Emilie Silverwood-Cope: If childhood obesity was a virus, we’d be in lockdown
How do we talk about childhood obesity and, more importantly, prevent the tsunami-like rise in the number of children impacted by this condition?
A report into this worldwide problem predicted that without interventions one-third of all children and adolescents will be overweight or obese by 2050. In the UK the predictions are even higher with closer to 40 per cent. We all know there is a problem. We all think we know the solution – just eat less and move more! – yet the problem doesn’t go away.
Obesity is seen as a moral failing and childhood obesity as a parenting fail. Go to the comments section of any article on this subject and you’ll see armchair experts calling out the parents as lazy, stupid, indulgent and sometimes even abusive. It’s the parents who can’t shop properly, or cook adequately and just feed their children fizzy drinks and crisps who are to blame.
The latest report described this international problem as a “monumental societal failure” and yet successive governments, various health care systems and policies haven’t shifted the dial enough to protect future generations from the damage that obesity does to their bodies.
Life expectancy for these children is reduced by as much as 15 years. They can develop the types of liver problems usually associated with heavy drinking as well as type 2 diabetes, joint pains, breathing problems and are at risk of developing a number of cancers. The serious health risks are why the NHS has opened specialist clinics across the country and typically spends £6.5billion a year on treating obesity-related conditions. It’s arguably the biggest health crisis facing our population. It’s so damaging, if childhood obesity was a virus, we’d be in lockdown.
Cambridge University is home to some of the world’s leading experts on childhood obesity. Much better minds than mine, and probably yours, have spent their careers trying to unravel causes and effects. That alone gives us a pretty clear indication that the crisis might be a bit more complex than “just eat less”. So what is the issue and what of the “societal failure” mentioned in this report? Does the ultraprocessed buck stop with us parents?
I never wanted my children to think of foods as good or bad. I worried more about eating disorders, toxic food guilt and hang ups. Was this a mistake? There are some foods out there that are actually bad. Those foods with hidden fructose that masquerade as healthy foods seem very bad. What about those drinks that are so laden with sugar just one could power a class of primary school children for a week? Seems pretty bad. Foods that destroy our gut biome. Also bad.
Cambridge Professor Giles Yeo said on Instagram: “People with obesity are not bad, they’re not morally bereft, they are not slothful, they are fighting their biology.”
In her recent lecture, another Cambridge expert, Professor Sadaf Farooqi, reiterated this message. It’s our genetics and the environment has hijacked our prehistoric need to not starve to death. Genetics determine thinness too: “… what we know is that 40 to 70 per cent of the difference in weight between two individuals is down to differences in their genes”.
If it takes a village to raise a child does it take a town centre to raise an obese one? I only ask because a walk around Cambridge now includes the dispiriting game of ‘spot the new fast food place’. An England-wide study by the BMJ in 2014 showed that “children living in areas surrounded by fast food outlets are more likely to be overweight or obese”.
Regulations are in place to prevent fast food places opening within walking distance of a school but these rules do not apply to town centres.
When town planners do try and stem the flow of ultraprocessed foods they can find themselves facing legal challenges. Kentucky Fried Chicken challenged at least 43 English councils over their health policies that restrict new hot food takeaways.
A good step towards a solution is realising stigma, blame and shame doesn’t help this problem. Ignoring the impact of genetics is not good science. If we really want to prevent this worsening childhood epidemic societal and policy changes are needed. It shouldn’t be beyond us to create an environment that doesn’t damage their health.
Read more Parenting Truths from Emilie Silverwood-Cope every month in the Cambridge Independent.
