The junk food industry is where the tobacco industry was 50 or so years ago - trying to get people hooked. They are paying scientists to concoct the MOST addictive more-ish stuff they can come up with, so that people buy more.
Can youpost me the link that supports this? Or is this just anecdotal? The food industry is not concoting anything addictive, at all. They are making products that consumers like and buy - just as BMW makes cars that consumers buy.
Sugar and salt are not addictive - but they are very stong drivers of liking ... sugar content is process food has gone up markedly in the last 20 years or so. But that is because the consumer buys more food that contains higher sugar.
If you don't like the mass produced products , then don't buy them. Absolutely no-one is forcing you to.
As mentioned above , it is really easy to cook from ingredients - but then that takes time ....
Bullshit. A sweeping and insulting statement.
People fail themselves.You need to join the real world.
The real world where the NHS did not let my mother or three of my grand parents down during their final stage of life? The real world where the NHS have effectively treated my and friends for falling off bikes / cliffs etc whilst taking part in outdoor pursuits / sports. The real world where ignorance and stupidity is rewarded? The real world where people apportion the blame for their problems at other peoples feet because they are not willing to face up to their own poor choices?
I think the problem is the wrong association with food. Its just fuel people.
OH MY DAYUM 😆
Bad health is classless, I encounter a lot of people with very good incomes through work and so many of them are in dreadful shape. Mainly due to lifestyle - long working days, quick easy food, snacks, little time or inclination to exercise and plenty of booze.
I cook mostly in our household but as I do work away on occasions I make things that we can freeze - lasagne being a prime example - the ingredients are all there, the oven is going on so why just cook one, stack 4 in, freeze 3 and screw Findus' profit margins.
Rogerthecat, totally agree. My aunts family are fairly well off and her dad is in really poor shape and will no doubt suffer a heat attack. His wife is a great cook and always uses fresh ingredients etc but he eats too much, drinks too much and does little or no exercise.
You'd never see a ready meal in their house, bit they eat too much and are allergic to exercise so to speak.
there was an interesting documentary recently called " the men who made us fat " which looked at the tricks the food industry played in peddling high sugar/ high salt products by labelling stuff as " reduced fat" which was the buzzword at the time. At the end of the day we can't not know by now that we are being targetted by an industry that wishes to maximise its profits and has massive lobbying power- to the extent that a lot of research is funded by the food industry ,and therefore to an extent controlled by them.
On the other had people have to take responsibility for their own health .I was listening to two [ well educated and qualified ] fatties at work agreeing that " you can have a healthy bowl of porridge for breakfast and then you walk past Mcdonalds and you can't resist going in for an egg mc-muffin ".Funnily enough I have walked past the same store and managed not to buy an egg mc muffin on a daily basis for the last eight years !
You're more a sausage mc-muffin kind of guy I take it then Mr P 😉
ITS A FAIR COP BINNERS !!! [ in truth I would only ever use mcdonalds for their primary fuction- a mcpiss or mcshite for which they are generally well suited.
Breakfast is the best thing about Maccy D's
Mr PotatoHead, you have a point that manufactured food is fundamentally unhealthy - I think this is well-known isn't it?
But the healthy stuff is still available and in the same shops - you just have to pick up different things when you're in there- it's not like we have no choice...
And what I struggle with is the thought process of people like your colleagues, they know maccy D's is fundamentally bad for them, but they still choose to eat it.
It's like some mad suicide cult mindset - let's ruin ourselves!
On the junk food front.
I think there is more to it than people solely being daft. There is a reason why people crave fatty foods, and it's only really in the last few decades where lifestyle changes have enabled people access to high calorie intake and low calorie expenditure.
The desire to eat as much as possible probably served us well 5000 years ago, it's unlikely those drivers are going to leave us any time soon.
** Solo to the Forum please **
Does anyone want anything from Greggs?
there was an interesting documentary recently called " the men who made us fat " which looked at the tricks the food industry played in peddling high sugar/ high salt products by labelling stuff as " reduced fat" which was the buzzword at the time. At the end of the day we can't not know by now that we are being targetted by an industry that wishes to maximise its profits and has massive lobbying power- to the extent that a lot of research is funded by the food industry ,and therefore to an extent controlled by them.
On the other had people have to take responsibility for their own health .I was listening to two [ well educated and qualified ] fatties at work agreeing that " you can have a healthy bowl of porridge for breakfast and then you walk past Mcdonalds and you can't resist going in for an egg mc-muffin ".Funnily enough I have walked past the same store and managed not to buy an egg mc muffin on a daily basis for the last eight years !
I watched that, in ernest, to see what information it brought up. It was a highly bias, Daily Mail sensationist POV. And they didn't have a balance and a right to reply. Quite a lot of the points raise were factually incorrect, or mis reported.
If you base your view of nurition on this "factoid" type journalism, then the world does have issues.
Has I have said, the food industry needs to stand up and be counted re labelling of products. Horse-gate has shown that - and the consumer has a right to say "if they lie about that, what about salt, sugar and fat content".
Sugar, salt and fat are all drivers of liking, they are tastes that we want, and demand from manufacturers. But just stop buying it FFS!! You do not have to eat at Maccy Dees, frozen pizza or eat Coco Pops, or Pop Tarts. Posters on here are behaving just like every other community , and absolving themselves of any responsibility - because everything is the fault of "the man, babylon, the system, big business or space aliens". It's not - it's yours
BTW - manufactured food is not fundamentally bad. It has allowed use to consume and preserve food that we would have never had access to, or use at different times of the year.
But poor quality nutrition is a whole different issue - and ultra processed foods can deliver this. But it's still your choice ...
If you don't want to eat shit food, don't buy it. Simple.
kudos, why do schools have to teach people about nutrition. What about their parents role in all of this?
Junk food in not particularly cheap. Veg and fruit can be very cheap... They are just not convenient - and require preparation and time.
That you have to ask this question means you don't have a clue.
Kudos - answer the question, not a bitchy remark.
What stops parents teaching their kids about life?
What stop kids getting meal prepared in the house?
My parents did it,
I have done it
Or are they holding guns to your head when you walk around Asda, and threatening you if you don't buy high fat ready meals ?
Yes my parents did it and as a result I eat a good diet and am pretty healthy.
What about the majority who know nothing about nutrition? Do they rely on their parents who also know nothing about nutrition or school where they eat crap meals and get taught how to bake cakes in home economics?
IMO schools have a responsiblity to teach kids about diet and exercise.
Kudos - it is great that you have a good nutritional background.
But schools are the formal part of a kids education. Over the years they have been expected to do more and more - sex education, religious instruction etc.
But fundamentally we need then to teach kids to read , write and do maths, understand science and maybe appreciate art, so they can develop into useful memebers of society. Not feral beings
Schools should not be there to teach kids morals, a coda for life, self responsibility, wash their smelly bits, clean their teath, stop them getting pregnant, develop a work ethic or preparation for the big wide world. It is their parents that should and/or their community. Parenst should teach you how to cook, clean, iron, shave, deal with death and new members of the familiy, help you devlop emotional maturity. And how to cook an egg, cook a pork chop, make a chicken soup ...
If parents don't care about their kids, why should anyone else take responsibility? Fortunately, for many parents now, others do. And then get blamed by the same lazy, idle, stupid and fat parents ...
If, what you are saying, is that schools have to do this because parenst are too irresponsible, then we are on the same page. But lets address the parenting standards - rather than blaming "the system"
Parents should teach kids about diet and exercise. Its got nothing to do with schools. They've got enough stuff to sort out as it is. And whats more, you shouldn't be regarding it as 'teaching', it should just be part of daily life
I'm afraid to say that even we fat people pay tax ( and quite a lot of it) , so I have just as much right to access medical care a skinny people, who may well be paying less, paying as much, or not at all.
Absolutely not. Taxation is not a subscription for a service. Otherwise rich people would get all the best services for free, and poor people would get nothing.
i really do feel we need to challenge some of the cultural attitudes we have in the UK towards exercise
Couldn't agree more. In some ways elite sport damages everyday participation, because people think that exercise means being really into some sport. It should be part of everyday life, like walking or cycling for transport.
Posters on here are behaving just like every other community , and absolving themselves of any responsibility
We're really not.
However we are a bit like pawns. Some may have the willpower and sense to resist this, some may not. But the question is about the morality of the game itself.
Yes, we do have a choice; and yes it is clearly our responsibility. But the food companies are trying their best to make it as hard a choice as possible. This has to be acknowledged (not as an excuse) because through acknowledgement we can start to push back.
Yes, we do have a choice; and yes it is clearly our responsibility. But the food companies are trying their best to make it as hard a choice as possible
[url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/18/supersize-undersize-food-portions-obesity ]Just one of their wheezes[/url]
Supermarkets don't help either. I mean it's never hard to find the chocolate and crisps is it?
Supermarkets don't help either. I mean it's never hard to find the [s]chocolate and crisps[/s]ready meals is it?
Yes.b r - MemberA few years ago I was a walk leader for the local council.
Seriously?
The council were asked along with local hospitals to ask volunteers to take out members of the public.
Many people would love to take exercise but don't know where to start. So by having a designated meeting place at a certain time each day of the week, people could come along and be guided along local footpaths, in the fresh air, thus getting some form of exercise, meeting new people and in many cases coming alone, where they would normally be stuck indoors. These were advertised in the local library, newpaper and doctor's waiting room.
At one time it became so popular that it wasn't uncommon to have over 30 people on any one walk.
It soon became clear that people taking part in these council lead walks were then getting together little groups of their own (at the weekends) and walking longer distances and more often then they ever thought possible.
Success me thinks.
Edit; Forgot to mention in these times of council cutbacks, I no longer am able to lead the walks as they can't fork out the expense of insuring us. Yes one lady did try to sue, when she walked across a slippery path and fell 🙄
Maybe just maybe it could be the fact that we are all sick to death of being told what to do all the time, so the general response is 'B******s to it i'll do what i want and have a great time doing it' 😉
Want to go to your grave with a well presented body or slide in sideways with a bevvy in hand and say what a great ride?
Edit: we are all cyclists right? So i guess we all have a healthy level of fitness, so i guess this conversation on a cycling forum is probably a bit one sided.....
Binners...that articlt does raise some interesting points and is appalling the way the nutritional content of food is dealt with for a tiny portion. It should be for the whole thing, that may well make a few people realise what they are consuming, although there will still be a part of society (not a particular class) who just don't care.
I also agree with the point that someone else made about parents should teach their kids about food and cooking. My mum never had much money when I was a kid, but we always ate well and enjoyed home cooked food (although this was helped by the fact that we grew a fait amount of stuff and kept a few animals). It's also probably quite hypocritical of schools to teach kids about nutrition given the rubbir that passes for school dinners.
But like a said previously, if your parents eat junk and don't exercise, it's likely that you will too. Its a visct circle. I can understand that people don't like being told how to live, but so many people don't want to take responsibility for their actions that they need to be. The point about the lady who tried to sue the council because she fell over on a walk organised by them kind of sus up the mentality of so many people these days...it's not my fault, so I'll get or claim whatever I can.
But fundamentally we need then to teach kids to read , write and do maths, understand science and maybe appreciate art, so they can develop into useful memebers of society. Not feral beings
How much of what you learned at school do you use on a daily basis? Very little I expect. I agree, knowing how to read and write and do basic maths is important, but much of what is taught in schools is outdated and pretty useless.
If, what you are saying, is that schools have to do this because parenst are too irresponsible, then we are on the same page. But lets address the parenting standards - rather than blaming "the system"
Parenting standards are partly the result of the system. Without a system that demands children learn how to participate in some form of exercise and teaches them life skills then how the hell do you stop the cycle of parents having kids who have no idea about how to eat and be healthy?
It it ok for us who have been brought up with homecooked meals and taught life skills, but what about those who haven't. Is it that just too bad and they have to deal with it? Sorry I don't agree.
Until the government pulls it head out of its arse and starts making health a priority things will continue to get worse. In the future I believe/hope that junk food will eventually be taxed like alcohol and cigarettes, but only when the nhs falls to bits and we have a massive obesity epidemic.
Looking back at old school photos nearly all the pupils in our school were slim. Mainly from running around everywhere, walking to and from school, eating meals, which were probably slightly bland, you know, meat/fish/poultry of some type, potatoes and plenty of veg. Even with rice dishes and pasta we still had plenty of salad and veg (usually grown by parents or grandparents).
Of course children have tellys, computers, all types of screens in their bedrooms and are less likely to want to go outside.
Some parents will not understand the importance of a good diet, exercise or getting fresh air, or vitamins from being outdoors. I am trying (as an auntie) to do my bit. It's hard work and sometimes a battle to tear a young child away from all the gagets that the 21st century offers, however in my experience most children do love being outside and running around with a ball or riding on something with wheels. We all should try and help out when we can.
I work in the healthcare industry....keep eating fatties, you are keeping me in lucrative employment!
Kudos
I'm old (by this boards average) - so most of what i used every day comes from life experiences. However school ( and loving learning) got me to University, so two degrees later, I was fairly well prepared for later life.
You seem like a bright chap/chapess - but I still don't see why you think it is up to the government to address the issue! It's the government's problem because of the healthcare issues it will cause - so maybe we shouldn't tax food for the fat and unhealthy. Maybe they should be fed minimal rations and clothed by the state and sent into workhouses ?
It is the individual's responsibility. I do not want to be told and taxed by the government further on booze, entertainment, or food. I do not want to lice in a nanny state - you seem to want to!
Now define a junk food ? High fat ? High salt?
Well, that is olive oil, butter, avocados and anchovies on the junk food list
Unfortunately, parenting is that crap, I do think , that in future, basic life skills will have to be taught is school. Yet again allowing parents to abdicate more responsibility and blame the state. But this is is the crux of the problem - people are getting too lazy, too apathetic and believe "the state" should so everything.
So 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it would appear that most want the UK to turn into East Geramn and have the state run their life.
As I have said, I have a lot of life experience. Those to are too lazy and stupid to help themselves won't take any advice from me, so they are not my problem.
Those who are prepared to list - that is a totally different issue
but I still don't see why you think it is up to the government to address the issue!
Because it is the government that has reduced the amount of exercise kids have to do it school, and decides on the crap that kids eat for school dinners.
The government also panders to huge food companies, who get away with selling absolute shite to the masses, and then complain that the NHS is overstretched.
As you can tell I am not a big fan of the 'system'. Most people are sheep, they follow others and do what they are told. At the moment we are told that you go and see your doctor when you are ill, not to learn about how to prevent illness, by healthy eating, exercise and lifestyle.
I really don't think the majority in power gives much of a toss about what people eat and how much exercise they do. As long as they and their families are eating healthily, and bringing up kids who know how to look after themselves, then screw everyone else.
As long as we live in a society where it is all about 'me' i.e capitalism then we are ****ed.
Baaaaaaa
Bunnyhop - that was very public-spirited of you and rewarding too I should think. 🙂 Are you aware of whether any walkers have continued to meet up?
Looking back at old school photos nearly all the pupils in our school were slim.
You didn’t go to Grange Hill then did you. Roland.