Beware of Junk Food

The dinner table, out children is increasingly calling the shots. Nearly, 50% refuse to eat the same meals as their parents, two third prefer snacks to proper meals, and food faddism is running riot, especially among young girls. Most school, and many parents, have simply given up the struggle, allowing children an unrestricted diet of convenience and junk foods. Hamburgers, crisps, soft drinks, sweets, and biscuits have been entrusted the task of building our children into healthy, fit, adults. It doesn’t need a dietician to work out they aren’t up to it.
It is confirmed that not all is well our children’s diets. As a result, a picture of what children are actually eating, and how adequate it is, must be collected from a handful of small-scale studies. Children control a massive share of the market in some foods: chocolate, pizzas, hamburgers, and chips. But when we reach the fruit counter, they fall silent: children spend a little on fruit.
The sweets, crisps and hot snacks are sold in 90% of schools. A quarter of children buy two or more packets of crisps a day, and a half buy two or more chocolate bars or packets of sweets.The number of children eating school dinners has fallen from nearly two thirds. One in ten leaves home without breakfast, and one in six does not have a hot meal in the evening. Schools are increasingly allowing soft drinks manufacturers such as Coca Cola and Pepsi to introduce vending machines, from which they get a share of the profits.
Patterns of eating established in childhood persist through life: inside a fat child there is a fat adult waiting to come out free. Equally, healthy habits established early usually stick. So making sure our children are eating the right things is very important. It is concluded that in terms of the total energy in the diet, there is nothing much to worry about. Surveys do show some slight shortfalls, but children are growing taller and heavier than ever, so it is hard to believe they are not taking on sufficient fuel.
More worrying are the minority who are overweight. Risks of dying, principally from heart disease or cancer, are doubled in adults who were in the top quarter for body mass index between the ages of 13 and 18. The number of obese children has doubled in the past ten years. Energy may be adequate, shortfalls in iron, calcium, folic acid and fiber. Iron is a problem for teenage girls, and anemia may even affect their schooling.
Studies show direct and measurable effects on academic performance when anemic children were given iron tablets for three months: nobody knows whether the same could be true here. A doctor is now examining whether anemic girls habitually do less exercise to compensate for the lower oxygen-carrying capacity of their blood. If so, it could have long-term consequences for their fitness and bone mass, with implications for osteoporosis much later in life.
What is needed is not a general program of iron supplements for all children most are adequately supplied but a simple way of identifying those who are not. Calcium is another problem, with many younger’s falling short of recommended levels. More milk could be the answer, but research suggests that activity is as important as calcium intake in determining bone mass.

Folic acid, which is found in dark green leafy vegetables and liver, is well below recommended levels in children of all ages, especially those from poorer homes. The greatest danger of a diet deficient in folic acid is in girls. Folic acid deficiency is linked to a higher incidence of some kinds of congenital defects in the babies they will later have.
A steady diet of crisps, coke, and beef burgers is certainly not to be recommended, but junk food is not all to blame. A major of re-education of children’s eating habits needs to be undertaken. A trust has to establish guidelines for school meals.
Here the evidence is less clear-cut. It is temping to think of them as idle so-and-sos crouched sluggishly over television screens or computer games, while nostalgically recalling our own vigorous childhood of football in the street, long bike ride and organized games at school, but the proof is lacking. How physical activity improves health in children is far from convincing. The most clear-cut benefit is psychological exercise reduces anxiety, stress and depression and enhances self-esteem.
Though they may be less active, there is no real evidence that today’s children are less fit. In children, curiously, fitness seems to have little to do with exercise and a lot to do with heredity. Fitness awards which are based on the best running performance might equally be offered to parents as their children.
In one study of 11 to 16 year olds, over a third of boys and half of girls did not experience a single ten-minute episode of at least moderate physical activity in a three day period. Girls are less active than boys, a gap which widens with age. Although it cannot be demonstrated that this is doing them any harm, common sense suggests it must be. If activity levels help determine bone mass, these inactive girls may be laying up for themselves serious problem in old age.
There are two simple guidelines; all younger’s should be physically active every day, as part of games, sports, work, transportation or recreation. And all should be involved in three or more sessions a week of activities lasting 20 minutes or more that require moderate to vigorous levels of exertion.
If your child fails to meet these guide-lines, maybe it’s time to do something about it.