Record childhood obesity levels are causing some schools and playgroups to think hard about the food messages they give children. Judith Napier reports
Obesity has increased in most parts of the world, and figures show that the UK has an estimated two million overweight children.
There is no shortage of reasons for this - an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, food industry promotion of high-fat processed food, parents' confusion over what constitutes a 'healthy' diet and increased safety fears dissuading youngsters from outdoor play.
Obese children also suffer from added psychological problems - poor educational performance, painful isolation from their peers and depression. And statistics published last year also show that a fifth of English women and 17 per cent of men are obese. Obese adults are more prone to serious health problems including heart disease, diabetes, gall bladder disease, arthritis, strokes and cancers.
A family problem
Professor Michael Lean, who lectures in human nutrition at Glasgow University, has studied obesity for more than 20 years. He describes its worldwide increase as 'nothing short of catastrophic'. He says, 'We are getting to the point where we can see by measuring children that they are heading into obesity. After the age of five, it becomes increasingly more clear which children are destined for obesity, and by the late teens you can tell by monitoring which children are going to be obese adults.'
He is convinced that the answer lies in lower-fat diets, and in a lifestyle offering greater physical activity for all family members - 'When parents don't take any physical activity, you can't expect children to do so.'
Some US studies suggest that mothers in affluent families who follow strict low-fat diets may be transmitting their own weight obsessions - and
creating eating disorders - to their daughters, even in the youngest age groups. But Professor Lean says that research in this country so far clearly shows that obesity is a marker of low socio-economic groups.
Dr Frank Furedi of the University of Kent, author of Paranoid Parenting, due for publication in March, is certain that parents' calorie-counting does not send a signal to the child to start dieting too. He would urge parents to take a more relaxed attitude to food and regain confidence in feeding their own children. He condemns a culture which bombards parents with information on healthy eating, particularly magazines that link diet with high IQs so that eating, he says, becomes like a laboratory experiment.
Dr Furedi argues that food should not have to be that complicated. 'We should not try to solve personal problems through food,' he says. 'Some people argue that if children eat this or that, they are better school students, or whatever. That's rubbish. Social engineering through food is terrible.'
The Government has set up various initiatives for improving the nation's diet, including the Healthy Schools Programme in England. Health boards in Scotland are also increasingly targeting schools in an effort to tackle childhood obesity. Perhaps not surprisingly for a nation that is the butt of jokes about a diet of deep-fried Mars Bars, Scotland has a worse record of obesity than England.
One Scottish effort is the Kids In Condition project, launched by Health Promotions, a division of Grampian Health Board, as part of the Grampian Heart Campaign. The project has proved so successful it has been endorsed by the Scottish Parliament's white paper Towards a Healthier Scotland in its promotion of physical activity.
Good condition
The Kids In Condition team targets the 250 primary schools around Aberdeenshire and Moray with six-week-long courses offering fun, imaginative play with parachutes, beanbags and megaballs. The Funky Fit Food programme in the project considers diet, and there are positive playtime activities and traditional games such as hopscotch and skipping, all endorsed by the project's mascot Sneaker the Dog.
At the moment the project cannot extend to pre-school age groups, but training sessions have been run for nursery teachers and it is hoped that eventually teachers can be trained as Kids In Condition instructors.
Project co-ordinator Fiona Forbes says, 'Nowadays parents are concerned about safety, so children don't play outside. They get driven to school rather than walking. And at home the TV or computer games are always on. Of course it is very difficult to quantify how this project is going, but the long term aim is that if children develop a healthy lifestyle now, these habits will continue with them into adulthood.'
Her views echo those of other experts in the field - that ultimately the lessons about healthy eating have to be originated, and maintained, in the home. Schools, nurseries and playgroups may all try to instil sensible eating habits in children, but they are swimming against a tide of contradictory messages from home where processed, high-sodium, high-fat meals and snacks are all that is on the menu.
Parent power
Joanna Blythman, journalist and author of The Food Our Children Eat, says parents are often well-meaning but confused about what the right food is for children. She lays the blame on manipulation by the food industry. Not only are children's meals served up separately from their parents', but children are fed different sorts of food - 'turkey nuggets', guesses Blythman, wearily - while the parents may eat something better. Obesity, in Joanna Blythman's view, is a symptom of a child's bad eating habits and she is adamant that parents do have the power to control that.
'Parents shouldn't buy food that they don't want children to eat. They shouldn't buy fizzy drinks and biscuits,' she says. 'A home should be full of nice food that is healthy, tasty and attractive. It's not rocket science, and I think we have been brainwashed by the food industry to the extent that parents have been robbed of confidence.
'I personally believe that the home is the most important influence that a child has. So while the advertising of junk food, bad school meals or processed soup at nursery is not helpful, the fact is that what parents do at home with their children is the most important thing. If they get that right, then the children can withstand pressure to eat junk.'
She stresses that healthy doesn't mean low-fat - simply the widest possible range of good, unprocessed food. 'I've never met a child who doesn't love an old-fashioned roast dinner. And in time children will develop a palate so that they don't want a sugary jelly sweet, they want a clementine instead.'
Spicy variety
If the advice that children do best when exposed to as wide a variety of foods as possible is correct, then St Ninian's Playgroup in Aberdeen has got it just about right.
This 51-place playgroup in the city's West End caters for a largely middle-class intake, and playleaders confirm they have had occasionally to work round parents' overly health-conscious attitudes to diet. Because a number of children are vegetarian, all food served here is meat-free, and the staff are alert to allergy issues.
St Ninian's tries to serve as great a variety of food as possible, often on a theme. Last month, for example, snacks were linked with the Olympic Games.
There was chapatti, pakora and kiwi fruit. Playleader Katy Duthie says, 'Often these ideas go right over the children's heads, but adults love it!' Food crafts are popular, with sandwich making, potato scrubbing and cookie cutting.
The focus is not exclusively on so-called healthy foods. Biscuits feature, as do, of course, birthday cakes - 'sometimes none for months, then three in a week,' says Katy Duthie - as well as toast and other wholefoods. And in general, children are not picky. Working up an appetite through some vigorous play helps, too.
Snacks are selected by a rota of mothers, adding to the range of possibilities. But sometimes, with the best will in the world, the demands may be just too heavy.
Katy Duthie says, 'Just now we're doing a colour theme and last week was red, so that was easy - plenty of things like tomatoes and apples. Next week it's blue - we saw the poor mum who was on shopping duty huddled in a corner, worrying about what on earth to buy. We may have to fall back on a few Smarties for that one!'
The Food Our Children Eat, by Joanna Blythman, is published by Fourth Estate, price 7.99.
