the HEALTH of our nation

[Robbie G]

A problem is that lots of people my age (20) can't cook. Partly because all we were taught to cook in my school were biscuits and cakes; no bloody use for dinners!

The initiatives by Jamie Oliver et al I think are brilliant, and the stuff he taught in his programmes the other year was great. Should have basic cooking and nutrition in curriculum for me.

 

[Badger]

I'm on the border of ideal weight and underweight, I certainly wouldn't call myself underweight. Those charts don't take into account muscle and fat so you can't really rely on them.

 

[Robbie G]

Don't even get me started on that There's a primary school on the road where I live, and if I ever make the mistake of attempting to drive anywhere between 3pm and half 3, the road is like an obstacle course with women lumping their 4x4s on grass verges, driveways and so on, waiting around for little Jimmy to finish. Trying to get through past all these road-blocking females is torture.

What really grates is that, to my reckoning, this is one of at least seven primary schools in Burgess Hill, a fairly small town of around 29,000 residents, therefore assuming children are largely allocated places at their closest school, most of them can only live within five to ten minutes walk, maximum.

And don't tell me it's a safety issue, we're talking about a fairly quiet residential area part of a town in which as far as I'm aware, no child has ever been abducted by perverts, paedophiles, baby-snatchers, ransom-demanding kidnappers, aliens or whatever.

Lazy parents= lazy children. Fact.

Yeah I live near both an infant and primary school in Burgess Hill and know the full extent of traffic from parents. The most stupid thing is that they can (and some do) park easily down my road, which is at most 5 mins walk from the primary school. But no, they have to park on a blind bend, just so they can get that bit closer to the school.

 

[chip]

There was a couple who were denied adoption because they were overweight when I was applying. That was Leeds too. Total rubbish.

The grief they gave me over having colitis.

You can be fat and healthy. In US studies of cardiovascular health, body mass and fat distribution were found to be less important than levels of physical activity. However, in general body mass is inversely proportinal to physical activity and there is a strong correlation between that and cardiovascular health. There is a real paucity of scientific data though concerning older (>30) sedentary people as most studies are done on young active people. What seems to be emmerging though is that as children get fatter younger, the complications, e.g. stroke, cancers & CVD, occur earlier and with greater prevalence.

While I fully agree that prevention is much better than cure, I'm not convinced that it can or should be done by schools. There are plenty of healthy eating programmes (5-a-day) in schools as it is. 200 years ago, being fat and inactive was the preserve of the rich, now it is a marker of the lower socio-economic groups.

 

[London Calling]

5 a day is the UK lazy way of getting people/ retail sector involved, I believe Finland does 9 a day

 

[Don Quixote]

fat kids don't get bullied enough now days. If we bullied them more less people would become fat. Problem sorted.

 

[chip]

5 a day is the UK lazy way of getting people/ retail sector involved, I believe Finland does 9 a day

I agree, but it seems that the majority of the population cannot understand a more complex message about healthy eating. Similarly, the idea of 5 x 20 mins of exercise (AHA & BHF advice) is aimed at the lowest common denominator. Sky TV, booze, fags and gambling make more important calls on many familly finances than something that might cause them problems some years in the future.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

fat kids don't get bullied enough now days. If we bullied them more less people would become fat. Problem sorted.

"It's not my fault, it's my glands!"

What is worrying is that if you look at RO-land, or Chunk from the Goonies, they probably aren't even that fat compared to a lot of kids now.

Fact: where there's a fat kid, there's nearly always a behemoth of a parent following behind. Eating a family bag of Doritos.

 

[London Calling]

"It's not my fault, it's my glands!"

What is worrying is that if you look at RO-land, or Chunk from the Goonies, they probably aren't even that fat compared to a lot of kids now.

Fact: where there's a fat kid, there's nearly always a behemoth of a parent following behind. Eating a family bag of Doritos.

my 5 year old, refered to earlier weighs 3 stone, taller than all other kids ( excepy 1) in her class, nearly all boys as well.

One of her friends, is about 6 inches shorter but really does weigh over a stone if not two stone heavier, Ms LC cannot pick her up.

She looks an unhealthy lump - the kid - not Ms LC.