Your Child The Grandparent
At the turn of the century the life expectancy of an urban dweller in the UK was around 50 years, today our children may have a life expectancy as high as 100 years. Medical advances may preserve them through illness for longer. They will spend more of their lives as older people, but possible have more health problems associated with unhealthy living. The way that we raise them will impact upon the quality of their lives, and patterns set today may protect them from a lingering but unhealthy older age.
At the moment 60% of people over the age of 50 are taking four or more prescription drugs. A majority of this medication could be made unnecessary through adherence to a healthier lifestyle, changing eating and exercise habits. If we educate our children to be active every day, and to eat a balanced diet ,we are instilling in them habits which should last a life time, and make that lifetime last longer.
The western lifestyle encourages over consumption of calories from low-quality unhealthy foods high in fat, salt and sugar. Heart Disease, Cancers and Strokes are the biggest killers. A huge proportion of these deaths can be avoided by changing eating and exercise habits. These are also concerns that bad health is impacting on the fertility of westerners and that our children could suffer infertility along side ill-health.
Obesity is expected to overtake these problems as the West’s biggest killer, and as American foods, TV and habits spread around the world so will the associated deaths from unhealthy living. It is up to us to make a stand against these worrying trends, and prepare our children for the long healthy lives that they deserve. All efforts that we make now are a pension fund that our children will draw from when they are grandparents.
Kid-Junk and the Propaganda Machine
500 million is spent on advertising to children, in an industry that is worth 41 BILLION a year. These people are out to make as much as they can, which means using the cheapest ingredients, that last the longest, and selling them in ways that our children find irresistible. Most of this advertising comes to our children though television where they may see 10 food adverts an hour. Of these 10, 95-99% will be for unhealthy foods which offer little or NO nourishment, and are high in fat, salt additives, preservatives and other chemicals and sugar. Children’s innocence and gullibility is exploited because they cannot differentiate between advertising and programming until approximately 10 or 12 years old. They actually believe what is told them.
TV advertising is the single most important factor affecting what our children eat. In much of Scandinavia, advertising is banned during children’s programming. Here our children are bombarded, and to make matters worse, watching TV is massively linked to obesity, so they are inactive and requiring junk food at the same time- a double whammy against their health.
Kid-Junk is often advertised as containing added nutrition, so that parents loose the loop hole of saying- ‘but it isn’t good for you.’ Whilst rushing round Tesco’s taking a business call, calming a baby and arguing with school child, we grab for vitamin-enhanced cereal, and calcium-enriched cheeses believing that we may be doing them some good. Do not be fooled, these things are labelled to trap us, what they really represent is poor quality over-processed pap, which has some chemically processed vitamins and minerals added because there is nothing good there in the first place. The cheap additives may be in a form that is not readily absorbed by the child’s body, and will contain dangerous anti-nutrients which are. The uncomfortable fact is that if you want the best for your child you need to remove these products from their lives. Here are some ways of doing this;
Don’t buy them.
Provide your child with cynicism; let them know how BAD they are.
Make them feel proud of making an informed choice.
Provide exciting alternatives.
Choose TV channels with no advertising- cbeeebies etc
Minimise TV watching and encourage healthy pursuits.
If you have to cheat; throw the Sunny D in the toilet (where it belongs) and fill the carton with fresh orange, put the bran flakes in the Chocolate Frosties cereal box. I am ashamed to admit, but my youngest thinks that bran flakes are made of chocolate, and I may have encouraged this falsehood.
Remember that children can enjoy the look and taste of real food, and the more that you provide it the more they will get used to it.
Your Child the Caveman
Our bodies have adapted cope
with survival in a harsh environment. Although we achieved civilization thousands of years ago, our bodies have not evolved to adapt to this change. If we placed our child back in the distant past they would have eaten less sugar, salt and fat in a year than they now eat in a week or less. Our child would have eaten a diet of a little meat and fish, mostly vegetable matter, fruit, berries, nuts, seeds and fruits, roots, and starchy vegetable matter. They would only have drunk water, and possibly a little goats’ milk, and they may occasionally sample the splendour of honey. In addition to that they would have been in a state of constant movement, playing, working, foraging, but rarely staying still.
I think that this child from the past is a useful tool for understanding what our child’s eating and activity profile should be if they are to reach optimum health. There would have been no slouching on a sofa in front of the TV, no Pizza Flavour Cheese string, and pink panther wafer biscuits. Our imaginary child may not even recognise these things as food. Our children need a diet rich in whole foods, in raw foods, and home cooked foods. They need to explore the pleasure of foraging for food, growing it and making a mess with it. We need to get back to the camp-fire and share family food times together, making eating a natural and loving social event where the family will interact and bond. This way people eat slower, and eat less allowing their body to feel full and satisfied.
Do not presume that they will reject real foods, things that we may expect them to dislike may be a source of amusement and interest; show them how to scrape the fishes flesh from the bone, let them gnaw on a spare rib or a chicken drum-stick, get the barbeque out and skewer some tiger prawns. More adventurous kids will relish picking seafood out of shells, and beheading prawns, you just need to give them a chance to find their cave man. Never presume that they can’t cope with certain foods, always give them a chance to experiment, and reward them richly with praise.
If you are doubtful about the validity of a food, ask yourself how far-removed it is from its natural state, could you make it yourself, would it have existed a hundred years ago or more? If the answer is no then the chances are that it is not very healthy.
Leading the Way
From their first moments your child has looked to you for everything, and you are the biggest influence upon their lives. You need to lead the way and set a shining example by eating well and exercising, informing your child that this is the only way to live. A healthy diet and active life will protect the family against many illnesses, and send your child into later life with an understanding about how to look after their body correctly, and how to care for their children as well. Here are some ways to become healthier as a family;
Eat together and bring family and friends together through food events as well.
Couple this up with healthy activities, organise a party or picnic and organise team-sports how ever silly to get people moving. I have seen grown women go crazy trying to win a hula-hoop competition. Make exercising fun.
Go family foraging; visit pick-your-own farms, farm shops and market. Pick blackberries, sloes, mushrooms (get them checked) and wild foods together, children love finding things and it shows them foods in their natural state. Try the Farmers Markets.
Cook together, the kids can help prepare and cook foods, and will love making their own lunchboxes and teas. Let them fry some fish, pod some peas, peel some carrots, make their own pizzas.
Let them organise tea parties or dinner parties and barbeques for friends, encouraging them to design a healthy and funky Jamie Oliver menu.
Organise more active family pursuits, go on bike rides, pony treks, sculpture trails (Leigh Woods and Forrest of Dean), kite flying, racket sports, French Cricket.
Make the most of your garden, grow stuff, get out there together and work, get a basketball hoop.
Make sure that YOU get out there and exercise, go to a yoga class or play badminton in the evenings. If they see you participating in a healthy lifestyle then it will always seem natural to them.
Vikki Scovell BA(hons) PG DIP is a fully qualified Personal Trainer and Fitness Coach. She is a qualified Nutrition Adviser and runs successful Community Exercise classes. Vikki is a consultant in Healthy Eating and Exercise initiatives to schools in the independent sector and publishes School and General Healthy Living newsletters.
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