Too much salt in children's meals in UK hospitals

Children need to be protected from eating food high in salt because it can do life-long harm to their health, especially if they develop a taste for it, which so many of them do. Yet research by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) has found that children are in particular danger from very salty meals they are served in hospital, where they should, surely, be safer. - See the BBC News report.

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food. See Children and Obesity and Salt in Food.

Panorama: Spoilt Rotten - horrifying child health problems of obesity, bad teeth, drunkenness...

I was truly shocked at what I saw in this programme. You can watch the main points here or watch the whole programme on the i-Player: Spoilt Rotten

Poor little children having to have a general anaesthetic to have a lot of rotted teeth out! Poor little souls. Surely their mothers should/must have known that giving them lots of sweets and sugary stuff repeatedly would rot their teeth? That giving a sugary drink in a bottle to go to bed with is especially damaging? That children need to brush their teeth and go to bed with a clean mouth? - Couldn't/Didn't the mothers notice that their children's teeth were rotting? - Some of the teeth were eroded almost to the level of the gums!

Don't Health Visitors stress this sort of information to mothers? Dental decay like this should not be happening. As the programme stressed, this is an avoidable health problem. It's a great shame.

With regard to the obese children featured in the programme, the one most featured was Leon, a five year old lad who weighs over 10 stone! - Yet I heard not one mention of salt! - Not one! - The doctor advising Leon's mother stressed the need for the lad to exercise more, but it has been proved time and time again that exercise does not reduce or prevent child obesity. Exercise is a good thing but it does not reduce weight. How is it that doctors dealing with problems of child obesity are giving such unhelpful advice? When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Parents should be told this.

Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

See Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

The programme reported shocking instances of children taken to A and E because they were drunk! And we saw a 13 year old boy who regularly drinks excessive quantities of vodka! Maybe it is time, in the interests of child health, to set limits on the ease with which alcoholic drinks can be bought, and to raise the price of them.

Other children who had been treated for glue ear were suffering unnecessarily because of their parents smoking. Apparently the smoke interferes with the working of the grommets that had been inserted into their ears to assist their hearing. One father gave up smoking and that would have benefited both his own and his son's health. Another father claimed not to believe that his smoking was damaging his child and he continued to smoke. His cigarettes were more important to him than his child's health.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Lose weight

vulnerable groups

FAT RETENTION

This article is by Margaret Wilde

More children are suffering from EXTREME obesity

See Los Angeles Times blog report.

This tragic state of affairs obtains because members of the public continue to receive the wrong information and advice about obesity, and in particular, about child obesity.

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body. Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health.

Unfortunately bread contains a lot of salt and most families eat quite a lot of bread because of using it for sandwiches in packed lunches, and for toast, etc. Because of its high salt content bread is not a healthy food for little children or for anyone who is overweight. Some bread manufacturers have lowered the salt content of certain loaves, but most bread still usually contains 0.5g or more of sodium per 100g. This is too much. - Always check on the packet; look for the lowest sodium content.

Cheese is often recommended as being good for children because it contains calcium, but cheese is not really good for children because it has a high salt content. So don't give them a lot of it. Children can get plenty of calcium by drinking milk and by eating yogurt (but avoid the sort of yogurt that has lots of chemical additives).

See Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Lose weight

vulnerable groups

FAT RETENTION

Give your children the best start in life. Protect them from salt and salty food.

Salt and salty food are bad for little children. It is eating salty food that causes children to become fat. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body. Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health.

Unfortunately bread contains a lot of salt and most families eat quite a lot of bread because of using it for sandwiches in packed lunches, and for toast, etc. Because of its high salt content bread is not a healthy food for little children or for anyone who is overweight. Some bread manufacturers have lowered the salt content of certain loaves, but most bread still usually contains 0.5g or more of sodium per 100g. This is too much. - Always check on the packet; look for the lowest sodium content.

Boycott salty snacks that manufacturers make for children. Salty snacks damage the health of little children, and the damage is permanent.

Try to find children's foods with less salt. Or provide home-cooked meals, without any, or without much, added salt, rather than commercially produced ready meals and snacks.

For breakfast consider providing porridge, ReadyBrek, Shredded Wheat or Shreddies, all of which have no added salt, instead of cornflakes or most other breakfast cereals, which have had a lot of salt added by manufacturers.

If your children are keen on beans in tomato sauce, look at the label on the tin. - Buy the tin with a lower salt/sodium content. Give them smaller helpings of the beans.

In general it would be good for children not to develop a taste for salt. Providing snacks of fresh fruit, ready-to-eat dried fruit or unsalted nuts instead of salty savouries would help them.

See Children and Obesity

See also FAT RETENTION

Huge increase in prescribing of 'weight-loss drugs' to children

It is claimed that these "weight-loss pills work by either altering chemical messages to the brain that control feelings about food or by preventing fat absorption," as is reported in this BBC news item. "They are licensed only for adults and so any GP prescribing them is doing it on an unlicensed basis - a practice that is not uncommon in the UK."

These drugs are pernicious, unnecessary, harmful pharmaceutical junk and they should not be inflicted on children. The following paragraphs are an extract from my webpage on Children and Obesity

"When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body. Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health."

See also FAT RETENTION

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

Are Pork Pies to Blame For the Stockton-on-Tees' Child Obesity Problems?

The Times reports that people in Stockton-on-Tees eat more pork pies than people elsewhere in the region, and also that the town was named as the country’s capital for childhood obesity in Department of Health figures released this week. The question arises as to whether there is a causal connection between these facts.

Well pork pies are very high in salt/sodium, as are all cured meats or foods containing cured meat, so I'd say that if many of the children in Stockton-on-Tees are eating pork pies then the pork pies are definitely contributing to the child obesity problem.

When children become fat it is because they are eating salty food like pork pies, sausages, bacon, crisps, takeaways, ready meals, etc. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, can contain almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, burgers, hot dogs and savoury snacks.

Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health. And exercise has no effect on child obesity.

Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body.

Unfortunately bread contains a lot of salt and most families eat quite a lot of bread because of using it for sandwiches in packed lunches, and for toast, etc. Because of its high salt content bread is not a healthy food for little children or for anyone who is overweight. Some bread manufacturers have lowered the salt content of certain loaves, but most bread still usually contains 0.5g or more of sodium per 100g. This is too much. - Always check on the packet; look for the lowest sodium content.

Cheese is often recommended as being good for children because it contains calcium, but cheese is not really good for children because it has a high salt content. So don't give them a lot of it. Children can get plenty of calcium by drinking milk and by eating yogurt (but avoid the sort of yogurt that has lots of chemical additives).

There are no calories in salt - but if you cut down on salt you will easily lose weight. If you cut down on calories you will not lose weight.

Children and Obesity

FAT RETENTION

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Obese children with weight-related diabetes should be given gastric band surgery from age 15, says expert paediatrician Prof Julian Shield

Fat children should be given gastric bands to tackle diabetes says expert
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Rates of type 2 diabetes - a condition linked with obesity - have soared across all age groups in a decade as Britain struggles to control its weight problem. Seventeen per cent of British children - 900,000 in total - are classed obese or so fat that their health is in danger. Around 1,400 of these have type 2 diabetes, with around 100 new cases a year. The condition is usually diagnosed in those over 40 but rates in children are rising.

Gastric banding for obese children under 18 has been available on the NHS since 2006 but only in extremely rare cases. Such surgery has a less than one per cent risk of fatality although up to 10 per cent of patients can suffer complications."

That's a helluva high percentage of patients that can suffer complications! - It's a crying shame that people are not given the vitally important information that child obesity is caused by the high sodium content of much of the food that children eat. The fluid retention at the heart of all obesity is not reduced by calorie reduction or by exercise, so dieting is inappropriate, unnecessary and ineffective. - Here is what it says about child obesity on my website:

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body. Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health.

Unfortunately bread contains a lot of salt and most families eat quite a lot of bread because of using it for sandwiches in packed lunches, and for toast, etc. Because of its high salt content bread is not a healthy food for little children or for anyone who is overweight. Some bread manufacturers have lowered the salt content of certain loaves, but most bread still usually contains 0.5g or more of sodium per 100g. This is too much. - Always check on the packet; look for the lowest sodium content.

Cheese is often recommended as being good for children because it contains calcium, but cheese is not really good for children because it has a high salt content. So don't give them a lot of it. Children can get plenty of calcium by drinking milk and by eating yogurt (but avoid the sort of yogurt that has lots of chemical additives).

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Children as young as two need to be checked for signs of obesity to prevent future health problems, say Government advisers.

Two-year-olds should be checked for obesity, say health experts
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Health officials have asked experts to develop suitable tests for children as young as two determine if they are becoming overweight.

Advisers say that it is often too late by primary school to start addressing bad habits.

At a recent seminar hosted by the Westminster Health Forum, Dr Will Cavendish, from the Department of Health said: "The evidence is pretty horrible that one in four children are overweight or obese at reception and one in three at year six.

"Of course, we know that child obesity doesn't suddenly pop up at age four, five. We also know that we need to act on the early years, and indeed the pre-birth, family environment in order to get at this really effectively.""

All that is necessary, and, indeed, vital, is to give the facts about what causes obesity in children.

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Children's clothes sizes are to be changed to cope with a generation of bulging waistlines.

Children's clothes sizes to be changed to cope with obesity epidemic
article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"High street retailers plan to draw up new sizes, in response to the growing number of overweight and obese children.

Shops including Next, Asda and Monsoon are measuring 6,000 boys and girls amid an obesity epidemic which means one in three British children is now classed as overweight.

Manufacturers will use the results of the survey, using high-tech scanners, to decide how far to increase waist sizes and other measurements to allow for the expanding bulk of the average child. Most companies currently rely on statistics on children’s sizes that were published in 1990, as the obesity epidemic was just beginning.

Asda, which sells the most children’s clothing in Britain through its George brand, said it wanted to respond to the demands of its customers."

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers, crisps and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body. Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health.

Unfortunately bread contains a lot of salt and most families eat quite a lot of bread because of using it for sandwiches in packed lunches, and for toast, etc. Because of its high salt content bread is not a healthy food for little children or for anyone who is overweight. Some bread manufacturers have lowered the salt content of certain loaves, but most bread still usually contains 0.5g or more of sodium per 100g. This is too much. - Always check on the packet; look for the lowest sodium content.

Cheese is often recommended as being good for children because it contains calcium, but cheese is not really good for children because it has a high salt content. So don't give them a lot of it. Children can get plenty of calcium by drinking milk and by eating yogurt (but avoid the sort of yogurt that has lots of chemical additives).

Children and Obesity

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Childhood obesity is set before the age of five...

Obesity 'set before age of five'
article on the news pages of the BBC website

Extract:

"The EarlyBird Diabetes study of 233 children from birth to puberty is being published in the journal Pediatrics.

One in four children aged four to five in England are overweight, latest figures show.

Disease 'of our time'

At birth, the children in the study were of similar weight to babies 25 years ago, but had gained more fat by puberty compared with children of the same age in the 1980s.

The bulk of this excess weight was gained before the children were five.

Weight at five years bore little relation to birth weight, but closely predicted weight at nine years old."

"Lead researcher Professor Terry Wilkin, of the Peninsula Medical School, Plymouth, said: "When they reach the age of five the die seems to be cast, at least until the age of puberty.

"What is causing it is very difficult to know."

He said there must be a factor now that was not there 25 years ago which is making today's children obese."

There are more factors than one. Here are the main ones:

1) Children these days eat far more salt and salty food than formerly. Human breast milk is not high in salt/sodium, so breast-feeding a baby for as long as possible helps to protect the baby from becoming overweight. The younger the baby or child, the more harm salt causes. I expect that 25 years ago a lower proportion of mothers of young babies went to work, and so possibly breast-feeding was continued for longer than today.

2) The advice about reducing obesity is wrong. And people are bombarded by this wrong advice. - Obesity is not reduced by eating less food/fat/calories, because obesity is not caused by greed or 'over-eating'. Obesity is caused by fluid retention, caused in turn by sodium retention, and can only be reduced by reducing the fluid retention and that is done mainly by reducing salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of food that is rich in potassium. Fruit and vegetables contain a lot of potassium. Potassium displaces some of the sodium, and the water that always accompanies it, from the body.

3) Sodium retention depletes the body of essential minerals, mainly calcium, magnesium and potassium, and this mineral loss has many adverse consequences - fat retention and bone weakening being the main ones.

4) Dieting increases body weight because it increases fluid retention.

5) Exercise does not result in weight loss, no matter how many people insist that it does.

6) There are far too many pharmaceutical drugs prescribed and taken, and many of these cause or exacerbate fluid retention.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

At least seven children have been placed in care over fears they were too fat, it has been disclosed, by the use of Freedom of Information laws

Seven obese children placed in care
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Recent figures suggest a third of 13-year-olds are obese or overweight, and that a million children in England will be obese within five years.

Earlier this month, Tam Fry, a member of the National Obesity Forum's board, told a conference that youngster over-fed by their parents should be treated as victims of abuse, as happens with malnourished children.

Mr Fry said: "It is drastic but it's a long-term therapy. For the sake of the children it does need to be done because we have got children who are horrendously fat.""

Tam Fry is uninformed and is wrong when he says that obese children are obese because they are overfed by their parents. They are obese because of decades of misinformation from doctors and dieticians about what causes obesity.

It is, of course, wholly unnecessary to take fat children into care, and in my opinion, it is also cruel and damaging to the children and to their families to remove them from their homes.

WHEN is the truth going to be told about obesity?

Read my Mensa article Obesity and the Salt Connection

All that is necessary to curb the growing incidence of obesity is to tell the truth about what causes it! - Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone, prednisone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. (When doctors prescribe drugs that cause sodium retention and water retention they should warn the patient not to eat salt, or food containing salt, while taking the medication. When they do not give this warning, the inevitable consequence is considerable weight gain.)

Read here about the groups of people who are vulnerable to salt: vulnerable groups

Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' or 'dieting' is unnecessary, ineffective and often harmful.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

See Sodium in foods

I am very much opposed to the idea that fat children 'should be taken from parents and given stomach-stapling surgery'.

Exclusive: Fat children 'should be taken from parents and given stomach-stapling surgery'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Tam Fry, a member of the National Obesity Forum's board, will tell a key conference that young people who are overfed by their parents should be treated as victims of abuse, just as malnourished children are.

He will argue that authorities should take obese children away from their families and into care, and that those whose health is at risk should then undergo stomach-stapling operations.

Mr Fry said parents should be allowed to visit their overweight children in hospital, but they must first be "frisked" to ensure they are not trying to smuggle them junk food or fizzy drinks.

He admits his ideas are radical and that he will likely lose a debate on whether child obesity should be treated as a form of abuse, to be held at the forum's annual conference on Tuesday.

But Mr Fry insists Britain's obesity epidemic poses such a risk to public health, with the overweight likely to suffer from heart disease and diabetes, that drastic action must be taken."

This guy is so dangerously ignorant of the facts about weight gain and weight loss, especially with regard to child obesity, that I believe he poses a threat to the health of overweight children and should at the very least be removed from the board of the National Obesity Forum. - If his suggestion were to be acted upon, this would be very harmful to the children chosen to endure the stomach-stapling operations.

Here are some FACTS about obesity:

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods

The powers that be are considering taking fat children from their homes and families and putting them into care...)o:

Obese children may be put into care
from the Channel 4 website. The article is © Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

I think it would be very unwise and harmful to remove a child from home and family. - People just need to be told the facts about what causes child obesity and how to prevent/reduce it. The conventional 'wisdom' is that over-eating is the cause of obesity. - This is wrong. - So is the advice to 'just eat less and exercise more'. - Dieting (i.e. under-eating) and exercising do NOT reduce obesity, because obesity is caused by fluid retention, and fluid retention is not reduced by eating less or by taking more exercise.

Fruit (and vegetables) are rich in potassium, and potassium helps to prevent/reduce obesity in children because it displaces sodium from the body. When children eat salt and salty food their bodies get too much sodium and this causes fluid retention/weight gain, leading to obesity.

So food low in added salt is best for children's health and happiness (fat children are often bullied and humiliated) and plenty of fruit and (unsalted) vegetables makes their food intake even healthier. - Children should NEVER be expected to diet to lose weight. Dieting is harmful and unnecessary. They just need to avoid salt and salty food.

See Sodium in foods

You can read about the causes of obesity on my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk (the site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information) and in particular about child obesity on this page - http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

If you are overweight/obese and want to lose weight, you can do it easily and safely. - Read these pages to see how:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See also FAT RETENTION

Vulnerable groups

One in seven children - up to 1.7million - never eat any fruit, a report has warned.

One in seven children never eat fruit, says School Food Trust
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"In total, 14 per cent of youngsters do not even touch an apple, orange or a banana ever despite experts recommending that we eat five portions of fruit or veg a day.

Many children wrongly think that a healthy diet involves starving themselves, the government-backed report by the School Food Trust claimed.

"Although the term healthy eating is familiar to children, it is neither well understood nor applied in practice," it said."

"Childhood obesity is growing with one in three children regarded as overweight or obese, according to the report. By 2050, two in three children and 90 per cent of adults could be fat, risking heart disease and diabetes."

Fruit (and vegetables) are rich in potassium, and potassium helps to prevent/reduce obesity in children because it displaces sodium from the body. When children eat salt and salty food their bodies get too much sodium and this causes fluid retention/weight gain, leading to obesity.

So food low in added salt is best for children's health and happiness (fat children are often bullied and humiliated) and plenty of fruit and (unsalted) vegetables makes their food intake even healthier. - Children should NEVER be expected to diet to lose weight. Dieting is harmful and unnecessary. They just need to avoid salt and salty food.

See Sodium in foods

You can read about the causes of obesity on my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk (the site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information) and in particular about child obesity on this page - http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

If you are overweight/obese and want to lose weight, you can do it easily and safely. - Read these pages to see how:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See also FAT RETENTION

Vulnerable groups

Don't feed your tubby little boy or girl lots of food from the red list! - Give them plenty of food from the green list! - They'll soon be less tubby!

The red and green lists are on this page: sodium in foods
and some more information you need is on this page: how to help children to lose excess weight

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

See also FAT RETENTION

Doctors should start giving statins to children to combat an obesity "epidemic", according to a prestigious American academy. - What folly!

Children 'should be prescribed statins to combat heart disease'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract from the article:

"The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued guidelines recommending wider cholesterol screening for children and more aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs starting as early as the age of 8 in hopes of preventing adult heart problems.

The push to aggressively screen and medicate for high cholesterol in children is certain to create controversy amid a continuing debate about the use of prescription drugs in children as well as the best approaches to ward off heart disease in adults.

But proponents say there is growing evidence that the first signs of heart disease show up in childhood, and with 30 percent of the nation's children overweight or obese, many doctors fear that a rash of early heart attacks and diabetes is on the horizon as these children grow up."

When children become obese and develop heart disease and high cholesterol it is because they are eating salty food. - To prevent/reduce these health problems in children their salt/sodium intake needs to be significantly lowered and they should eat plenty of fruit and (unsalted) vegetables. There is no need for them to reduce calorie intake. They also need to be protected from high doses of prescription drugs that cause fluid retention/obesity/sodium retention/salt/sensitivity.

Medics always seem to want to push more and more drugs. - Drug-pushing of statins onto children is not a good idea. - Deal with the cause of the problem in order to solve/reduce it by minimising salt intake; don't prescribe drugs unnecessarily,, especially as so many people report very unpleasant side-effects from taking statins. - There are only good side-effects from lowering salt intake...(o: - losing weight, lowering high blood pressure, lowering cholesterol, lowering risk of stroke and heart disease and heart attack and type 2 diabetes, etc etc.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html

One in ten British five-year-olds is obese - official figures. This is because the experts are giving the wrong advice.

One in ten five-year-olds is obese - official figures
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Doctors are concerned at the figures as overweight and obese children are storing up health problems for the future and are more likely to develop diabetes, and die early from conditions like heart disease and cancer.

It is feared that the growing obesity epidemic will mean today's children will be the first to be outlived by their parents.

Obesity amongst children is calculated using height and weight but also takes into account their growth and so is best measured by an expert."

"Dr Tim Crayford, president of the Association of Directors of Public Health, said the regional differences in childhood obesity should be judged with caution as they are based on voluntary weighing in schools. But nevertheless there are differences in the rates of obesity around the country.

He said: “Systematic surveys of obesity in adults has found big regional differences and for that to be magnified in children would not be surprising.

“Obesity is quite strongly linked to deprivation and it can also reflect the ethnicity of the population.”

Dr Crayford added that a child’s risk of being obese is strongly linked to the health and weight of their parents. If neither parent is obese there is just a one in ten chance the child will be, compared to a four in ten chance is one parent is obese and an eight in ten chance is both are obese.

“It is about the ethos of the family,” he said. “It is about what the family eats, what activities they do, if for example they go out and play sport at the weekend or play computer games.”"

Dr Crayford, like most doctors, clearly still believes that lack of exercise is a cause of obesity, despite the fact that research has repeatedly shown that exercise does not reduce obesity. - Don't the 'experts' EVER read research findings?

Children, tragically, are becoming obese because the experts are giving the wrong information and advice about obesity. - Obesity is not caused by overeating and/or inactivity. - Obesity is caused by fluid retention and is easily and speedily reduced by reducing salt intake.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Children and Obesity

See FAT RETENTION

If you need my help, I can be contacted from my website. - My help is free.

Encouraging overweight children to exercise has no impact on weight loss and they should be encouraged instead to eat more healthily.

Exercise 'does not make obese children slim'
Telegraph article.

Well of course my blog and my website and my Mensa article have been giving this information for years. - Unfortunately, although the article rightly advises that it is better to concentrate on getting children eating healthily rather than giving them exercises to do, it is advising cutting down on eating fat and on eating chocolate. - Cutting down on fat and chocolate will not reduce obesity in children at all.

To reduce childhood obesity it is necessary to reduce not their fat intake, but their SALT intake.

Read about children and obesity here: - Children and Obesity and read my Mensa article here: - Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children hate their bodies and yearn to be thin. Anxiety about eating can lead to eating disorders.

Children hate their bodies and yearn to be thin

Extract from the Sunday Telegraph:

"Young children associate being thin with being "popular" and being overweight with being "nasty", attitudes that experts say could lead to eating disorders later in life.

The stresses faced by young children are revealed in the eighth series of the BBC's Child of Our Time, which has followed 25 children since their births in 2000.

The influence of so-called "size zero" culture was revealed when the children, none of whom was overweight, were asked to choose their ideal figure from a series of drawings. All the girls aspired to be thinner and thought that the fuller figures would have fewer friends. One girl said, unprompted, that the largest figure would be "nasty because she is fat". One child, Rhianna, a healthy, normal-sized seven-year-old from Yorkshire, said in the first episode: "I just don't like my body shape. I think I look really fat. I don't like it."

John Oates, a psychologist with the Open University, which has co-produced the series, said: "For the girls, in particular, weight was linked to attractiveness. The media portrayal of attractiveness being about thinness is picked up by children at an early age. Anxiety about eating is definitely a problem that can lead towards eating disorders.""

If everyone was to be told the truth about how people become fat, then there would be very few people with eating disorders. The truth is that obesity has a number of possible causes. Fluid retention/water retention/salt sensitivity is a major and unrecognised route to child obesity because most children these days eat too much salt and salty food. There are other additional possible causes in adults.

Whatever has caused a person to be overweight/fat/obese, they will lose much of that excess weight if they avoid eating salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

See FAT RETENTION

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Is your child overweight/obese? - Here is the safe, healthy answer - and it's not dieting...

Children need to avoid salt and salty food to reduce the fluid retention that is causing them to be overweight.

See Sodium in foods and Children and Obesity

Also see FAT RETENTION