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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.

With more and more parents experiencing fussy eating issues with their children, maybe it’s time for parents to take control.

Nowadays the dinner table resembles an a la carte restaurant, whereby the parent will prepare different meals for every child including their spouse.

While this may be viewed as achieving a positive outcome for the children as they are eating their preferred diet, it has led to a situation whereby the kids at dictating what they’re actually eating.

I’ll be very surprised if the children’s special dietary requests included green vegetables and fruit.

Ultimately the parents need to take some ownership of teaching their kids to eat particular foods that may be not to their satisfaction. A recent study by the University of California, San Diego, found that children that experienced the fussy eating syndrome were linked to weight gain and conversely fussy children become fussy eating adults.

While the children may experience genuine allergies to certain food types, parents need to take control of the children’s nutrition is not vice versa.

Part of the process involves the parents educating the children about correct nutrition, what they should be eating and the frequency.

Well I may be saying what my parents used to say to me, but “when I was a kid” my mum exclusively cooked meals from scratch, not relying on any processed ingredients or pre-made food.

While granted some of the meals may have fallen into the high rotational production lists, it did teach me the basics of nutrition in a wide variety of foods.

Not taking the easier option of only eating what satisfied my taste buds established life long eating habits.

As an adult I find that I’m just as comfortable eating a bowl of steamed vegetables as I am eating an exquisite meal in a fine dining restaurant.

I had an interesting experience talking to a couple gentlemen at a conference yesterday about the need to add lots of sugar to thire coffee, while I myself was not squeaky clean in this department, I decided many years ago to stop adding sugar to my coffee.

Initially I found that the coffee was not as palatable, in time I learnt to appreciate the flavors and textures of the coffee without being tarnished or influenced by the sweetness of sugar.

Conversely now if I consume coffee with 3 to 4 sugars, I find it hideously sickening, the idea being is that our taste buds to adapt as too they adapt as a young adult.

If you learn to eat all those undesirable vegetables and other food groups as a child, in time to gain an appreciation for food and are less likely to be very discerning with your food consumption.

While there additional pressures on parents these days with high mortgages long working days and less time for family life, what the family eats as a whole needs to be addressed.

The Gillard Goverment’s announcement that the Labor government will not be introducing the junk food tax begs the question whether the government is truly taking this issue seriously or will they merely commission another report to confirm what we already know.

One such investigation to improves the country health, in particular managing and reducing the countries growing obesity rate is the report generated from the Preventative Health Task Force that recommended introducing a tax on energy dense foods or commonly referred to as junk food.

This comes at a time when childhood obesity is at epidemic levels with the recent report into Child Development and Play commissioned by homeware’s giant Ikea found that a disturbing 66% watch more than four hours of TV per day.

A similar report from the US from the Journal of pediatrics similarity found 66% of preschoolers viewed more than two hours per day of content from a TV or computer screen.

Unfortunately implementing strategies and policies which at a the minimum stop the obesity rate let alone reduce the percentage of children overweight or obese seems to be weighted down by bureaucracy and the effects it will have on the food manufacturers and distribution landscape.

While childhood obesity, or more specifically obesity for the general population is a complex issue, we need to be a cohesive approach from not only government, but the educational providers, parents and media companies.

The key areas that need to be addressed but may prove to be unpopular are:

1.Introducing a junk food tax

2.Restricting marketing of junk food to children through all types of electronic and printed media

3.Food labeling laws to remove misleading and confusing packaging

4.Changing the school canteen menu to exclude food & beverages that are high is salt, sugar and fat, limiting processed foods and supplying fresh fruit while encouraging the consumption of tap water

5.Subsidies for healthier foods at day care centres, pre school and primary schools

6.Parents limiting sedentary behavior such as watching TV, playing video games, surfing the internet, talking on mobile phones, sending sms and watching DVD or streamed content from the web

7.Stopping the sponsorship of any event that is primarily attended by or marketed to children by junk food companies

8.Programs to increase childhood exercise

9.Educating children about the benefits of healthy eating

10.Stopping the association of brand ambassadors with junk food

While there seems to be a genuine government interest in tackling childhood obesity, we need to see action rather than debate or the commissioning of more reports, or reports that analysis all the existing reports.

If this situation is allowed to continue unabated, we will have a generation of children with Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease dying before there parents.

Australian based fast food companies have agreed to a new guidelines relating to the marketing of children called “Australian quick service restaurant industry initiative for responsible advertising and marketing to children”. This has been signed by McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, Oporto, Red Rooster, Chicken Treat, KFC, and Pizza Hutt.

The big break though is that for the first time these companies will make sure that they have a nutritional information available upon request in their restaurants and also information on their websites and packaging where possible.

The impetus behind this is to ensure appropriate advertising to children which follows the communities back lash regarding the practices of advertising fast food to children.

The organisation which the main players in the fast food industry belongs to is called the Australia Association of National Advertises (AANA) who strongly supported this initiative.

To ensure that there is transparency and adherence to the code an independent third party will be assigned to ensure that they all are complying.

The Guidelines go further with the energy requirements, say 4-8 year olds 2080 kilojoules per meal and 9-10 year olds 2770 kilojoules per meal and also stipulate levels of saturated fat, sugar, and sodium. Whether these levels are satisfactory is open to debate.

Awash, the Australian Division of the World Action on Salt and health recommends an upper limit of 2.5gms for 4-8 year olds with a simple chart showing some lower salt options verses what may be a typical salt intake.

So hopefully with the new guidelines the fast food companies can adopt these new guidelines in changing there marketing to children strategies.