with the kid either. This is what people need to understand and why it's the focus of the advert.

Games consoles don't encourage people to constantly sit still in one place. It's an affect not a cause. The cause would be due to not monitoring time playing on it. It's no different to sitting still by the TV watching cartoons during the weekend or playing on a keyboard/piano. Should we give out about music lessons as well then?

artvandelay48 · 20-01-2014 02:28PM

R.D. aka MR.D wrote: »

Do you also feel insulted by drink driving ads?

Drink driving ads is the nanny state gone mad!

:rolleyes:

20-01-2014 02:38PM

artvandelay48 wrote: »

Drink driving ads is the nanny state gone mad!

:rolleyes:

People know that drink driving is both illegal and wrong they do not need a TV ad to tell them that. Do you know what stops boy races from speeding? growing up and getting sense, not a TV ad telling them to stop.

I am not saying there is not a problem with children sometimes being over weight, however it is a very complex problem and wont be solved by simplistic ads telling parent to give a smaller portion to their children.

Alf Veedersane · 20-01-2014 02:44PM

mariaalice wrote: »

I am not saying there is not a problem with children sometimes being over weight, however it is a very complex problem and wont be solved by simplistic ads telling parent to give smaller portion to their children.

Your argument has changed from the ad being insulting to parents and being indicative of nanny state interference to it being a complex problem that won't be solved by simple means.

Neyite · 20-01-2014 02:45PM

Sometimes its really an uphill struggle to stop people from force-feeding your kids crap food. Not once has my toddler been offered a healthier snack in a certain relatives home instead of sweets, despite having rice cakes, cheese, yoghurts, and fruit there. And then I'm the Hard Mammy if I don't let him have said sweet, when normally he skips with excitement when he gets cheese or a yoghurt.

Or adding sugar to his meals. WTF?? he does not NEED maple syrup in his pancakes, or mi-wadi in his water or sugar in his Weetabix. But still they try. Then they try and badger him to eat his dinner when he knows there is loads more sweet crap in a certain cupboard if he holds out and throws a tantrum.

And, when I handle the tantrum the correct way, by not giving in, I get overruled. :rolleyes:

I genuinely don't understand how fruit, yoghurts and cheese are some sort of penance-food to some people.