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No surprise some kids are getting fatter!!

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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    .
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I have done food tech and cant cook for shit.

    And there was me thinking I was the only one...
    I never did anything at sports day because I knew I would have the piss taken for coming last.

    Same here. And there wasn't that much of an encouragement to take part anyway.
    The also need to encourage kids to walk/ride to school more. I know his is hard for some as the live some way from the school etc but the amount of mothers taht pick teh kids up when they live a mile or so away (and could be walked in little time) is stupid.

    Agreed.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Maybe I grew up different from you lot but in my household if you didnt like the offerings then you didnt eat, it did me no harm.

    And anyway, there seems to be lots of talk about not feeding this high processed foods to kids, its FAR FAR more simple than that, no one should be eating that shite. Things which are that processed should just plain not be allowed.

    The food industry certainly doesnt give a fuck about our health so we need to legally lay down what they can and cant do.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    budda wrote:
    Maybe I grew up different from you lot but in my household if you didnt like the offerings then you didnt eat, it did me no harm.

    And anyway, there seems to be lots of talk about not feeding this high processed foods to kids, its FAR FAR more simple than that, no one should be eating that shite. Things which are that processed should just plain not be allowed.

    The food industry certainly doesnt give a fuck about our health so we need to legally lay down what they can and cant do.

    Strongly agree.

    I've never been a fussy eater and i strongly believe it's because i was never fed anything other than wholesome, home-cooked food as a child. I also had a similar upbringing to Budda, food was never made an issue of, you just ate what you were given. I think as soon as you start pandering to a childs whims then you're making a rod for your own back.

    As far as the women from the article are concerned, they can fuck right off. If i caught one of those women selling my child burger and chips through the railings then she'd get a swift kick in the cunt. I consider what they're doing child abuse, and although they may have the right to feed their own child crap, they certainly don't have the right to do it to mine.

    Healthy meals in schools should be mandatory. For some kids it may be the only decent meal they'll get in a day.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    budda wrote:

    And anyway, there seems to be lots of talk about not feeding this high processed foods to kids, its FAR FAR more simple than that, no one should be eating that shite. Things which are that processed should just plain not be allowed.

    what.the.fuck
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    minimi38 wrote:
    what.the.fuck

    So describing re-constituted offal and random chemicals as 'food' is totally fine, suppliers should have no controls over what they use?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes. What someone wants to eat and a supplier's choice in providing what that person wants to eat is nothing to do with anyone but the parties involved.

    mmm, monosodium glutamate.

    *twitch*
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    minimi38 wrote:
    Yes. What someone wants to eat and a supplier's choice in providing what that person wants to eat is nothing to do with anyone but the parties involved.

    mmm, monosodium glutamate.

    *twitch*

    I don't want to eat mechanically recovered meat, but that doesn't mean i'm not going to eat it because a producer doesn't have to detail how they acquired the meat in their product.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I don't want to eat mechanically recovered meat.


    Then take 5 seconds out of your life to look at the list of ingredients. Ever noticed how your 59p pack of pork slices says "~60% mechanically recovered meat and E-xyz^n?"

    but that doesn't mean i'm not going to eat it because a producer doesn't have to detail how they acquired the meat in their product.

    Producers know where their supplies comes from...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Surely giving a child healthy food is a parents' responsibilty and schools'?
    I've never been a fussy eater and i strongly believe it's because i was never fed anything other than wholesome, home-cooked food as a child. I also had a similar upbringing to Budda, food was never made an issue of, you just ate what you were given. I think as soon as you start pandering to a childs whims then you're making a rod for your own back.

    Despite being a fussy eater (not as bad now, but the reason for being fussy now is totally different) I was in this situation when I was younger - I was given food and if I didn't like it, I wasn't offered anything different. Yes, if I didn't look some food (as part of a meal) I wasn't given it, but was given everything else that everyone else had.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Sofie wrote:
    Surely giving a child healthy food is a parents' responsibilty and schools'?

    Despite being a fussy eater (not as bad now, but the reason for being fussy now is totally different) I was in this situation when I was younger - I was given food and if I didn't like it, I wasn't offered anything different. Yes, if I didn't look some food (as part of a meal) I wasn't given it, but was given everything else that everyone else had.

    I think very few children are naturally fussy eaters. In my opinion, most fussy eaters are products of the approach their parents took towards them and food. There's a scene in Jamie's School Dinners where a child manages to make himself physically sick because he's convinced himself he doesn't like chicken. He's coerced into taking a bite and before the chicken even hits his tastebuds he's thrown up. I think that alone speaks volumes.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I agree, not many kids are really fussy eaters. They're just so used to crap.
    I can sort of understand, if they're not allowed out then they spend most of the lunch time queing and by the time you get there, theres not much left.
    But whats stopping them giving them packed lunches?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's true that kids aren't fussy eaters, I used to think they were until I had my own son.

    He will eat nearly anything, granted I am raising him vegetarian so he hasn't had meat, but he will eat any veg under the sun, weird shit as well like butternut squash, avacardo, etc, he's awesome.

    I do think if you eat a lot of crap you become acustomed to it and your body craves it. I know at Christmas my standards slip a lot and after a week of eating shit I really crave it, and not only that, but I am tired/depressed/generally run down feeling from not having nice wholesome meals, it makes hell of a difference!

    I think Budda is right./
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    VinylVicky wrote:
    They say the kids are left starving, well tough! Let them starve. Fill them up with a good breakfast and i they don't have their lunch, they can wait til their evening meal, it's hardly starving, is it?
    They'll get used to it before you can say 'Ramadan' :)

    Edit: And I third the packed lunch option. It'll save them queuing (sp?) up, too...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    minimi38 wrote:
    Then take 5 seconds out of your life to look at the list of ingredients. Ever noticed how your 59p pack of pork slices says "~60% mechanically recovered meat and E-xyz^n?"

    The point is, of course, that the list of ingredients is only there and is only sop detailed because the law has made them put it there.

    In an open and unregulated market, the list of ingredients would not be there.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A governent can force a food manufactuer to disclose whats is contained in thier product while letting them sell foods with whatever legal additives they choose to put in. Responsibility for ones eating habits should not be removed from the individual.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote:
    In an open and unregulated market, the list of ingredients would not be there.

    How do know ? :chin:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    seeker wrote:
    How do know ? :chin:

    the fact that ingredients lists were not included, and what was in a product were actively hidden, until legislation forced them to be is a pretty big giveaway.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    minimi38 wrote:
    A governent can force a food manufactuer to disclose whats is contained in thier product while letting them sell foods with whatever legal additives they choose to put in. Responsibility for ones eating habits should not be removed from the individual.

    That responsibility is in the hands of the school as far as school dinners are concerned. Only the school knows what is actually in the products they're serving i.e. highly processed ingredients, preservatives, and stabilisers. We know these ingredients are detrimental to our health and so they should not be served to kids in school. A captive audience, especially one as vulnerable as young-uns in schools, should not be exposed to this shite.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A captive audience, especially one as vulnerable as young-uns in schools, should not be exposed to this shite.

    Captive audience or not, it makes little difference, we need to take a much stronger attitude to what people can and cant sell as food.

    And a full ban on advertising for kids would be good as well.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    That responsibility is in the hands of the school as far as school dinners are concerned. Only the school knows what is actually in the products they're serving i.e. highly processed ingredients, preservatives, and stabilisers. We know these ingredients are detrimental to our health and so they should not be served to kids in school. A captive audience, especially one as vulnerable as young-uns in schools, should not be exposed to this shite.

    This food probably shouldn't be served in schools. Bongbudda said processed food shouldn't be allowed for anyone to consume and you agreed...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote:
    the fact that ingredients lists were not included, and what was in a product were actively hidden, until legislation forced them to be is a pretty big giveaway.
    I would argue that if people really wanted to know, then food companies would have to put the ingredients on there, or risk losing the sales. If you can get a big enough consumer demand behind something, it happens. Fair Trade produce is an example of this. If companies weren't forced to put their ingredients on the back of a packet, I would imagine that current consumer trends would lead to any reputable food companies, who want a reputation for quality, signing up to such a scheme, and the rest would suffer any losses they might incur otherwise.

    I don't think that people give consumers enough credit. In the current system, the one's who care, read the labels, and they would be the one's that would only buy the labelled products under a free system. The rest don't read the labels anyway, so they wouldn't care whether something was labelled or not. Any company with half a brain would just label their products anyway, to maximize thier potential customer base. That basic business sense.

    ETA: And remember, for this law to go through in the first place, there must have been a fair amount of demand for it. It's not a case that no-one cared until it became law.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Consumer demand has very little impact on what companies do, they basicaly pay lip service to what people actually want. Sunny Delight is an excellent example of this.

    Companies make money by dodgy and diving away from things, in order to hide the shite they put in food. Even with ingredients lists just look at how so many things are marketed and illustrated at fruit juice, except for the magic little word "drink" on the end. Cranberry juice "drink", for instance, is jam-packed full of water, sugar and aspartame, but not very many cranberries, yet is sold from fridges in the supermarket and is listed under "fruit juice".

    Even Fair Trade is a clever marketing ploy- whilst it is ethically better than the normal stuff, it isn't fantastic, and the improvement certainly doesn't justify the astronomical price tag that goes along with it.

    The notion that people who take food products at face value are stupid or naive is ludicrous, and all it does is allow the unethical and immoral food and advertising companies to clamber off the hook for creating chemical-ridden food and then advertising it as healthy. The reason why top advertising people get paid so much is because they are so good at manipulating what a product is, and labelling it in such a way that it sounds like it is healthy and nutritious. Even Kelloggs Frosties are a healthy and nutritious cereal if you read the blurb on the box, "enriched" with vitamins and iron for growing kids. Lets not mention the trans fats (which don't have to be labelled) and the ten tonnes of sugar, eh?

    And whilst we're intelligent people who know what aspartame and monosodium glutamate are, the mother who left school at 16 with no GCSEs certainly doesn't.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote:
    Even Fair Trade is a clever marketing ploy- whilst it is ethically better than the normal stuff, it isn't fantastic, and the improvement certainly doesn't justify the astronomical price tag that goes along with it.

    You should read a book called the undercover economist, you'd love it, and you're absolutly correct.

    Anyway, if anyone watches the diet doctors from time to time on five, that's clear evidence that what you eat affects your health massively.

    I'm a big fan of excercise though, obviously you can't make school kids work as hard as I do, or most uni-level sportsmen and women. But an hour a week isn't enough, especially as it's not an hour, because they spend at least 20-25 mins fannying about getting changed.

    It's time to get some fat burning going on (haha, just remembered a slightly harsh but funny joke at my expense). Kids need to get on the pitch, on the track, out of artificial lighting and away from their computers for a change.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    minimi38 wrote:
    This food probably shouldn't be served in schools. Bongbudda said processed food shouldn't be allowed for anyone to consume and you agreed...

    I'm not saying that all processed food should be banned, that would indeed be a step too far, but there needs to be clear limits on the chemicals and processes they can use.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I don't think that people give consumers enough credit. In the current system, the one's who care, read the labels, and they would be the one's that would only buy the labelled products under a free system. The rest don't read the labels anyway, so they wouldn't care whether something was labelled or not. Any company with half a brain would just label their products anyway, to maximize thier potential customer base. That basic business sense.

    Frankly thats rubbish, not only is the list of ingredients often in writing so small you need an atomic microscope to read it, but the list of chemicals is so long that no one could be expected to understand it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote:
    And whilst we're intelligent people who know what aspartame and monosodium glutamate are, the mother who left school at 16 with no GCSEs certainly doesn't.
    That's what the consumer press is for. The mother who left school at 16 may not know what aspartame is. Hell, as Budda said, there's stuff on the label that a chemist has never heard of. That's why you would rely on independent companies to tell you that "so and so is bad for you, because it contains this, too much of which causes that." And the sales go down, so the companies react. If the sales don't go down, then I guess people don't care enough to not buy the product. You may not trust independent companies, rather than 'official' sources, but who do we have to thank that our kids are now eating healthy school meals? It sure as hell wasn't the government.

    Yes, companies use marketing to make their products appear to be something they're not, but that's where independent sources come in and call them on their bullshit. It does happen, even now. Remember Coca Cola's first foray into the bottled water market? Independent sources told us that it was in fact, just purified tap water, straight out of the system, and their product failed miserably.

    All that you've demonstrated is that in spite of the laws that currently exist, companies still find ways to bullshit us about their products. This would be no different in a free-market, but I don't think it would be any worse.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    That's what the consumer press is for. The mother who left school at 16 may not know what aspartame is. Hell, as Budda said, there's stuff on the label that a chemist has never heard of. That's why you would rely on independent companies to tell you that "so and so is bad for you, because it contains this, too much of which causes that." And the sales go down, so the companies react. If the sales don't go down, then I guess people don't care enough to not buy the product. You may not trust independent companies, rather than 'official' sources, but who do we have to thank that our kids are now eating healthy school meals? It sure as hell wasn't the government.

    So basically put food manufacturers should be allowed to put what ever the hell they fancy in the food and its up to us to read about what harm it might be doing us?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote:
    And whilst we're intelligent people who know what aspartame and monosodium glutamate are, the mother who left school at 16 with no GCSEs certainly doesn't.
    I know for a fact a lot of my uni mates wouldnt know what either of those things are and they certainly aint thick!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    budda wrote:
    So basically put food manufacturers should be allowed to put what ever the hell they fancy in the food and its up to us to read about what harm it might be doing us?
    Who said that? I was just explaining how things would work under a free market system. But one would assume that if a company put something in their food that was proved to have caused health problems for people, they'd be in for one hell of a compensation payout.
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