Camden is currently the top rated local authority in the country, the only council ever to gain perfect scores from the Audit Commission for every part of its corporate assessment. But we’re failing on two key climate change and sustainability indicators – reducing CO2 emissions across the borough and obesity among year six children (age 10-11).
Reducing CO2 emissions across Camden is a highly challenging goal since the council is not responsible for most of those emissions. But the best council in the country should be challenging itself to keep striving to do better. At least that’s what I believe. Hopefully many of the things the all-party Camden Council Sustainability Task Force has suggested over the last two years will help to bear down on our emissions.
However it’s the obesity in year six children that I want to draw attention to because I don’t believe we’re giving ourselves any levers to deal with this problem. It’s interesting to note the different experiences of the US (which is further down the obesity road than the UK) and France. In the US young children are encouraged to participate in family food choices and to eat unrestrainedly. In France, by contrast, emphasis is placed on not overfeeding children from an early age, and food choices are constrained with little opportunity for sweets or snacks. In the US there has been an obesity epidemic among children whilst weight has remained almost constant in France.
We restrict choices for children in many areas eg alcohol, driving, drugs, smoking, pornography etc. So why in Anglo-Saxon societies are we unwilling to do the same in the case of unhealthy food?
School food is certainly better in Camden than it was, but there are still far too many unhealthy options on menus. All the research shows that where children are given options they choose the unhealthy ones. In the words of a research team from Kings College London: “We should not expect school children to make healthy food choices at lunchtime if they are being offered chips and burgers or their equivalent most days of the week. Adults do not make healthy choices, as is evident from the latest National Diet and Nutrition Survey. Why should we expect school children to behave differently? They are even less well equipped than adults in terms of knowledge and understanding of the health consequences of poor dietary choices.”
The Schools Food Trust surveyed local authority catering providers who said that pupils were turning to packed lunches and outside catering outlets in reaction to the healthy food options on the menu. I believe there should be much stricter guidelines on what is acceptable for packed lunches and that schools should be given help to introduce swipe card systems that prevent pupils spending lunch money at junk food outlets near schools. One local authority – Waltham Forest – has gone even further and has started to ban fast food outlets near schools. Good for them.
Connection with and understanding of the food chain is important – particularly for children growing up in an urban environment who may have little idea where the food on their plate comes from. Studies suggest that positive behaviour changes can be promoted if children are exposed to ‘healthier’ foods via interaction (eg visits to farms, preparation of meals, composting etc) rather than classroom teaching. Some of our schools are starting to grow food. That should be universal. And, wherever possible, they should raise chickens and pigs as well.
The alternative to taking action is to stand by while obesity rates continue to rise. Nearly a quarter of the UK population is now clinically obese, a threefold increase since 1980. One in 10 six-year-olds is obese. The total number of obese children has doubled since 1982. Obesity-related diseases like type two diabetes, which were previously unheard of in children, are starting to cause great concern. On present trends half of all children in England could be obese by 2020. We have plenty of levers. Let’s start using them.
No comments:
Post a Comment