Childhood obesity? Is junk food really cheaper?

I may be nieve but I don't think it is.
My mate wrote a cook book for parents where I work I thought it was great.

I thought cooking a big pot of home made spag bol, chilli, curry etc was cheap and healthy - am I wrong?

Should parents be doing more to keep their kids healthy?

As a reformed food faddie i now realise how expensive junk food is

Fresh fruit and veg are so cheap . .even organic food is cheaper these days ..

I now know when i cook it is not full of chemicals etc and is pure..

Not so long ago my kids would have coco pops for breakfast .. now they have a healthier cereal with fresh fruit and toast ...

We as parents can do so much more for our kids in helping them to eat heathly ..

It is not hard .. instead of the chocolate bar in the lunch box try a pack of raisins ..Instead of the bag of crisps on the way to school give them a banana ..

My kids now have a wide and varied diet and are always trying new food ...

parwents should do all they can to keep their kids healthy.
Yes. I find it a drag cooking for my children. Who wants to stand around peeling vegetables etc but I do because I feel responsible, I am responsible for them, if not me, then who? - sort of thing and, in the entire scheme of things, we don't have full control/responsibility over them for that long a time.

I've told my hubby that once they leave home I'm never peeling another vegetable again!
Of course, parent should do that. Parents ARE ultimately responsible since they are the ones who do the shopping and plan the meals. Some parents are uneducated as to how to best do this, others are just plain lazy, and don't want to be bothered. I don't care what anyone says. A person can prepare good nutritous foods for reasonable prices. I was a single parent and my daughter is NOT obese! Why? Because I didn't waste my hard earned dollars on crap...and we'd both sit down together and decide on meals for the week. When she got old enough, she actually took over the cooking because it was her goal to become a chef as a career...and I was delightfully surprised at the things she made for meals and for reasonable prices, too!

It takes effort...and will.

Of parents can't always always be around their kids all day. So, we need to teach kids to make healthy choices and how to ignore all the ads on TV promoting junk foods...and perhaps begin to pressure schools not to allow all those fast food vendors to serve junk to the kids in the school cafeterias, plus get rid of the soda machines on school grounds.

Also we need to encourage kids to exercise more. A lot of schools don't even have required gym classes anymore. Pathetic. Parents, again, need to encourage this...by taking the lead. Buy bicycles and ride together. Go on hikes, PLAY with them...instead of dropping onto the couch at the end of a day....
Hello:

Junk food is ALOT CHEAPER than healthy foods are,just ask any family who is struggling to make ends meet,even when BOTH parents are working full-time jobs. The reality is,it is cheaper to buy macaroni and cheese,frozen dinners,pot pies,and so many other convenience foods than it is to buy healthier foods!

I am NOT SAYING that people shouldn't be buying healthier foods,but if the government is so worried about childhood or adult obesity than WHY DON'T THEY make the healthier foods MORE AFFORDABLE for SO MANY FAMILIES TO BUY?

Did you know,that ALOT of families have to buy what is cheapest and whatever will FEED A FAMILY! Another words,families will look at fresh fruits and vegetables that can be very costly and say to themselves,"Now lets see,do we buy fresh fruits and vegetables,or do we buy a big container of meat and potatoes that would cost about the same amount of money,and it would feed our family for a few days?"

I don't think that it is fair to put ALL OF THE BLAME on the parents,because ALOT OF PARENTS MUST work full-time jobs just to even be able to afford the milk for their children that costs $5.00 or more a gallon! Look at the schools too,if you are talking about blaming somebody! When I went to school in the 1970's and 1980's our school had Physical Education (Gym) EVERYDAY for an hour! My daughter who is in elementary school only gets a HALF HOUR of gym once a week.

Now lets stop and think why their is such an obesity epidemic? Our children are now treated like robots where they must be taught how to pass tests for the No child left behind requirements and therefore there is no longer any such thing as having a childhood!

Alot of kids are in both before and after school programs,and alot of kids have AT LEAST TWO OR MORE hours of homework a night after they have been in school all day! That is why our kids are having an obesity epidemic is because there is NO LONGER RECESS in alot of the schools or Physical Education has been eliminated to save money! Now I ask you,does this make sense to you?
Nurse and Mother
on the news tonight, they reckon that the take up of school dinners has gone down, since jamie oliver got involved and schools started having healthy things in the menus instead of junk. however, i blame the parents, for introducing kids to s**t in the first place, then of course they're not going to like anything healthy, because their taste buds have been trained to like fat and sugar.
i had the misfortune to visit an asda the other day and i can see why people think that junk food is cheaper, theres more of it in the supermarket for people to buy, its easier to see than the basic food stuffs that you would make the ready meals out of. the supermarkets flog this stuff cheaply and in bulk, fooling people into buying it all. i saw chavs wandering round with trollies full to the brim of cardboard boxes of frozen bo**ox, not a fresh bit of produce in sight.