"You may think I’m joking when I say that there are now Australian schools which have banned icing on birthday cakes and have mandated what food children can bring to school, but I’m not. I wish I was."

Why?

What's wrong with setting the boundaries, especially considering the revolting stuff kids bring to school to eat these days? So you do mind the schools being firm, but you don't mind the big food companies being manipulative? Or am I just being "alarmist"?

Children have been targeted by government because putting the focus on the young has the greatest potential for preventing adult obesity. Prevention is cheaper than cure. Paradoxically however, government still invests more money treating obesity than in preventing its occurrence.
I have often wondered if the Body Mass Index which is used to measure overweight and obesity will eventually be manipulated (like employment figures) to lower the statistics. However, there are a lot of vested interests involved in the issue, and it is in their interests to keep people fat.

I think you're being very disingenuous. While you make a lot of generalised statements and selectively choose a few statements from a small number of studies, I think it is undeniable that being overweight does, statistically, make you more predisposed to a large number of diseases, including circulatory and heart problems, diabetes and cancer.

As for your inconvenient 'facts', it is quite easy to make a single piece of information look good when it is taken out of context. For example, you claim that even though women engage in less physical exercise, they are less overweight than men. Could it be the fact that women tend to eat differently, tend to eat less, tend to drink less alcohol and are more conscious of the types of food they eat? Turning to your second 'fact', could wealthier people be healthier because they exercise more, eat better food (i.e. food lower in fat) and are generally more aware of health issues, despite the fact that they have more 'labour saving devices'? I mean, what is this, the 18th century? In case you haven't noticed, most people have cars, washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, etc., even though they may not be 'wealthy'.

Trying to draw a causal link between two isolated indicators is not good science. Perhaps the truest statement you made in your article was that the "word “science” is stretched to breaking point with nutrition". I think we're all open to examining the question of just how much of an impact diet and exercise has on longevity and quality of life, but let's not let this debate descend into spin.

It sounds like the same science used in the GW debate. In time it will change as it has been doing for a long time.

It certainly does sound like the Global Warming debate, runner.

The wholesale manufacturing of "controversies" that don't actually exist in mainstream scientific research is really starting to get on my nerves.

The flip-flopping blockbuster-breakthrough science stories you read in magazines are NOT the stuff of mainstream science.

The people known as "nutritionists" are often NOT real scientists, but often just journalist/celebrities.

I have seen nothing to convince me that the *perceived* crises in Global Warming science, nutrition, or developmental biology are anything more than a series of mass-media/interest-group beat-ups. What *really* needs examining in Australia is the low level of general scientific education, and our trust in sensationalist newspaper stories.

It sounds to me like the author is in denial. You only have to look at any group school photograph from the 70s compared with any from the 2ks and reality will quickly hit home, you don't need any doctorate to know we are raising a bunch of fatties.

You can say there is not a problem because it has not been 'proved' to your satisfaction, but don't stop intelligent intuitive people taking initiative and trying to fix this issue before it becomes a bigger health problem for these children in the future.

No, Dewi. What needs attention is the public's limited understanding of what 'science' is. All we usually get is a two-minute curio tacked onto the end of the evening news. Inevitably people get disillusioned with it.

oops. On re-reading your post I just repeated what you said. In any case the general understanding of science and scientific issues is woeful.

If the author is going to make such contrary claims, he needs to back it up much more effectively than he has done. As it stands, it's not particularly engaging, nor does it even appear to be well researched.

There is also the day to day issue of self sufficiency and "walking". I used to walk 2 km to school from year 2-6 and even further from 7-9, and after year 9, I caught 2 trains connecting to a selective school, and still had to walk a km to school.

No one ever thought of guarding me like I was a little emperer.

Come to think of it, we did so much walking, running when late, shopping for mother, walking to the bank to do mother's banking: at 12, and at lunch time it was the same every day. A sandwich and an apple. We drank water from the tap. Fizzy drinks were for spoilt children. Mother had 4 others to raise, so we never questioned this.

No one dared to be labelled "spoilt children". Self sufficiency was a measurement of our maturity, and in the playground, if mummy did everything for you, you were a "mummies boy". If you ate the cakes, you were spoilt sick.

Today you can't even tell them that they are fat. That is considered "verbal abuse". The adults think that discipline is abuse, but the opposite is true. Discipline is the same as welfare as they need to learn to be self sufficient.

It is a tought world out there, and they can't carry mummy in their brief cases for the rest of their lives.

Saintfletcher,

Your generalisations are worthy of a quote from the Four Yorkshiremen, Monty Python’s Flying Circus:

“…THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL:
They won't! “

While not disagreeing with all you have said, have you considered that some things have changed? Maybe there was not so much advertising directed at children in your time and perhaps more food was prepared in the home from basic ingredients.

Another thing, cars are faster now, there are many more of them and road rage is commonplace so I don’t think I will be sending the seven year old for a long walk to school. So maybe people need to base their decisions on facts and reason rather than rule of thumb.

I don't believe it is ethical for the community to stand stand aside and do nothing while faced with a health epidemic from such preventable diseases as Type 2 diabetes. It is unreasonable to put all of the responsibility or even the main responsibility on youth or on ther parents. Of course we need better education, some limits on child advertising and the like.

To the author

Thank you for your article.

Gekko, Cf3t, and Saintfletcher - thanks your for your posts.

Cornflower - I am greatful that I grew up with Grandma and Mum cooking home stuff. I am grateful that I grew up without TV until I was 17 years of age. I choose not to have a mobile. I choose not to have a dishwasher. I choose not to have a microwave.I am glad that when I ran home from school (2ks) to beat my brother to the arorroot biscuits and milk, tell Mum all we had done, and then get out and practice hockey and cricket. I could give you many more wonderful memories. My husband and I still go camping, boating and walking. We both share a 60th birtchday this year. Ho Hum.

Cheers
Kay

Reader comments suggest the author is out on a limb. As the parent of one teenager who is overweight, hopefully not obese (he's still growing) I know how difficult it is to overcome body image self esteem. Maybe that is all the author's approach offers, a sense of proportion to a big debate. I would wish the Federal Government would tackle the junk food advertisiers a bit more where it hurts as I believe they are morally culpable. At the same time it always irks me that it is Diabetes Australia that each year comes out with awesome figures on who has the disease and how half of them don't know it. This self serving exercise should be exposed for what it is - self promotion. An independent review would be helpful

Given that according to body-mass index charts most members of elite Rugby teams are 'obese' it is no wonder that this author has some questions to ask.

It is also generally acknowledged that BMI charts do not take into account the facts that a person may have a BMI in the 'obese' category but have a low body fat index and excellent cardiovascular fitness. BMI charts do not take into account a personal musculature, the idea of 'heavy bones' nor anything but a restricted idea of body morphology.

So, where do we go from here? How about 'obesity' being defined not by BMI but by things like body-fat index - harder to measure, but more accurate, by taking a person's resting heart rate and blood pressure, or by doing something that Dr Kenneth Cooper suggested 30 years ago - have people do a calculated amount of exercise and see what the result is: back in the late 1970s he stated that he had come across men with a 'paunch' who were fitter than their skinnier fellows.

I would agree with the BMI being used in two contexts though - that models with a very low BMI should not be allowed on fashion catwalks. The other is that people with 'morbid obesity' BMI levels should be encouraged to get down to 'obesity' rates in BMI, and have their overall health investigated.

As a nutritionist, dietiitan I have yet to change my position on the relationship of maintaining a healthy diet with acheiving good health. I have always, since my training in college, perceived that eating "right" had only marginal benefits to overall health.

I have counseled many skinny people for cardiac rehab after a heart attack. Furthermore I know many overweight people who have no health issues at all.

The correlation between the food gestapo and the global warming crowd are spot on the money. Recently I read 1984 by George Orwell and throuout the book references to the "Party" and the creation of war for power sounded exactly like the so called obesity experts who create pseudo epidemics today.

The obesity epidemic perpetuated by the experts appears only to be an example of power lust. Many other diseases have been erradicated or brought under control so their power base has slipped away. I am sure they give thanks at the altar of the almighty dollar every day for fat people!

Very funny Cornflower, I watched Monty Python too and I hope I don't sound like "that" generation. My parents telling me they walked to school in bare feet and lived on bread and dripping throught the great depression and never complained.

I really don't think I had it "tough" at all, and I apoligise if it sounds like that "one up-manship" game in victim politics. That is not what I was saying. I was simply saying I was self sufficient.

Like the Irish joke about the workers complaining about their sandwiches, I admit I usually made my own sandwiches too.

I deliberately only made one even then, I never wanted to get fat. None of us did, it was uncool.

I chose to go to a selective school on the other side of town, even with more of a walk. Infact it was my defiance against my parents who accused me of "elitism" for choosing not going to a local government school. We all knew that walking is good for chewing off the fat.

It hit me today noticing the kids on the North Shore Line with their heavy musical instruments and their huge bags of homework and strict uniforms. They just got off the train at Central, assuming they were changing trains for their home run. I can't remember one obese one of them. They didn't look unhappy at all. If only the kids in the state schools were that self sufficient and well behaved.

As a teacher, I am so glad they finally got the red fizzy drinks away from the ADHD kids and many fizzy drinks and other rubbish from the school tuck shops. It really does make a difference. I know that the kids get depressed and the eating can be part of depression and worst of all, they know its bad for them. They still do it. Then they feel worse.

Parents don't help when they either ignore kids' welfare or overprotect their kids in their own insecurity.

Time to lighten up, in more ways than one.

I don't know where the comment came about the behaviour of state school kids compared to private school kids comes into it Saintfletcher, but that is a matter of opinion. I have personally experienced private school children spitting on public school kids, punching them, swearing, loud and disruptive behaviour on trains and on the streets.

If however, your comment was meant to suggest that people from lower socio-economic areas are more likely to be overweight or obese than those from higher socio-economic ones, you may have a point. This is something that has not been addressed in government policy.

50 years ago obesity was rare in people who had manual labour jobs compared with more affluent groups. Mechanisation and technology has changed this. Aborigines are particularly at risk due to their more urbanised lifestyle. As hunter-gatherers there was no obesity.

Junk food is cheap compared with "healthy" food (just imagine the cost of giving 6 children a banana, apple and orange each a day as my mother used to). Low fat milk is more expensive than full cream. It is cheaper to buy Coke than fruit juice. People from affluent areas can afford to go to the gym and eat trendy diet food whereas poorer people can't.

Another significant trouble is that the solution promoted is the simplistic one of educating people that eating less and exercising more will solve the obesity crisis. This then will save the community. This attitude is one of ethics and does not take into account personal choice. This is no way to treat an epidemic which is world wide.

We live in a very different world now, and it is very easy to eat more and exercise less than in the past. Fear, both parents working with less supervision of what children are eating, less physical work, labour saving devices, excess cheap food, inadequate government policy etc, etc all add up to a very complex problem.

What on earth is this writer trying to say? I'm really puzzled. Is the writew trying to say fat is healthy?

It's not, it's a product of overeating in most cases. There are of course metabolisms that do create obesity but really the problem is what people eat, and how much, and how often. It's not healthy and restricts any real lifestyle to walking slowly, breathing hard and struggling for breath in between take aways.

Really vague item author. Less please, of everything.

The only point on which I agree with the author is that information on nutrition, exercise and health can be very confusing.

The latest confusion is kids' dental health and plans to add fluoride to bottled water.
Although fluoride will prevent cavities, so do good dental hygiene and a healthier diet. T

There are different professional opinions on the (longterm) effect of fluoride on our body.
Is adding fluoride to bottled water a quick, cheap fix and is any money going to be allocated for proper education on sugar intake, on dental hygiene and improving the dental health system?

People are still as confused about the truth about fluoride as they are on some other dietary advice.

The author says, "...usually involved forcing school students to do boring, repetitive physical activity and eat dull food."

Who says that exercise has to be boring? And since when is a healthy diet 'dull'?
Exercise can be fun.

A healthy diet doesn't have to be dull; and it doesn't mean that you can never have a treat. When I do my shopping I make sure I buy us a treat for the weekend, such as one bottle of softdrink and a cake and some chips. For the rest of the week, our diet is healthy and consists of fresh foods and juices.

Why do people insist on blaming advertising for their kids eating habits? Dont buy the food and the kids wont eat it. Learn to say no early on, and you'll save yourself some heartache later. Stick it back to the retailers that place chocolates and lollies at te checkouts. My local woollies has choc's and chupa chups where my toddler can reach them from in the basket. I try and stop her getting them of course, but if she does while I'm unloading groceries, then I refuse to buy them. If she sticks them in her mouth, then I put them back n the shelf, in full view of the staff. As far as I'm concerned, its their fault for putting them there, so they can wear the economic cost if they choose to throw it out once mouthed. I buy the occasion lolly for her, but its usually 2-3 weeks between treats.

As far as kids eating less fatty foods years ago, that's baloney. My parents grew up in the 40's and 50's, and Dad stil talks about the 2 sponge cakes a day that he and his siblings demolished. Full fat cream and milk (cream so thick that you used a knife, not a spoon), bacon, fatty chops, and also lots of fresh vegies. They did tend to be a bit round in the middle by middle age, but still a lot fitter than a lot of townies.

Our bodies turn Sugar into fat.

Low-fat yogurts are full of sugar.
Soft drinks are full of sugar.
Many "low-fat" snacks and bars are packed full of sugar.

These high fat-producing foods are advertised as "low fat" (implying healthy)

Could it be that kids are not eating very much "fat", but still turning into big fat bastards, because they are stuffing their fat faces full of sugar.
Take a kellogs LCM bar for example, it is sweet enough to make a normal person vomit, yet kids are given them for their lunches.

Cola, for example, enough sugar to power a small city, you can clean brass with it, yet children are allowed to drink it.

Is it me, or is everyone else stupid ?

@ Lizzie4, I'm the last person to put down the State School system, apart from working for them, I choose to stay there on principle. My curiosity on the competition, that is, the kids from the private schools on the train evoked a thought. It was just from one observation.

Maybe mentioning this confused the whole issue.

My main point was towards the bottom line. There is a link with depression. They get depressed--they eat. They eat--they get depressed. There is a new age argument that there is literally a case for "mind over matter", that if you really think a cake will put on fat, chances are it will. Now I don't know if I fully believe that. If you are less depressed, you may be more likely to work it off doing things in physical activity. You may be less likely to eat the thing in the first place.

Getting tough on obese people will only make matters worse, I think there is a self esteem issue perhaps tied up with a socio-economic issue.

I don't have the answers.

There are still problems with eating disorders in the other direction.

For a laugh, remember this one? Fat can be beautiful ; )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwh_yOzJ6AY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqk1UdnEPi8&mode=related&search=

c'mon, laughter is the first step to recovery.

Bless U Tube

A point that no body has commented on yet is the complete turn around of the ...food pyramid..for want of a better name, during the 1970s.

When I was growing up, if anyone wanted to lose weight and went to their friendly GP for advice...it was, to eat lean meat, salads, vegetables, cut out potatoes,and other starches, anything sweet, except fresh fruit, cut out or reduce bread. However, meat, eggs, cheese in other words protein featured heavily in our everyday diet as well as the losing weight one.

In the early 1970s, nutrition advice changed. By this time, I wanted to lose some weight myself and was told to eat whole grains, pulses, brown rice and spaghetti, fresh fruit and vegetables but to cut back on butter, oils, meat, eggs. (I have never lost weight by following this advice.)

Today's advice is still similar to the last paragraph, except more emphasis is placed on reducing fat in most forms. We are still advised to eat quite a lot of carbohydrate, as long as it is the whole grain variety. No body seems to mention sugar very much, although chocolate, junk foods, and sugary drinks always rate a mention.

I just wonder whether the amount of carbohydrate (meaning whole grain foods) despite its being healthy, and the amount of sugar hidden in lots of processed foods, is causing a lot of weight problems.

wondering and waiting for a miracle pill!

I don't believe that there are more obese kids today than there were years ago. I know my within my kids friends and my family and from what I see at school etc., only a minority are obese.

Where are all these obese children? Or does it depend where you live and your cultural background.

I know one thing, they tried to tell my daughter she had to loose weight when she was 12 years old. She was a fully developed girl and was about 5ft and she weighed 52 kg and they told her she had to loose about 4 four kilos; They measured a fully developed female against the charts for a child! Had they measured her weight in line with her physical development they would have found that she was in a very healthy weight range.

My daughter and I both looked at each other and thought. Ridiculous.

Jolanda, who are they?

The doctors is who they are. I would have thought that would have been quite easy to work out.

Could have been a Nutricionist. Just curious. as to why a doctor/Nutricionist would say that unless your child was not well or slightly overweight. obviously one or the other. you must have asked to have the weight looked at as when you are twelve doctors dont do it routinly.

Tootsie. Doctors, including a paediatrician looked at her height, weight and everything else because my daughter was suffering from symptoms that resembled, and they thought, was rhematoid arthritis to the point where there were days that she couldn't even turn in bed. They did a full special blood test and checked everything only to find that she had a condition that is known to be triggered by stress and that caused the symptoms that my daughter was experiencing. Lethargy, chronic migraines, depression, severe pain in joints and muscles and numerous other ailments. The stress was delivered Compliments of the Department of Education.

My daughter wore a size 8 loosely. She was not overweight by any means. She is of medium build but developed early. I dont know why they told her that she had to loose weight, at that point they didnt' know what she had. Maybe they were just clutching at straws.

Jolanda, so you think that the specialist did not know what they were talking about.

have these symptoms disappeared.

Tootsie at first they didn't know what they were talking about but I insisted that it must be something as what was happening to my daughter was not normal. It was obvious that stress was crippling her physically as well as mentally and psychologically. She is a very emotionally intense and introverted child. The pediatrician then decided to do some very expensive blood tests and the results came back that she had an Active Mycoplasma infection in her blood. I had never even heard of it. She was treated with courses of anti-biotics.

The pediatrician told me that Mycoplasma infection is a really common infection that is highly contagious that is activated by stress and that by the age of 5 the majority of people carry and that can cause all sorts of ailments and symptoms including those that my daughter had been suffering. When I tried to ask questions I was told not to worry about it and I have asked doctors since and nobody wants to talk about it.

Why they dont want to discuss it, is beyond me.

Her symtoms have decreased significantly but if she gets stressed it is an immediate migraine, if she gets really stressed her whole body is impacted and she becomes really lethargic and struggles to get out of bed. Her joints start aching and she becomes very unwell.

Jolanda, everybody deals with stress differently,

Dont know why you try to discredit doctors, by you saying "being quite easy to work work out" doctors are performing miracles all the time.
obviously the symptoms your daughter had where from the way she handles stress. maybe you should take her to learn how to meditate

mycoplasma is only a mild infection. dont believe it causes depression or severe pain in joints.

Maybe your daughter being 52 kgs and 5ft was advised to loose a couple of kilos to help with her joint pain. if she continues of her percentage of growth she would be over 65 kgs when 18 years old and if she has totally developed at 12 <which I doubt> and doesnt grow taller this would not really be a healthy range. the doctors where probably trying to avoid this. so I doubt they were "clutching at staws" instead they where probably trying to help your daughter.

Why you say "Compliments of the Department of Education" its because of the way your daughter handles stress. you need to help her handle stress in better ways. meditate, yoga, etc.

Girls are NOT fully developed at 12. I am sure she has grown since that time , right Jolanda.

Tootsie. It's amazing how if I say that the Doctors didn't know what was wrong with her you say I am discrediting Doctors. They didn't know, don’t you get Tootsie? They don't know everything. It took them 4 years to disagnose her.

Bodies handle stress the way that they handle stress and it is an automatic reaction, more often than not it cannot be helped. Stress is one of the biggest problems that the human race faces as it directly impacts on our immune system and our health and triggers disease. My daughter was placed under the care of a team of pain specialists at the children's hospital and psychologists but how can they help if they cannot do anything about those that are creating the problems that cause the reaction and symptoms.

It’s amazing how people always put the responsibility on the victim. If a child is being victimized and it is causing her body stress it shouldn’t be the child’s responsibility to accept the treatment and just learn strategies to cope with the stress. What about the responsibility of those that are causing the stress to stop harming children? How you protect those that harm children is truly bizarre.

By fully developed I don’t mean that she may not grow a couple of more inches in height. At 5ft and 52 kilos you are by no means overweight. I think that often when doctors don’t know what is wrong with people they just blame their weight.

Mycoplasma is more than just a minor disease what it did to my daughter was crippling.

Jolanda you said
1.My daughter and I both looked at each other and thought. Ridiculous.
2.I would have thought that would have been quite easy to work out.
3.Maybe they were just clutching at straws
4.at first they didn't know what they were talking about but I insisted that it must be something as what was happening to my daughter was not normal.
5.Why they dont want to discuss it, is beyond me
6. I think that often when doctors don’t know what is wrong with people they just blame their weight.

you said they didnt know what they where talking about. this comment is discrediting. all your comments are discrediting to your doctors.
I dont believe mycoplasma was crippling your daughter, I think this is a slight exagerration to paint a picture you want to paint for your case. maybe they where growing pains! was she ever hospitalised, or missed a part of school year, stopped playing sport etc.

RE being a victim. this is only in your eyes nothing has been proven that DET did anything. DET didnt harm your child.

innocent until proven guilty. that is everybody right. respect it!

the best thing you could have not for your children is

Accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative

not the opposite.
this will affect your children for ever, time will tell.

I remember some criticism about the CSIRO diet which promotes several servings of meat a week being supported by the meat industry. Of course that created debate from dieticians that promote less meat and dairy and more fruit and vegetables. Of course the diet industry is huge and lucrative so of course they are all going to peddle their own wares and try and convince people theirs is the best method to lose weight. In this age of choice, is this unreasonable? I think that the Healthy Food Pyramid can still be accessed on a government site and maybe the government should be pushing this a bit more.

I also have the impression that one of the problems we have with identifying overweight and obesity is that there are so many of us who are overweight or obese. This means that when we compare ourselves to others, we think that we are OK just because we are not as fat as some. I know that I am thinner than most women my age, but my BMI is 25.5 which is slightly overweight. When we see people who fit into the average range BMI, they appear to be thin. This also refers to children and teenagers.

I also wonder about whether weight has become more of a problem with teenagers since they have been able to access their Youth Allowance at 16. They have their own money and no parents to watch what it is being spent on.

Hi Jolanda,

did you daughter,

1. Miss any school
2. Miss any sporting activities
3. was she hospitalised

with this crippling disorder.

Why dont you answer the questions.

The fat brigade is going overboard- have you heard of th plans to ban meatpies at the footy? I think that this is as ridiculous as banning sausage sizzles for fund raising. It won’t do anything to stop people from consuming too much fat.

Education is of uttermost importance. The anti-tobacco propaganda has been a success, now we need to be made aware of the averse effects of too much fat and sugar in our diets.

Just a quick remark, I am not sure I understand why Jolanda is being questioned so much about her daughter’s problems- I thought that everybody knew that our medical system is not infallible. I’m not going into details, but to secure proper treatment for my son has been no less than an epic mission.

Mycoplasma can be a minor thing in some cases, but in other cases it can cause a wide variety of diseases because there are many species of mycoplasma and some can indeed cause arthritis, asthma, chronic fatigue and in some cases even acute fatal illness.

I do think it is a good suggestion that one of the posters made for a child suffering from stress to take part in some relaxation therapy of some kind. The skills one will learn, to cope with stress, to learn how to relax, can be highly beneficial throughout one’s lifetime. Stress can have a disasterous effect on our body and mind.

Tootsie. I dont answer your questions because you only use them to then throw something back at me.

Yes she did miss school, yes she couldn't play sport. No she wasn't hospitalised she was an outpatient. Is that enough? Now go ahead plan your attack. Obviously a child has to be on their death bed for you for it to count.

Jolanda,

How much school did she miss.

How much sport did she miss.

she was never admitted to hospital. Correct.

Just trying to clarify what your interpretation of "crippling" is.

I gather she was not close to "death bed" at any time. Right.

See Tootsie. See, I told you. How much is enough. If a child cannot get out of bed, if the parent has to turn them over in bed because they are in so much pain that they cannot turn themselves is that crippling enough for you.

Jolanda, whyI am asking is because my sons sometimes suffered like this at night. its growing pains.

how much time did she take off school

normally in the morning the pain is gone.

can you answer the question

I am not an expert on health but I will comment on a few questions that arise from your piece - I make no assessment of the ultimate "accuracy" of your article - I'm simply interested in raising some issues that would need to be resolved before making such an assessment. My brevity is due to the word limit.

"One reason for the confusion is that the people doing the research are, in many respects, normal. Like many of us, when they think of “health” they see images of elite athletes and supermodels, while exhibiting more than a tinge of middle-class self restraint when it comes to food." ----It is very unlikely that all researchers are that naïve. The extent to which they are naïve would be interesting to assess, and also the extent to which they are beholden to the whim of their funders also.

“Faced with the persistent refusal of Western populations to heed their dubious advice” is contradictory to your later claim that “there is plenty of evidence that, if anything, we are eating more of the food that nutritionists say we should.”

“there being no study in the history of science showing that childhood obesity causes you to die young.” ----I believe it is dubious to assess the impact of obesity in terms of longevity while ignoring the question of its impact on ongoing health.

“The evidence that children are doing less exercise is non-existent. In fact, some researchers concede that children are more, not less, physically active these days. The truth is we don’t really know.”---- If the evidence is “non-existent”, and contrary evidence exists, wouldn’t that be grounds that we CAN make a case (in favour of the latter)?

“Australians are living longer, healthier lives.” ---You now introduce the imporant area of ongoing health as a marker of positive outcomes, however “health” needs qualification. Have our perceptions of “healthy” changed? If a person requires daily medication to keep themselves healthy, is this equivelant to someone who doesn’t?

Your Inconvenient Facts (1 and 2) raise far more questions that they answer.