British consumers have fuelled healthy eating failure Cambridge University study finds.

Hi everyone,

After my post yesterday which was trying to raise awareness of how important a healthy diet is for all of us especially growing children.

I've looked for scientific studies and found a lot of conjecture about junk food and obesity and thought that this study by Cambridge Uni was fascinating because it states the obvious that we the consumer bought into the whole healthy eating options being g offered.

Personally I think they are possibly being naive not realising how hard it is working and bringing up children especially with the slick tv ads as this article in Science news shows a low fat rice pudding with a healthy eating label and this is what the real issue has been our understanding of a healthy diet for us and our families. I really like this reply:

Testimonies collected in the 1980s and ’90s emphasise that new jargon baffled many consumers. Puzzling over the term ’polyunsaturated margarine’, one respondent to the 1980s questionnaire said: "I understand that poly means many and unsaturated means not chock full of something, so what is margarine poly unsaturated with or not with?"

Taken from the article below please see:

myscience.uk/news/wire/brit...

In my opinion it's us the consumer knowing exactly what we are eating, is the real key to improving the nation's health.

[Cooper27 Administrator]

It's an interesting one Jerry. In some ways she's right, we probably do cherry pick advice to suit our circumstances, but given the advice was trying to take us from a point of "unhealthy" to "healthy", then even cherry picking half of it, should still have led to improvement?

I've been listening to a podcast this week, by the Van Tulleken brothers ( podcasts.apple.com/gb/podca... ) where they've been looking at why people choose UPFs, knowing it's harming their health. They're both doctors who know better, but still Xand finds it hard to follow the health messages. It's not necessarily about being complicit at that point, there's a bit more to it.

[Hidden in reply to Cooper27]

Hi Cooper and I agree which’s why I said I thought they were being naive or over simplistic as our relationship with food is very complex, as we all know.

We have an obesity crisis in many countries and over weight and diabetes has compounded COVID for many. But there’s a massive difference in knowing that we should eat better and changing our habits.

I see obesity everywhere including health workers so I shall watch this podcast with interest.

Being honest I eat chocolate cookies and cakes sometimes so cannot pretend that I have as healthy diet as I could have and this is the grey area for most of us.

[Eryl]

It is also fueled by the general medical community's ignorance regarding nutrition and that half of modern diseases are due to bad nutrition.

[Hidden in reply to Eryl]

I think that this is an unfair generalisation Eryl as to me it shows that the medical community have the same issues that we all face as our relationship with food is very complex.

[Eryl in reply to Hidden]

That's exacty the problem, they're not properly educated in nutrition and few have made eny efforts to learn since they left medical collage. if not in number half of nhs costs are due to bad diets, just think of how much is spent on treating T2 diabetes and heart diseases for a start, and there is strong evidence that a ketogenic diet and timely medical intervention could cure most cancers. (Google the name Thomas Seyfried)

[Hidden in reply to Eryl]

Hi Eryl Jethro Kloss who wrote the back to Eden books said 100 years ago that in years to come our hospitals would be full of people because of their poor dietary choices. And boy was he right!

So what we have to do is look at how to raise awareness of the effect our food choices are having on our health an encourage one another to eat well and be well.

Sadly the majority of our health workers are over worked over tired and resort to instant gratification food wise, which’s understandable and we have to all help to consciously change this instead of criticising as that’s just makes some people more stubborn to change.

First we should ensure that ALL hospital workers and patients can eat healthily and effortlessly before we will see a change.

It’s when people realise that what they considered a treat or must have snack is actually going to make them unhappy and unhealthy, is when we will hopefully see a change.

Eat well be happy and well is a great ethos.

[Eryl in reply to Hidden]

But before all health workers and patients can eat healthily they must be educated in nutrition. Most Medical education currently doesn't cover nutrition for more than half a day in the whole course. From a BMJ journal. "Introducing evidence-based nutrition into postgraduate training programmes and undergraduate curriculums would increase doctors’ and nurses’ understanding of the science of healthy eating and allow a much more informed dialogue between doctors, nurses and their patients." pmj.bmj.com/content/90/1070...