Sadly this is not just an American problem anymore – recent stats from the UK find that kids are way more obese now than they were 10 years ago, for exactly the same reasons over here.
And with the same health implications too.
A lot of it is to do with education – not in the 3R’s sense, but in showing people that eating this stuff, in the quantities they do, will eventually kill them.
A few of you may be familiar with the English chef Jamie Oliver. Last year, after much campaigning, he did a TV series called “School Dinners”. His hypothesis was that is was cheaper and easier to feed kids school lunches that were healthy and nutritous than it was to keep feeding them fries and burgers.
As the father of school-age children, he was interested in what his kids were given for lunch. And was appaled at the quality and choice that his kids were getting. So many kids in the Uk have asthma/excema, weight problems etc..because as thier main meal of the day almost all were eating burger/fries combo washed down with a soda…
And he proved unquestioningly that, per unit, it was more cost effective to produce meals made form fresh vegetables and meat than it was to serve prepacked/refined meals. For some of these kids, this will be thier most important meal of the day (mainly disadvantaged kids eat free school lunches in UK schools), so giving them at least one decent meal a day helps with thier health and growth.
Stragely enough, he got the most resistance from the people who cooked the food! So many had learnt how to use a microwave and deep fat fyer that they just saw having to make meals from scratch as a time consuming pain in the a$$.
And, even more strange, many of the kids over time saw a lessening of thier asthma, excema, allergies and obesity.
Here’s a link to the Channel 4 (UK TV station) site that talks about it: Jamies’ School Dinners
