FROM THE CLASSROOM: Healthy in, healthy out

We worry about how our children grow. When they are little, we worry about whether they are growing fast enough; as they grow, we worry about why they grow so fast; when they start school, we worry about them having enough or too much energy.

Strangely enough, our daily worries are about what they eat, how much they eat, and whether mealtimes will become the next big argument.

We know that today’s children are exposed to more processed foods, higher in sugar and salt and saturated fats. We know that childhood obesity rates have tripled since 1970, and 1 in 10 children in Tanzania can be defined as obese (frighteningly, the rate of increase is almost 30 per cent in Africa compared to the developed world).

We know that obese children tend to stay obese through adolescence and adulthood, and are more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis, cancer and resistance to insulin.

We know that overweight children tend to perform less well at school, mostly because their metabolisms become sluggish, affecting performance, and are no doubt also affected emotionally by the cruel jibes of other children.

But in spite of knowing all this, some of us still look away from the heart of the issue, which is that healthy eating is mostly about healthy lifestyles, and it cannot be outsourced. Children spend most of their waking hours at school, and it is important for healthy eating habits to be mirrored there.

There is evidence that schools which offer healthy, balanced school lunches often have better standardised test scores than those which don’t, and there is proven correlation between healthy diets and increased learning at school.

But although more schools are moving towards providing healthy school lunches, evidence also shows that many children discard healthy food provided and substitute it with less healthy, home-brought items sanctioned by parents. Even more sadly, many parents complain about the balanced portion sizes of healthy school lunches, and will then allow uncensored snacking at home.

So if we know all this, we have to take responsibility for what our children eat. It cannot be relegated to certain members of the family, to certain days of the week, or to designated places and seasons. It is often easier (and sadly, in many cases, cheaper) to have a pizza instead of a healthy home-cooked dinner, and to ensure that there are cookies and fried bhajias to snack on, instead of veggie sticks and fruit.

But easier does not mean better, it mostly means that we take more comfort in worrying about what our children eat than in actually doing something about it together.

Waheeda Shariff Samji is a Director at The Latham School