Safe food.

SeaDaily · 20-01-2014 10:27PM

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

Yes, that's what I said. Believe it if you like, or not.

I don't believe you and I think you are wrong. You obviously don't know what overweight means. There is just no way less than one percent of the pupils in the school you teach are overweight.

20-01-2014 10:28PM

Yeah, how dare any tiny sample size be skewed at all

Miss Lockhart · 20-01-2014 10:30PM

SeaDaily wrote: »

I don't believe you and I think you are wrong. You obviously don't know what overweight means. There is just no way less than one percent of the pupils in the school you teach are overweight.

Grand. Whatever you think yourself.

SeaDaily · 20-01-2014 10:32PM

bluewolf wrote: »

Yeah, how dare any tiny sample size be skewed at all

Oh yes of course, because the mention of 5 students out of 700 being overweight was measured properly and not just a random number the poster used to give their point more credibility.

Femme_Fatale · 20-01-2014 10:32PM

LordChessington wrote: »

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

This. If Safefood knew what they hell they were talking about I'd take the ad more seriously.

shopaholic01 · 20-01-2014 10:35PM

SeaDaily wrote: »

I don't believe you and I think you are wrong. You obviously don't know what overweight means. There is just no way less than one percent of the pupils in the school you teach are overweight.

Not all teenagers are overweight, many of them are probably eating the correct amount of calories, but not from healthy foods. Your post is unnecessarily sanctimonius.

Tasden · 20-01-2014 10:40PM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

This. If Safefood knew what they hell they were talking about I'd take the ad more seriously.

I dunno tbh, I think what they're getting at is that small changes make a difference and so they are highlighting these small changes in the hope that once they make one change they can introduce more. If they were to list loads of changes and show a plate full of vegetables people would say "no thanks, too much effort" and ignore it completely. If they see a meal similar to theirs and an easy change to make they might take note. Its a lot easier to make small changes here and there than a huge overhaul that they won't stick to so I agree with their approach, keeping it "normal" because the people its aimed at view those meals as normal.

SeaDaily · 20-01-2014 10:42PM

shopaholic01 wrote: »

Not all teenagers are overweight, many of them are probably eating the correct amount of calories, but not from healthy foods. Your post is unnecessarily sanctimonius.

Obviously not all teenagers are overweight. A lot more than 0.7% of pupils in any one school are though. The countrywide figure is above 20%.

wolfpawnat · 20-01-2014 10:43PM

What is the best way to stop children eating too much and gaining too much weight? The state suggesting portion control, healthier beverages and saying no to junk food. It makes sense. Parents see the ads and think to give more adequate portions, kids see the ads and see that mum and dad now know that too much junk is bad for them. Win-Win. About 3 weeks before the juice vs water ad came out my OH got rid of all the fruit juices in the house bar OJ. Our son only drinks OJ in a homemade smoothie, Water and Milk now and he knows that sugary drinks are only allowed occasionally. It showed him we were right.

As a sister of a grossly overweight child, I have to say, anything that even stops ONE child becoming overweight is a good thing. She needed medical care at 14 for weight induced seizures. She thought getting a 16 inch pizza and a diet coke was a good thing. My mother allowed it, admittedly yes she is a moron, but she can't be the only one. Too many mums love too much and fear their kids getting hungry, but this may play at them, even for a minute. And that is a positive influence for society.

Irish Steve · 20-01-2014 10:56PM

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

I agree with you on the importance of healthy food. I just think it's a matter of tackling a problem at different angles. I grew up on home cooked healthy food, like most people of my generation. But there seems to be a lot of parents out there with only the most basic of cooking skills combined with a lack of interest in healthy eating.

We had neighbours with a young family, neither worked but would've been coining it in on benefits, I'm not making generalisations based on the fact that they were workshy. They genuinely didn't have a shortage of disposable income. The thing is whenever we would see them in the supermarket their trolley would be full of junk food and the kids were given a full packet of biscuits as lunch, not good for anyone, certainly not for a 3 year old.

How much of that is down to the parents not learning any cooking or home making skills from either their parents or through the education system.

When my wife and I were going through the education system, we learned "practical" skills, such as metal working, and wood working in my case, and cookery in my wife's, and some of the practical skills stuff was valid in terms of being prepared to understand things like basic maintenance of properties, and that basic understanding of practical skills have stood me in good stead for many years.

There is nothing even close now in the modern "education" system, and we see the result of that in some of the basic fundamental questions that are asked in some of the practical forums, people don't have even a basic understanding of how their homes operate. The same is probably true for many of the women, they have not assimilated the skills needed for even basic catering in some cases, and the reasons for that are not simple.

So, the children of those parents are already in a losing situation, and with the lack of practical skills being taught in the education system, it's only going to get worse.

Our children deserve to receive an education that prepares them for life, and that means more than just getting them the maximum number of points at Leaving cert level, it should also be giving them life skills, so that they understand how their home works, how to carry out basic repairs when things break or go wrong, and when NOT to do things because they could be dangerous.

Then there is the whole minefield of pre processed food, "junk food", and what's supposedly "good food".

I'm sitting watching a program on Channel 4 right now about the way that sugar is being abused by food manufacturers in many areas.

A normal child size portion of breakfast cereal and low far yoghurt may well have 11 teaspoons of ADDED sugar in them, way above the recommended level that's appropriate for a child.

They are being marketed as "the healthy options", because they are supposedly high fibre and low fat, all of which are supposed to be good, but the sugar that has been added is a massive negative in the overall value of the products, and is an added calorie load that the children really don't need.

It's very clear that sugar has become a major issue, the World Health Organisation are in the process of releasing a document that will advise that sugar consumption needs to be cut massively, to reduce obesity and type 2 Diabetes.

The changes that have to be made are significant, and will be fought at every level by major manufacturers, sugar is an easy and cheap additive to many foods that will not be easy to replace, so expect an adverse reaction against anyone that tries to bring in reform.

The TV advertising is a start, and even that is making waves, and if some of the more significant issues were being highlighted more aggressively, I have no doubts that there would be a lot more in the way of comments on a thread like this. Maybe that's what's needed, the present situation is not sustainable.

Obesity was for a long time only seen as being a North American problem, it is now becoming a significant issue for most countries, and if not addressed will lead to major issues for health, and related services.

As to the commitment of the Government here to dealing with it, I think all we can do is watch this space, it could well be that at some stage, they will be glad of some distraction from other issues, given their lack of performance against what was promised by them.

FizzleSticks · 20-01-2014 11:18PM

This post has been deleted.

Pumpkinseeds · 20-01-2014 11:58PM

Irish Steve wrote: »

How much of that is down to the parents not learning any cooking or home making skills from either their parents or through the education system.

When my wife and I were going through the education system, we learned "practical" skills, such as metal working, and wood working in my case, and cookery in my wife's, and some of the practical skills stuff was valid in terms of being prepared to understand things like basic maintenance of properties, and that basic understanding of practical skills have stood me in good stead for many years.

There is nothing even close now in the modern "education" system, and we see the result of that in some of the basic fundamental questions that are asked in some of the practical forums, people don't have even a basic understanding of how their homes operate. The same is probably true for many of the women, they have not assimilated the skills needed for even basic catering in some cases, and the reasons for that are not simple.

So, the children of those parents are already in a losing situation, and with the lack of practical skills being taught in the education system, it's only going to get worse.

Our children deserve to receive an education that prepares them for life, and that means more than just getting them the maximum number of points at Leaving cert level, it should also be giving them life skills, so that they understand how their home works, how to carry out basic repairs when things break or go wrong, and when NOT to do things because they could be dangerous.

Then there is the whole minefield of pre processed food, "junk food", and what's supposedly "good food".

I'm sitting watching a program on Channel 4 right now about the way that sugar is being abused by food manufacturers in many areas.

A normal child size portion of breakfast cereal and low far yoghurt may well have 11 teaspoons of ADDED sugar in them, way above the recommended level that's appropriate for a child.

They are being marketed as "the healthy options", because they are supposedly high fibre and low fat, all of which are supposed to be good, but the sugar that has been added is a massive negative in the overall value of the products, and is an added calorie load that the children really don't need.

It's very clear that sugar has become a major issue, the World Health Organisation are in the process of releasing a document that will advise that sugar consumption needs to be cut massively, to reduce obesity and type 2 Diabetes.

The changes that have to be made are significant, and will be fought at every level by major manufacturers, sugar is an easy and cheap additive to many foods that will not be easy to replace, so expect an adverse reaction against anyone that tries to bring in reform.

The TV advertising is a start, and even that is making waves, and if some of the more significant issues were being highlighted more aggressively, I have no doubts that there would be a lot more in the way of comments on a thread like this. Maybe that's what's needed, the present situation is not sustainable.

Obesity was for a long time only seen as being a North American problem, it is now becoming a significant issue for most countries, and if not addressed will lead to major issues for health, and related services.

As to the commitment of the Government here to dealing with it, I think all we can do is watch this space, it could well be that at some stage, they will be glad of some distraction from other issues, given their lack of performance against what was promised by them.

Absolutely agree with you. We had to help in the kitchen at home with little things like peeling vegetables for dinner etc when we were in primary school. I did Home Ecomomics in Secondary school and fast food at home was a rarity. My parents gave us pocket money on a Friday and what we did with it was up to us. We got a small bar of chocolate on a Thursday as it was treat night. But we rarely had a dessert and there was no sweet bowl in the house.

When my brother and I moved out we both knew how to cook everything my mum ever cooked and we were totally self-sufficient.

Safe food.

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