Children are 'eating themselves sick' with junk food

An entire generation of children is "eating themselves sick" with a diet of fat and salt-saturated junk food that will lead to obesity and serious health problems in adulthood, nutritionists warned yesterday.

A forum of health and education professionals was told that urgent action was needed to correct the diets of the young or the nation risked creating a generation that was less healthy than those brought up during post-war rationing.

Research has found more than two-thirds of pre-school children eat an unhealthy diet heavily reliant on white bread, chips, crisps and sweets, according to research by the Institute of Child Health.

In older children, from five to 18 years, 55 per cent admit to not eating any leafy green vegetables – but one girl in every six from the same age bracket is on a diet.

The result, according to experts gathered at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health conference in London, is that the next generation could spend their adulthood with illnesses caused by poor diet.

Some experts predict that, by 2030, half of all adults in Britain will be obese and have associated illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and strokes.

Liz Littlechild, one of the organisers of the conference, said: "There are a series of issues that have to be addressed as to what children are eating and the influences that lead them to these unhealthy diets.

"If we are to prevent future problems we have to look at what children are eating at school, what their parents eating habits are, what they are being told in the media."

The forum will produce a report on future strategy within the next four weeks to be presented to education authorities, doctors and politicians.

Nutritionists warned that children in the 21st century were leading increasingly sedentary lifestyles which were compounded by an abundance of cheap but often unhealthy food.

Compared with the immediate post-war period, when rationing cut out high-sugar, high-fat foods and play involved exercise, modern children are leading less healthy lifestyles, according to a discussion document produced for the forum.

Pointing to the return of vitamin D deficiency and rickets, the document said: "We have to ask, 'Are children today experiencing the nutritional equivalent of the Victorian age when rickets and scurvy were common?'"

Despite a healthy diet being more easily accessible than ever before in terms of cost, milk consumption is falling, less than half of pre-school children eat fruit and a quarter are overweight, the forum was told.

Food offered by schools, where a child receives a third of his or her daily nutrition, was singled out as a particular area for improvement.

Vending machines selling crisps and soft drinks, a common feature of secondary school corridors, should be phased out or used to offer healthier snacks and sponsorship by snack manufacturers should be discouraged.

Fiona Wilkinson, brand manager for Haliborange, a vitamin company sponsoring the forum, said: "A relationship needs to be developed between parents, schools and children to educate and expose children to a wide variety of 'good' foods early on in life and to teach them good food habits for life."

The meeting was told that about one quarter of a child's calorie intake comes from snack food and the average 10-year-old will eat his or her weight in chips every nine months.

Expert advice should also be available to parents of a child who becomes a faddy eater. Researchers found children as young as one developed food preferences that, by four, had become difficult to modify.