Channel 5, On benefits: 100 stone and on the Dole.

Good luck rubylady!!

^could you possibly sneak a Greggs sausage roll in for me please?

rubylady I think that, even when you are on a diet, your metabolism needs a little 'jolt' now and again or else your weight loss will plateau.

A Greggs sausage roll should do the trick nicely

Then the diet of hospital food should help you lose more weight!

Don't bring me into your argument! Here I am, innocently sitting by my bed, teddy bear blanket keeping me snuggled (pinched from my doggie by DS), fan keeping me cool (don't ask?) tea gone cold and catching up on here. Then I see that I have been refered to in a post, shocked! (lol)

Being a benefit claimant, I think that people should do all in their power to get themselves well and active. It makes my blood pump eratically around my body to think that people on benefits shovel huge portions into their mouths, not caring who has paid for it or where the money will come from should they need medical attention because of their lifestyle. A bed alone, to buy, is over £1200, that is without medicine, surgery, staff, food etc. The cost of one night stay is about £1000. In my case I have done nothing to bring my condition on, it is all part and parcel of me being born with it.

In saying that, I did know I was carrying extra timber, not good for me. I have tried to diet, as some of you know. In one week I have lost 23 lbs! Probably mostly excess water, but I am watching my menu too. It's not hard to source healthy food and throw it in a slow cooker. I will continue to be careful with my diet, I already like being slimmer.

On the other hand, Ann love, when you do come again, could you possibly sneak a Greggs sausage roll in for me please? Talking about them has made my saliva glands go into overdrive. And I'm allowed, I don't sit in a pram and play with a phone just to please my mummy!

Ann is a trooper, a true friend. Thank you Ann.

It is amazing how some people seem to thrive on what would be considered a very unbalanced diet.

I remember seeing a piece on TV about an elderly single man who had eaten fish and chips from the fish and chip shop every evening of his adult life. He looked quite healthy - sprightly for his age and not at all overweight.

Haggis-yes. Scotch pie-no. Deep-fried mars bars-absolutely no (and irn-bru ditto!)

HAGGIS!??

I have just looked at a picture of a Scotch pie and it looks very similar to an 'Aussie Pie'
mmmm delicious, especially when made by a Lancastrian £10 Pom!

Sounds very much like my early eating experience MawBroom and those Scotch pies were absolutely delicious. It came as a real revelation to me that peas and carrots (Sunday dinner) didn't always come out of a tin!!

However not all Scots live to ripe old age. Glaswegians in particular, even by Scottish standards, have a very poor life expectancy.

"With a population of 1.2 million in greater Glasgow, life expectancy at birth is 71.6 years for men, nearly seven years below the national average of 78.2 years, and 78 years for women, over four years below the national average of 82.3."

Having said that most of my Scottish aunties lived to their 90s and a few are still going strong today, though their menfolk didn't fare so well.

Peas are vegetables (well, kind of) and chips contain Vitamin C (apparently)
Just saying [wink)
That artificial cream - I remember that, I think it was made with lard!

Fish and haggis - good nutritious food!!

Now - fried Mars bars are another topic altogether.

What feels like an aeon ago my Scottish Granny, who was the least domesticated woman on earth, fed her sons , my father and uncle every Friday night, the night the (family) newspaper went to bed, on what was probably the "junk food" of the day - "Scotch" (mutton) pies, peas and chips with a "cream cookie" (sweet bun filled with artificial cream) I would be very surprised if their diet before each of them married had featured much more in the way of healthy home cooking.
As a child, I would collect the aforementioned pies and cream cookies from the butcher and baker for her. She may have cooked the chips herself, but many a family especially the poorer ones consumed what we might consider an unhealthy amount of fish or haggis and chips from the chip shop or van,
This is no defence of the "junk food generation" but just saying there is nothing new under the sun.
My father died aged 88, his brother, 94 so their diet in their early years can't have done them too much harm.
I wish as mature women, some of us could be less judgemental. Yes, we may have learned from our own life experience, but it is an unattractive characteristic in some of the older generation.

Yes, it is hackneyed. This is why I try not to quote it. And yes those children seen in public places clutching poor quality food are probably not getting a balanced diet, but neither are children eating extreme diets based on lots of vegetables but excluding whole food groups, like dairy or gluten or fat or any other food you may mention. The secret is a balanced diet and not demonising any particular food group.

To quote another hackneyed phrase 'Eat well, not too much, most of it plants' is really all the direction anyone needs on a good diet.

Monica though I dislike that phrase (because it's quoted by some who use it as an excuse without understanding it) it does sum up what we are talking about, and what Jalima touched upon. A beef burger served with a fresh salad can be a nutritious enough meal (provided the salad gets eaten!)

But these children that ann60 and others see clutching a sausage roll (or worse) and strapped into their buggies, are probably not also being offered a tomato or other vegetables to balance the meal out. So at some point these meals become purely 'junk' as there's not the correct balance being offered.

Does that make sense as I'm trying to take bags's point on board too?

From my far off distant memory I don't remember people eating and drinking in the street.
Maybe an ice cream or fish & chips but rarely a drink.
Most food had to be prepared at home
Where as today prepared ready made food is easily accessible on virtually every Street.

Jalima agree re sun cream
Schools and nursery request that sun protection is applied at home, before children can be allowed play outside in the summer .
I'm sure its for the best, as is the wearing of sunhats
but vitamin D is also very important.

There are no such things as good and bad foods, just good and bad diets.

Not sure they'd ever reach 100 stone though - think there's only ever been one man who got to that weight.

The point I'm making is that even cheap burgers are not 'junk'. They'll be more nutritious than, say, cream crackers or sugary pop (or even unsugary pop).
Fair enough, but it is possible - probable - that the children fed on a constant diet of cheap burgers, sausage rolls, crisps etc (even if they are not 'junk') are the same children who are given cans of fizzy drink and are not offered any fresh fruit or vegetables.

annsixty so you'd like to return to the good old days when children had rickets and malnutrition
I think that was an unjustified attack on a poster for posting her observations on here.

I think it is fairly obvious paddyann that annsixty was showing concern that the children were not getting an adequate diet because their mothers may not have learnt how to cook nutritious food. I'm not saying that sausage rolls are bad for you on occasion, but a possible diet of junk food without fresh produce is what could lead to malnutrition - obese people can be malnourished too.
Rickets, however, does occur nowadays because some parents are over-zealous in the application of sun cream and the children don't get enough Vitamin D from sunlight.

What worries me more is that the small children in the pushchairs are often tied down in them for hours at a time, ignored by their parents and just shouted at now again if they they wriggle or ccomplain.

Even at my ripe old age I still can't eat in the street. It was considered the height of bad manners/upbringing when I was a child and I wouldn't allow my children to do it either.

An ice cream cornet on a hot day was the exception

Where we live the children in pushchairs are usually clutching bags of crisps and bars of chocolate. A sausage roll would be an improvement. What I do notice is that the families eating in the street do tend to be the fat ones.

Since they've moved the venue where I work, I can no longer nip to Greggs next door. I've taken to taking a bento box with me. Suits me well as I'm more of a grazer anyway

I used to like the Greggs stuff, but I think it's gone off. The only decent thing is the cheese and onion in puff pastry ( fatttening though)

Annsixty writes common sense. Although I haven't lived in the UK for some years it seems there's still a big social divide. A new class system, like it or not.
As most of us know planning shopping and cooking a decent meal takes time and effort, not necessarily money. It's quite hard work, too hard for many people.

The powers that be wouldn't print what I think of your comments, paddyann
I leave it to your twisted imagination.