Does being poor make you fat?

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Spilling the beans on coffee!

Click HERE to listen to the story behind coffee!

Food allergies...

Scared?

Pastyche...

To enter the MEATRIX, click HERE!

World Vegetarian Day is on 1st October

Reasons to be(come) a vegetarian: click HERE!

Reasons to eat meat: click HERE!
Going gaga over meat?

Questions:

1. What are the arguments in favour of vegetarianism?
2. What are the arguments in favour of meat-eating?
3. In the EU, which country has the highest percentage of vegetarians and which has the lowest (cf. Wikipedia article)?
4. Why are you (not) a vegetarian?
5. Should school canteens provide vegetarian meals?

A fair sharing of the pie?

How can the diet of schoolchildren in low-income areas be improved?

Too much of a good thing...

The problem

1) Recent figures show that nearly four out of ten 11 to 15 year-olds are overweight in the UK. Childhood obesity is highest among the most deprived 10% of the British population; these children have the most health problems related to poor diets.

2) The favourite lunch-time meal of many schoolchildren is fast-food (also known as junk food). They prefer it to the food served in their school canteen. There are over 8,000 fast food outlets in London alone. Every school in London has at least one fast-food outlet less than a five-minute walk away.

3) Schoolchildren appreciate the convenience of having a fast-food outlet near to their school (and they do not have to wait long to be served). Plus they like the fact that the food is cheap, for example: fried chicken and chips and a soda drink usually costs around £1.

4) A typical meal in these outlets provides an average of 68% of recommended daily calories, 56% of saturated fat, and 53% of salt; this is bad for health and increases the risk of obesity. The poor diet of children from deprived areas is due partly to the fact that they choose to eat in these fast-food restaurants (or because they do not have enough lunch money to eat anywhere more expensive).

The possible solutions and their drawbacks

5) To improve school canteens would seem an obvious solution, with a greater variety of food of better quality at a reasonable cost. The drawback to this solution is that many children do not like school meals and they appreciate the freedom of going out for lunch.

6) Another solution would be more healthy-eating education programmes (aimed as much at the parents as the children), but the drawback is that these have not so far had much of an impact…

7) One radical solution would be to use planning laws to limit the number of fast-food restaurants around schools. However, the drawback is that this would not be appreciated by the restaurant owners or the local authorities who need the revenue from business tax (especially in poor areas).

8) One novel solution that is being tried (see below) is to put mobile healthy fast-food outlets into low-income areas in order to provide young people with access to tasty, affordable, healthy food, thus reducing their intake of fat, salt, sugar and calories and increasing their consumption of fruit and vegetables.

9) The editor in chief of the British Medical Journal argues that “rather than restricting takeaway food we should seek to transform it, by making healthy food as visible, tasty, and cheap as unhealthy food.” The drawback to this initiative might be that not many children, given the choice, would change their eating habits even if it is for a more healthy meal, and some may not even be able to afford the healthier option.

10) A mobile food outlet called Box Chicken set up business in 2013 in Newham, one of the poorest London boroughs, near to several secondary schools. It serves healthy meals (based on chicken cooked with spices and vegetables) which young people seem to appreciate.

11) A 300g Box Chicken meal with a 200ml orange juice has 60% fewer calories, 85% less saturated fat, 70% less salt and 20% less sugar compared to a typical meal at one of the fast-food outlets. A meal costs £2.50 (which is a bit more expensive than the average fast-food meal). Can such a business last?


To do & questions

1. Translate the text (each pupil translates a paragraph).
2. LIST & LEARN new vocabulary!
3. What are the synonyms of "low-income" used in the text?
4. Research the percentage of 11 to 15 year-olds that are overweight in your country (how does this compare to the UK?).
5. Research which are the four poorest London boroughs and situate them on a map.
6. What junk food can you buy in your area with the equivalent of £1 (how does this compare with the UK)?
7. Given the choice, would you eat daily at fast-food restaurants or at the school canteen?
8. Would you eat at Box Chicken, and what tasty but healthy fast-food would YOU sell if you had a food trailer and your customers were mostly secondary school kids?
9. Give the reasons you think a business like Box Chicken can or cannot be a success.
10. What other solutions, according to you, could be applied to solve the problem of child obesity in deprived areas?

ANSWERS:

What are the synonyms of "low-income" used in the text?

Two words are synonymous: ‘deprived’ (areas); ‘poorest’ (boroughs)

Research the percentage of 11 to 15 year-olds that are overweight in your country (how does this compare to the UK?).

The HAS (Haute Autorité de Santé) estimates 18% of children aged 3 to 17 are overweight in France (2011 figures). Among 11 to 15 year old French children, 4,5% are overweight and 3,5% are obese; this is much less than in the UK (about 37% of this age group).

Research which are the four poorest London boroughs and situate them on a map.

The four poorest London boroughs are: Barking and Dagenham, Waltham Forest, Haringey, Newham (they are all in the Eastern part of London).

What junk food can you buy in your area with the equivalent of £1 (how does this compare with the UK)?

Given the choice, would you eat daily at fast-food restaurants or at the school canteen?

I would definitely eat at the school canteen if the food was good and not expensive.

Would you eat at Box Chicken, and what tasty but healthy fast-food would YOU sell if you had a food trailer and your customers were mostly secondary school kids?

Yes, I would. I would sell healthy sandwiches and things like falafel and pitta, fruit salad and milkshakes.

Give the reasons you think a business like Box Chicken can or cannot be a success.

It can (must) succeed because it is a pragmatic solution to the emergency situation of feeding 11 to 15 year olds better in order to avoid overweight and obesity in that age group. By bringing tasty and healthy food at a reasonable price to the kids near to schools, children’s eating habits will improve. They will have an alternative choice of food (it will make a change from fried chicken and chips!). However, for the initiative to succeed, it will need the coordinated efforts of schools, parents and local authorities (and the Government) to encourage the schoolchildren and help the healthy-food trailers last as viable businesses.

Alternative answer:

It cannot succeed because the majority of children prefer fast food (it is what they are used to, they like it and it is cheap so they can spend what little money they have left on other things like sweets). Plus, most parents do not have enough influence over their children to make them change their eating habits (their own eating habits are not good either). Some children have very little lunch money and cannot afford the healthier option even if they wanted it. As a business, a healthy-food trailer is not viable because the overheads are too high (the cost of buying the healthy food and preparing it are much higher than for a fast-food outlet). Also, the local authorities do not want to risk losing business tax by showing favour to healthy-food trailers (the fast-food outlets would oppose any risk to their businesses). Most schools do not see it as their responsibility to feed the pupils so would not have any influence over them as regards this issue.

What other solutions, according to you, could be applied to solve the problem of child obesity in deprived areas?

• There should be a national initiative to solve the problem because it is a national catastrophe! The human cost is terrible, and the money it costs the NHS (National Health Service) to deal with obesity is surely higher than the cost of solving the problem! School canteens should serve decent, healthy, food very cheaply and 11 to 15 year-olds should not be given the choice of eating out at lunchtime. There should not be a choice of food at the canteen; all kids should “eat their greens”! It should be part of the work of teachers to educate children on healthy eating habits. Parents should also be made accountable for the health of their children.
• There could be local-council run restaurants with tasty and healthy meals made with organic produce at affordable prices, open to all, especially schoolchildren.
• There could be healthy-food restaurants, run as businesses (open in the evenings), in which lunch meals for children at subsidised rates are served.