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Channel 7 was reprimanded by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) after using a McDonalds’ playground as the backdrop to its logo during a children’s television program.

The ACMA made the decision that the station identifier was really an advertisement for McDonalds and breached the Children’s Television Standards 2009.

It’s strange that a company like McDonalds wasn’t consulted on such a material breach of the code by Channel 7 when it was creating the station identifier.

According to McDonalds’ own statement (from the THE RESPONSIBLE ADVERTISING AND MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS TO CHILDREN INITIATIVE), the fast food giant has: “voluntarily reduced our advertising during children’s television programs by 60 per cent.”

This is yet another example of why self-regulation doesn’t work. Only last November there was another breach by Nestle. The whole premise of stopping advertising during children’s programming is that kids can be easily influenced and lack the maturity to make informed decisions about their diet.

The Initiative for Responsible Advertising and Marketing to Children, formulated by the advertising and broadcasting industry and key stakeholders in the food industry, aimed to preempt the possibility of legislation being introduced as recommended by the Preventative Health Taskforce.

Written by Andrew Talati

The child obesity rate in Australia is  disturbing. It currently stands at 25% of children being overweight or obese with a big contributing factor being the intake of too many processed foods.

According to the Australasian Society for the study of obesity conducted between 1985 and 1995, the overweight/obese rates for children almost tripled over a ten-year period.

There is overwhelming evidence to support that the latest generation will be the first generation that has a lower life expectancy than their parents. The most disturbing consequence of this alarming statistic is that this leads to psychosocial problems, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type II diabetes, asthma and sleep apnea. While the mechanics of this comes down to the simple equation of energy intake versus energy expenditure we can break the equation down into 4 main areas:

Energy Intake:
1.Genetic factors
2.Unhealthy eating habits
Energy Expenditure
3.lifestyle and environmental factors 4.Lack of physical activity

One overwhelming factor seems to be the high level of processed foods we are consuming as a society.

As we become more affluent and time poor we are turning to processed and take away food as an alternative to cooking at home.

While there may be a belief that it’s cheaper to buy processed/takeaway food, it’s a misconception. Buying the basics – fruit, vegetables and meat – is not only cheaper, your body will thank you for it, too.

Written by Andrew Talati

It’s great to see parents encouraging their children to develop healthy eating habits by growing their own fruit and vegetables.

While at a friends dinner party, we started talking about nutrition and the current crisis confronting our youngest generation with increased rates of childhood obesity and diabetes. At their local primary school, one of the parents created a blog that documented the transformation of their inner suburban backyard into a thriving vegetable patch.

The great thing about creating this awareness for children from a young age is not the quality time spent with their children but the association and connection between freshly grown produce through to the preparation and consumption of this yummy food.

Oscars Little garden

Oscar’s little garden shows no matter how small your backyard there is ample opportunities to help educate your kids in growing their own fruit and vegetables. With Oscars little garden, he could see the development of the vegetables; carrots, spinach, garlic and beetroot from a tiny seed to sprouting life.

Like any habit in life, the more senses that are touched and stimulated during a particular process leads to greater engagement and the creation of neurological pathways that are set for life. Just as we can develop poor eating habits from an early age we can also create lifelong healthy eating patterns that shape the way we think and appreciate food.

With Oscar, he was able to experience the many senses involved in the growing and harvesting of his fruit and vegetables from the feeling of the dirt in his hands, planting the seeds, the smell of the garden, the emotion felt of seeing the living plant growing, through to the taste and sight of the harvest.

A big advocate and pioneer in moving this concept to the school yard is Stephanie Alexander who has helped 180 schools with educating children about growing their own vegetables which has had wonderful results.

While modern life may be running at a crazy pace, this is great opportunity to take an active role in helping the children develop healthy eating habits for life.

It’s interesting to see the amount of time children spend playing video games versus being outside and exercising. Even when on holidays, playing video games seems to rate higher than enjoying the beach.

It was great however to see parents spending time with the children throwing the frisbee, playing soccer or other each activities.

There is a disturbing trend of children spending more and more time per day either engaged with some computer-based activity the social networking or playing video games. The growth of video game consoles and sharing players involvement over the Internet has seen an increase in this type of activity.

While children find video games lots of fun and mentally challenging at some level, there is no substitute for their parents spending quality time with them either in the park or in the backyard playing games all some level of fit physical exercise.

According to the Australian Bureau of statistics in April 2009 2.2 million or 79% of children use the Internet either at home or during school hours.
The portion of children accessing the Internet increase with age from 60% for 5-8yo to 96% for children over 12.

I’m sure if you asked any child if they preferred playing video games under spending time with their mom or dad, to be confident in saying that the children much preferred the real-life interactions with the parents rather than the artificial environment of the computer or video game.

I was speaking about health and fitness with a supplier as I often do and we got talking about nutrition and especially the eating habits of her children.

As her daughter had a great interest in reducing the sugar in her diet and the chemicals she was ingesting, I emailed to a few blogs about the sugar content of so-called healthy food bars.

Well I was absolutely delighted when I received this e-mail from her daughter going to great detail about her thoughts regarding healthy eating and nutrition. The following has not been edited or modified by myself nor Madeline’s mother.

While it’s easy to feel hopelessness regarding the current trend of obesity amongst her children, there is hope that there is some consciousness and awareness amongst children with regards to their dietary intake.

I believe that many teenagers have an unbalanced diet; many are overeating, indulging in processed foods and the others, starving themselves and suffering from malnutrition, crash diets do not work. There are few teenagers out there who are healthy. Why? Some just aren’t concerned, others may not know. I include healthy, natural food in my diet. Most teenagers believe it is impossible to lose weight by being nutritious at the same time, this is because if a teenager wants to lose weight, they want fast results, thus producing eating disorders and undernourishment. We need to show teenagers that it is possible to lose weight without starving themselves. We need to modify their mindset towards health and well-being; we can show them that being healthy is vitally important to their life.

Processed foods or ‘treated food’ have taken our nation by storm; we have processed foods so packaged foods will last longer and even taste better. It can be hard to completely abandon these foods, try to look for foods that have five ingredients or fewer, and be as natural as possible. For example; you may think that reaching for the strawberry yoghurt muesli bar is ‘healthy’ for you, have you read the sugar content, or the ingredients? Chances are that the muesli bar has many unknown ingredients put into it, you’re better off with an apple, or better, organic. Sugar can be very harmful to your health, but don’t worry! You are allowed to eat confectionery food in moderation. Moderation is the key to healthy eating.

Nutrition takes an important part in health, especially in teens. You really can never eat enough vegetables, but try to limit your fruit to 4 servings a day, as there is a lot of sugar in fruit, keep in mind this is natural sugar, fruit is vital for your health, it provides you with many vitamins and minerals. You need at least half of your serving plate to contain vegetables or fruit, the other half, protein and carbohydrates. Such as a grilled salmon steak served with 5 almonds, spinach salad, and even a small amount of brown rice.

Madeline Meli
Age 14
Haileybury Castlefield Brighton

So next time when we plead ignorance to what we should be eating or seeking a Google answer to what is healthy eating, spare a thought for a 14-year-old who has a better understanding of nutrition than many adults.