Perhaps you might agree with me.........

[Hazel]

There has been a lot listed on the Forum about the whole obesity debate.

In my opinion, the whole comes down to the fact that home economics is no longer taught. We are raising generations who have no knowledge of healthy eating.

How often have we seen TV progs where kids cannot identify friuits and vegetables. Youngsters who think MacDonalds is healthy eating. Think of all the 'treats' available to todays kids, the choice has multiplied alarmingly.

I heard a story tonight that shocked me. My Dads carer told us of one of his clients, an older lady, frail, who needs building up - her family only buys WW ready meals?????????

Never mind bashing the overweight T2s - we need to educate the upcoming generations all about food - carbs, proteins, etc. Yes, we need to thoroughly educate the newly diagnosed diabetic - but we need to educate people BEFORE they are diabetic.

Thanks for listening.

 

[Northerner]

Not only the 'treats' have multiplied, but so have the gadgets that often mean less time spent outdoors playing and running etc. I still can't believe it when I go past my old school and see how ALL the playing fields got sold off and now there are houses there! There seem to be many distractions from actually 'playing out' like I used to do when I was a kid.

I have to say though that no-one taught me anything about nutrition when I was at school - no home economics at our school as there were no girls...

 

[hotchop]

I completely agree.

My niece has just turned 21 and thinks a nice salad is punishment. She cannot cook to save her life and its worrying.

My children, both boys aged 15 and 11 can bake but can also read recipes and cook meals. We do this together all the time and they can both recognise what is healthy and what is not.

My eldest, especially, is a keen cyclist and thinks nothing of cycling around one of the highest mountains in the country.... for a spin and to pass an hour! I am quite happy walking the dog! lol

Its all about balance and taking the time to learn and understand but above all, to have pleasure out of experimenting with all types of food.

ETA: Their wives will be pleased.. they can use the washing mashine and are house trained too 🙂

 

[HOBIE]

Well said Hazel. 🙂

 

[Catwoman76]

Not only the 'treats' have multiplied, but so have the gadgets that often mean less time spent outdoors playing and running etc. I still can't believe it when I go past my old school and see how ALL the playing fields got sold off and now there are houses there! There seem to be many distractions from actually 'playing out' like I used to do when I was a kid.

I have to say though that no-one taught me anything about nutrition when I was at school - no home economics at our school as there were no girls...

I loved Home Economics at school. Making lovely dishes to take home to mum and dad, but a cake my sister made was so hard, we couldn't even put it out for the birds lol, but, she did make it herself 😉

Years ago, you ate your fruit and veg, walked and/or bused to places ( including school) took more exercise, a Wimpy Bar was a treat, we ran, played but we also ate sweets. On the way to the girls school, we bought 2oz ( not 20 1b)of Cola cubes or Pineapple chunks, also a stick of Barley sugar. I was one of those children that sometimes went to the chip shop at lunchtimes, as part of the crowd/peers, being cool!
Then a sensible dinner at night, cooked by mum, not the Microwave or Macdonalds or the local Chinese/Indian/Chippy. Gosh, it brings back floods of memories 🙂 Sheena

 

[HelenM]

I don't think any child at school in the UK in at least the last 15-20 years (ie since the National Curriculum) should have been able to avoid education on healthy eating.
Just google KS2 healthy eating or KS3 healthy eating to see the types of activities that form part of the present school curriculum.

When I was at school,we had an hour of DS for a couple of terms and it was the biggest waste of time in my whole school career. We learned how to lay trays and the best types of food to give an invalid! I think we cooked a few cakes.
My OH, like most boys at the time didn't do any DS at all.
I learned about the digestive system and food groups in biology and I learned to dissect and label various bits of animals but definitely not to cook them
(I did learn to cook at home though,as did my children and now grandchildren. )

 

[Donald]

AAH yes hazel is that what was also known as Domestic Science and alan I have passed my old school have also sold of the playing fields years ago and houses there

 

[FM001]

Home Economics brings back a few memory's, most of the foods we were told to cook and bake were far from healthy

 

[hotchop]

mmmm Pineapple upside down........ my all time fav!

 

[Catwoman76]

mmmm Pineapple upside down........ my all time fav!

Aaaahhhh Yes hotchop, but made with golden syrup or brown sugar on the bottom er top................................... Golden Syrup everytime Sheena

 

[Hazel]

Even as an overweight 40 year old - no-one warned me that diabetes was on the horizon. I wasn't always fat - I used to play squash 6 nights a week.

Then I worked in a desk bound job, 6 sometimes 7 days a week, long hours, moved out of the parental home so my eating habits became lazy, takeaways for speed and ease. Before I knew it - I was in my 40s, fat, unfit and on the verge of diabetes.

Even when I was diagnosed I knew nothing about diabetes, never really had heard of it. Didn't know there were different types.

Perhaps we should teach that to the youngsters, not to scare them, but now they understand smoking is bad for you - we could teach them bad eating habits and lack of excercise could lead to diabetes.

Yes, I totally agree with Alan, there are fewer and fewer places for kids to play - more and more computer related things to keep them indoors.

It is a huge problem. Diabetes is on the increase, costs to the NHS are soaring - something has to be done and soon.

Public awareness (similar to the non smoking campaign) to all ages might be a start

 

[trophywench]

Aaaah, DS.

Cheese, Onion and Potato pie for 4 people. 2lb old spuds, boiled and mashed. Half an onion, chopped and boiled. 3oz Mild Cheddar, grated - reserve 0.5 oz to sprinkle on the top to brown.

I said to my mother, that's nowhere near enough, is it? She said No - it isn't.
Mine was 3 lb spuds. A whole onion. 6oz of really Strong Cheddar, grated ....... with 1oz extra to sprinkle. Just did it and said nowt.

DS teacher as she tasted it 'My word! - your mum buys strong Cheddar, doesn't she?' Jenny, 'Yes - that's the only sort any of us will eat'. Nil points for that lesson ......

I learned absolutely nothing at all in DS - yet can happily and easily knock you up a Beef Wellington, Tournedos Rossini, Xmas Pudding ice cream, Charlotte Russe or a Pavlova, any sort of soup, starter, pudding or dessert, choux pastry, a roux sauce ....... what would you like? Am useless at shortcrust pastry and Victoria Sponge though, far too heavy handed.

All courtesy of my mum, myself and our Delia ......

Oh and also wicked VERY low carb chocolate brownies and many other low carb things, courtesy of the very inventive cooks on 'my other' forum. Most of em ain't low CAL though. Not when you start with half a lb of melted butter, they ain't!

 

[Blythespirit]

All 3 of my kids, inculding my son, learned about healthy eating at school. They are now 28, 23 and 21. They didn't cook much, but I do remember tuna pasta bake, quiche, cakes and lasagne. They were taught about carbs, food groups and calorie control. The younger 2 were also taught the basics about diabetes. In fact, days before I was diagnosed, my son who must have picked up on my symptoms said, 'Mum, do you think you might be diabetic?'

They all eat pretty healthy diets and I never ever took them to McDonalds, Burger King and only once to KFC (son only). I taught them all to cook at home. I spent this afternoon baking with my 3 year old grandson. We made his grandad a birthday cake for tomorrow. XXXXX

 

[grufflybear]

I agree Hazel, what worries me about the future for people at risk is the constant ear bashing about obesity, the real message is being lost and the ear bashing is not leading to a fundamental change in the way we regard food. Generations have come to see food as a constant on tap supply, the slightest sensation of "hunger" is treated almost as an illness to be immediately cured by instant access to food.

When I was child I was told in no uncertain terms that eating in the street while you walk along was "rude" nowadays it is an all too common sight. Supermarkets even allow for spontaneously munching by allowing you to scan the empty packet when you finally reach a checkout !!! Again in my rose tinted childhood we might have taken a discreet pack of sandwiches on a very long train journey, nowadays if you travel on a train out of any London terminus you will be bathed in the stench of grease and slime burgers on the journey home surrounded by people who can't survive a half hour ride without something to eat.

Ok you have to remember that I am in training for grumpy old man of the year and I do understand that the pressures and demands of modern life may no longer allow for my own idyllic up-bringing. These days food is all too readily available and without the discipline of sitting at a table at appointed times it is all too easy to be tempted by the vast array of goodies available.

I hold my hands up myself to eating too much, and I was eating good stuff, no burgers etc or fast food for years but I did eat too much, yes you can get overweight eating healthy food too 🙂

So I learned my lesson the hard way and I have diabetes, for the future there must be a way of instilling discipline and pleasure in good eating habits, both quality and quantity.

When I watch friends with their children I see a sort of cafe choice with constant grazing allowed, they are offered a selection of food and a choice for meals so the parent ends up making 3 or 4 different things at each meal, then complaining how exhausting it is keeping them all happy. Well my mum gave us dinner, she varied the meals quite well but we ate what was on the plate for the meal.. my brother and I were fed at mealtimes and we just knew we had to ask if we wanted anything else during the day, not just help ourselves or go and buy sweets without permission. Children now have free access to fast food and that habit stays with them as it has now for more than one generation. When I tell people this they often think I was somehow deprived, I wasn't at all; Perhaps even though I did get to a couple of stone extra by the time I reach my mid fifties that early discipline has made it relatively easy to respond, act and make the necessary changes without any sense of hardship.

So ear bashing about obesity isn't working is it... the situation is getting worse and we have been having the ear bashing for years now... The clock is never going to turn back to my idyllic rose tinted past but perhaps somewhere
there are clues as to how a culture can learn to respect food and value it rather than seeing it as a right to shovel down as much as possible most of the day long.

We can hardly escape from the attentions of celebrity chefs, they are on tv most of time and most kitchen equipment is endorsed adding to their well filled bank accounts... but I have a nasty feeling that people watch them and reach out for the nearest microwaveable tray of gunge and slime and chemicals, nuke it and eat it hunched up on the sofa while they watch Jamie prancing about on the flippin' telly.

Yes, I got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, I checked the news and saw yet more pictures of hugely fat people accompanying the dreadful statistics about diabetes; I wished I had heeded my expanding waistline, I wanted to tell people the reality of my experience so that they would realise the importance of acting, especially with genetic history of diabetes, I still think that the obesity message is not working. Middle age men as I was, just a couple of stone overweight and a waistline creeping around 38 inches do not see themselves as obese, I didn't, friends reassure you that you are tall and look fine. Well I wasn't and there must be many people out there who are a few years from reaching my situation who could act if the whole message wasn't becoming part of the obesity ear bashing and ignored.

 

[Northerner]

Well said Grufflybear! 🙂

And another thing....cars! Practically everyone I know who has a car uses it for even the shortest of journies. My neighbour has three children and I don't think they ever walk further than their back door to the car outside of the house - mum and dad included of course. When I was a kid we used to play on the street and if a car appeared at the top of the road someone would shout 'Car!' and we'd all move to the pavement as it went past - then we would play for a further hour until the next car (or more likely a delivery van, since cars were so rare in my neighbourhood) appeared. What's more, we had a bigger playing space because the street wasn't lined on either side by parked cars as they are today (and often parked on the pavements grr!).

I don't drive and I have survived quite happily to my current age of 53 without needing to. Many kids over the past 20 years can't imagine having to WALK anywhere - I've done it all my life, occasionally catching a bus or train or maybe a taxi if the distance was too far or other circumstances required it. If you are brought up expecting to be chauffeured everywhere, eventually borrowing parent's car then getting one of your own it's no wonder the thought of exercise is foreign to so many young people. Couple this with instant gratification on virtually everything and the mindset is very different from my younger days.

(Joining Gruffly as fellow Grump! 😉)

 

[AlisonM]

The only problem with Home Ec, was they didn't make the boys do it too. In my class it was all girls and when I wanted to do technical drawing instead they made me prove I could cook before they allowed it. I do agree with Hazel's point though.

As for exercise one school I went to early on used to forbid children to enter the buildings at breaktime. No matter what the weather was doing we were shoved outside to play, I don't recall feeling hard done by over it. I wonder how kids would react if schools did that now?

 

[Northerner]

...As for exercise one school I went to early on used to forbid children to enter the buildings at breaktime. No matter what the weather was doing we were shoved outside to play, I don't recall feeling hard done by over it. I wonder how kids would react if schools did that now?

That happened at my schools too, from infants all the way up to sixth form - as a prefect I could use the common room on bad weather days! 🙂 I can remember at junior school when I was about 7 someone made a massive ice slide all the way down the sloping playground - it was treacherous! Imagine H&S these days with something like that! 😱

 

[trophywench]

And you can certainly put me with Jenny Eclair and co, the GOW's. Especially over this.

Portion size; number of Calories - it's hardly blooming rocket science, is it? If you eat more than your body needs, you get fat.

Gruffly and Alan are correct in everything they say. When 20 or so of us used to skip across the whole width of our street - someone's mum's old washing line was the rope - we'd just lay it down and let eg the baker drive over it. If the neighbours were nice and liked kids they'd say eg We're expecting the coalman this morning - so we could then establish ourselves further along the street. And frequently said things to our mothers like 'The doctor's been to Mrs A' or 'Did you know Mr & Mrs B were having a new wardrobe?' (you then had to say where they'd had it from and the answer to that would be part of mother's approval or not, of the wardrobe she would never see!)

And it was actually quite rare to see anyone really obese in the 1950's. If they were, our mothers would say, 'Oh isn't it a shame for Mrs Bloggs, the hospital can't find out what's causing it'. I expect Mrs Bloggs most likely had a genetics issue. Nobody ever suggested Mrs Bloggs must have been stuffing herself with eg sweeties for years and blamed her for it - cos that scenario simply wasn't possible at that date. (because of the proximity of the War and food rationing)

Perhaps that's the answer? Food rationing! (diabetics got extra protein!)

 

[Northerner]

Hehe! I suspect we're all of a similar age responding to this thread Interesting what HelenM said about the National Curriculum though - will have to have a read of that.

We used to get a third-pint bottle of milk at morning playtime too (wasn't Maggie Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, who stopped it?). We saved the foil lids to buy Blue Peter Guide Dogs!

 

[AlisonM]

On the evidence from the forties and fifties while rationing was in effect, the UK was far healthier than ever before, and possibly since as there was no such thing as fast food then. This improvement, apparently, was because for the first time poor folk, got not just decent food, but enough food to eat. As a result, problems such as rickets all but vanished. People ate very little meat and very little fat, they bulked out meals with veg. This period also saw the growth of the allotments organisation which meant people who had no garden space could still 'dig for victory' by growing their own. It was also a way of getting out in the fresh air, always a good thing.

Now though these things wouldn't work. Government has far less power now than they did then and folk won't be 'told' what to do any more. If anyone tried to bring back rationing they'd be lynched, or at least lose their deposit next election.