Health
visitors fear for junk food generation
BBC
Six O'Clock News Special Report
Some
parents are putting burgers, fried chicken and other junk food in
the blender to use as baby food according to a BBC Six O'Clock News
Special Report.
Eighty per cent of health visitors surveyed by the programme said
they are seeing more children who do not have a balanced diet than
they did five years ago.
Several
of the interviewees reported seeing mothers use blended burgers
as baby food after being told to blend up selections from "whatever
they were eating" to wean their child.
This
practice was reported across the UK by health visitors who are in
a unique position to observe family mealtimes.
Health
visitors from East Hull, Camden, East Yorkshire,
Canterbury and Glasgow all reported seeing regular
incidences of babies and toddlers being given mashed up fried chicken,
burgers, Chinese take-away or other fast-food in place of home cooked
foods, some even before a suitable weaning age.
The
salt and fat content of these foods can result in obesity, and in
some cases more serious effects.
A
health visitor from Croydon had to take a baby into hospital
for excessively high salt levels after being weaned on instant gravy.
Health
visitors interviewed for the report were worried that there was
no proper concept of children's food other than that which is aggressively
marketed towards children.
For
example, in Bracknell, Berkshire, a respondent reported babies
regularly receiving crisps instead of baby biscuits to teethe on.
In
North Lincolnshire and again in Exeter, health visitors
had to intervene when it was discovered a mother was weaning her
baby on mashed up Chinese take-away, again because of the dangerously
high salt intake.
Even
in cases where mothers were making an effort to eat healthily, this
was undermined by confusion over labelling.
Ready
meals marked "98% fat free" or "Healthy option"
disguised high salt levels and a lack of fresh ingredients.
Health
visitors from all over the country pleaded for clearer labelling
- sodium should be labelled as salt, fructose as fruit sugar for
example.
"These
parents don't have a science degree," joked one Glasgow professional.
Weaning
is an area where health visitors and the Government are working
to educate parents.
Qualitative
evidence from health visitors themselves show this is much needed
- an example given was of chips being given to eight-week-old babies
in St Helen's.
Another
example that was frequently mentioned was the use of sweets and
biscuits as pacifiers "until their milk teeth come through
completely rotten, usually", said one health visitor from Tyneside.
"There
is still a belief that spoiling children is OK, and that usually
involves sugary foods, before babies are even old enough to handle
solids".
Where
sugar was recognised as a bad thing, ideas of what is "healthy"
were often to blame for bad practice.
One
health visitor in Southampton told of regularly seeing babies
with diet fizzy or soft drinks in their bottles.
In
older children, a high proportion of health visitors interviewed
mentioned the connection of some foods with play, such as with some
major fast food outlets.
This
casts healthy foods as dull and unfashionable, which makes its preparation
unlikely when combined with the increased time taken to prepare.
Many
health visitors were worried and daunted by the challenges of changing
cyclical patterns of unhealthy eating they felt were embedded into
families.
"In
families of young mums, girls who don't know how to cook are now
grandmas, and so there are no skills there to pass on, and no one
to ask," said a respondent from Suffolk.
The
health visitors the Six O'Clock News spoke to blamed a lack of domestic
science/cookery training for this knowledge gap, but saw few ways
to address this at school level.
Instead,
many spoke positively about setting up "cook together"
sessions for young mums where a meal is cooked for a small group
and eaten together.
One
health visitor from Hillingdon recalled the blank look on
the faces of a few of the mothers' faces she spoke to about healthy
eating.
"When
I told them to boil up some carrots and potatoes and mash them up
together they would nod, and then come up afterwards to ask what
I meant," she said.
This
lack of school based education is also affecting older children,
who are assumed to know how to look after themselves in their parents'
absence.
One
health visitor from Bexley recalled having to take a child
into care who had been existing on frozen ready meals - still frozen,
as her parents were working long hours and left her notes rather
than communicating properly with her.
While
most of the health visitors connected poor diet with low incomes,
the health visitor noted that this was "a classic case of middle
class neglect".
A lack
of understanding about child development was also cited as a cause
of unhealthy children.
A health
visitor from Bexley revealed how children who refused food
or were picky eaters were kept on milk as late as four or five,
by which time they had to be temporarily removed from parental care
because of developmental delays.
Even
in the less extreme cases, anaemia was common where bottled milk
was a major part of a child's diet.
Notes
to Editors
The
Six O'Clock news team questioned 179 health visitors from all over
the UK over three days in September 2003.
Any
use of material in this release must be credited in full to the
Six O'Clock News Special Report on 2 December 2003.
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