Would you agree.??? feel passionate about this !!!!?

in the lihgt of todays government inisiative on healthy eating and obesity in children, would you agree that to have a healthy diet you need to be quite well off, fresh fruit and veg everyday costs a fortune and foods which are unhealthy say biscuits and cakes are actually cheaper to buy.. therefore families who are under privelaged have no option to go for the crap that fills their little ones tums and buy the frozen food out of shops like iceland and farmfoods....fresh food is astonomical in price...OBESITY is the fault of the goverment... these foods are full of additives and high fat content,,, no wonder OBESITY is so bad in young children today... If the goverment are so set on getting our nations health in order.. WELL they have the power to lower the price of consumer products and stop the retailer ripping us off... our country has an abundance of food and its sad that only the well off can enjoy it and be healthy...Ive seen poor families and know the struggle they have...

WOW... great response.. every one has a good point.. but society conditions us on how they produce the food... We need to be re-educated in our country on how to eat healthy.. but it needs to be affordable . AND it is more expensive to eat healthinly ...dont care what anyone says... i have alarge family and have to buy all the reduced good stufff. to stay healthy is difficult...

I absolutely do not understand how people think it's so expensive to eat healthily every day. I am super poor and rarely buy junk food... I always have plenty of fresh foods and it really doesn't cost any more to eat this way. Almost every town has farmers markets! I got two loaves of homemade whole grain bread, a peck of apples, green peppers, onions, about 7 tomatoes and some hot peppers for about 8 dollars at our local farmers market!
You also have to take into consideration that the so called "cheap food" you've mentioned has absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever... These poor families you're mentioning are better off buying fresh things and making it go further by adding rice or pasta (BOTH CHEAP) then eating all those empty carbs, fat and a huge ingredient list FULL of chemicals!

actually, I do live in the city! That's where city folk go to get fresh farm produce since they don't have farm access! Report It

I agree totally. I am currently trying to eat healthy diet instead of junk food and my shopping bill is more than twice what it has been.
If fresh food was cheaper then it would be so much easier to be healthy and kids would grow up with a healthy diet and eventually it would become the norm for kids to want frech meat and veg rather than processed frozen junk

I agree and have said this before, fresh fruit and meat is quite expensive in supermarkets. However if you shop in local greengrocers and the local market you can find fruit and veg really cheaply. Our local butchers do some great special offers and sometimes beat the local supermarket on cost.

I think we should all get back to local shops rather than the big supermarkets, also the local shops won't cover all their food in lots of unnecessary packaging.

When i was in really bad dire straits I only had 拢40 a week to buy all my food, pay my fuel/travel costs and anything else that cropped up. I saved a fortune by going to my local greengrocers and buying up a whole load of stuff, I was also a load healthier as I biked it places where I could rather than taking my car (which I had to sell in the end).

I agree that the government can definately do a lot more to help - we should start a campaign.....

Yes I agree, the more well off you are you can afford healthier foods and the more poor you are the faster you are going to die because you can't afford the healthier foods... It's a conspiracy I say!!!

I completely agree! But the problem starts with inflation. The farmer can't provide for his family if the prices go down. That's part of the reason why the farming population has decreased by over half in the last 10 years. My community was once a farming one. Now there are only 3 farms left due to inflation. Even though an apple costs 2.69 a pound in the store, the grower was only paid maybe 20 cents a pound for it. The reason foods high in sugar are cheaper is because of easy mass production. The only thing we can do is complain where it counts. Go to your governor for starts. Talk with other people about this and it will eventually spread. Taking action is easier said than done but when it's all over, it was better to try. Good Luck and God Bless!

I've been on a healthy eating plan for about a year. I'm eating far less, but my food bill has almost doubled. I think it's about time the government started subsidising healthy food, (fruit, veg, low fat, brown rice & pasta etc etc) and to compensate they should up the tax on junk food.

I think it should fall to the supermarkets to charge more for "ready meals" to offset fresh produce.

Half the problem is the supermarkets make a good profit on ready meals but very little on fresh stuff.

We have been conditioned into bad eating habits. No-one cooks anymore. It's "throw it in the oven or microwave" these days. Try feeding kids a plate of fresh veg...

The problem in our society is portion control. Well one of the problems anyway! A farmer could eat butter pancakes with syrup, eggs, sausage and not gain weight because he is working off calories. Buy a $2 bunch of romaine lettuce rather than a $2 white flour loaf of bread. If no other food is available than what welfare is giving you then stop complaining and be thankful others provide for you but use portion control and get off the butt and MOVE, take a walk or look for a job so you can buy the food you should be eating and won't be able to complain about freebees anymore. Look I understand about difficult times but we guide our own destinies. People should spend energies bettering themselves rather than blaming others for the situation they are in. Life IS about choices so choose not to remain where what you get is what others feed you! People, young and old, are fat from sitting in front of the computer or t.v. and not moving. People are fat from eating double and triple the amount of foods their body can handle. If you want to place a blame then please put it where it belongs. Life is about choices.

The 'normal' lifestyle you have described is certainly to blame for the obesity crisis, but not because of the foods that are provided.

Traditional communities around the world rely on a wide variety of diets; some of these are very high in the kinds of nutrient that we are being told to avoid. (Health & dietary advice is one part of the same 'post-industrial' culture that manufactures convenience foods and gym equipment.)

The main difference between healthy traditional cultures and the way we are now forced to live in the 'west', is the amount of activity that daily living involves.

Traditional communities are usually active throughout the day, at a moderate level. Populations famous for their health and longevity, such as the Hunza afghans and the Ligurian italians, live among steep hills. Just walking around in these places needs more energy use than in flatter (or artificially flattened) areas.

In a traditional community, there is usually a lot of manual work to be done. It is not possible to do this work in short, exhausting bursts; you need to work at a level that can be continued all day. Humans evolved in environments where we were hunted, and it would be dangerous to work hard enough to feel fatigue. Exhaustion would leave us vulnerable to predators.

The 'western' approach to fitness assumes that we can be idle (or stationary; it is possible to 'work' hard at a desk, but it is physically immobile work) for most of the day, if we 'make up for it' with brief bursts of fatiguing exercise.

Going to the gym regularly is no substitute for constant activity. Constantly active people have been shown to be better at absorbing the 'right' nutrients from their diet, and at regulating their use in the body. This allows you to 'get away with' eating more of the 'wrong' foods.

Exhausting exercise puts extra strain on your 'recovery' and 'repair' systems, so that your body becomes EVEN MORE sensitive to the kind of diet you eat. So the 'western' approach, combining periods of idleness and overwork, is HELPING the foods you have mentioned to damage our health.

Unfortunately, the government is more easily influenced by the demands of commercial companies (who make money from producing the things our lifestyle depends on, including fattening foods and slimming foods, armchairs and gym equipment), than by the needs of individuals.

Commercial businesses are able to pay for 'lobbying' and 'campaigning', because these activities add to their profitability. Individuals have less freedom to campaign and lobby, and are more easily ignored when they do.

Because they have even less money than others, the poor are a 'consumer category' that is of very little interest to commercial companies, and practically invisible (because they can't do any lobbying and campaigning at all) to the government.