Page 37 - Healthy food

Health

DR DAWN’S

medical notes…

The truth about snacks

It’s the focus of a new government initiative to help us all eat
more healthily, so how can we improve our snacking habits?

HANGE4LIFE is a Public has teamed up with some supermarkets
Health England (PHE) to make it easier for us to choose
initiative that encourages all healthier snacks for ourselves and for
Cof us to make small changes our families.
to our lifestyles that could result in big The new Change4Life strapline
benefits to our health. This year, it’s encourages us to: ‘Look for 100 calorie
focusing on snacking. The campaign is snacks, 2 a day max’. The messaging is
directed at parents, asking them to take simple – keep snacks to low calorie
control of their children’s snacking – but options and limit them to two a day,
actually it’s advice that we could all do tops. Supermarkets such as Tesco and
with listening to. Co-op will be doing their bit this year to
The truth is that more than half of make it easier for us to choose healthier
adult women and more than two-thirds snacks, with improved labelling, and
of men are overweight or obese in this Change4Life is offering money-off
country and, without putting too fine a vouchers for healthier snacks (you can
point on it, that’s because we eat too apply at nhs.uk/change4life).
much and move too little (read some of PHE has also launched the Change4Life
the startling facts and figures on p30). Food Scanner app, which is free to
To be fair, we’re all leading increasingly download from the App Store or
busy and, often by necessity, sedentary ^ We’re all leading busy Google Play. It’s simple to use – you just
lives, but snacking is one area we could and, often by necessity, scan the barcode of a product (it has
realistically target. thousands on its database) and it will
sedentary lives, but snacking instantly show you the calorie, sugar, salt
Why we need a reality check is one area we could and saturated fat content. Give it a try –
PHE has pulled together some pretty realistically target you may be in for some real surprises on
scary facts relating to our children’s _ your next visit to the supermarket!
snacking habits. Although they relate to
kids, I’m sure there are plenty of adults 270 calories, a chocolate bar 200 calories Cutting sugar, little by little
for whom the same is true! and an ice cream 175. Put like that, it’s I, FOR ONE, AM DELIGHTED to see the
Here’s a taster: each year children are not surprising that one in five reception- government and food industry start to
consuming almost 400 biscuits, more age children and one in three year six work together. This year, work will start
than 120 cakes, buns and pastries, 100 (aged 10–11) are overweight or obese. on an initiative to cut sugar levels in the
portions of sweets, 70 chocolate bars In contrast, only one in four Brits foods most often consumed by children,
and ice creams and 150 juice pouches achieve the recommended five portions aiming to cut 20% of the sugar in these
and cans of fizzy drinks each. There’s no of fruit and vegetables a day, so maybe products by 2020.
These are just a couple of initiatives to
doubt that all those snacks are playing a swapping those crisps and biscuits for help us with the obesity epidemic in our
significant role in the fact that British
fruit or carrot sticks could be one way of
PHOTO: ISTOCK children are consuming three times improving that statistic. But if giving up country. On their own, they won’t solve
the problem, but they’re certainly a step
altogether on your usual snacks is a step
more sugar than is recommended. Let’s
in the right direction.
not forget a pastry is likely to be around
too far, there’s some good news: PHE
FEBRUARY 2018 HEALTHY FOOD GUIDE 37