Surely writing 374 lbs is easier than 26st 10lb.
I have no clue, give me kg thanks.
Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
21–30 of 60 posts
Re: Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
#22Re: Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
#23In 2004 I visited my family in Valencia, Spain. There was a local construction boom. There were family owned shops everywhere. Bakeries, fruit stands, etc. When I went back in 2014, it seems everything had changed. The shops were gone. The construction had slacked off. Instead there were now giant supermarkets and superstores. They were on the Euro now. My cousins blamed the EU for this. I'm assuming something simila…
I'm over 50. I played in the streets whole afternoons, full days during school vacations. They were dangerous years in Rome, terrorism, political violence, heroin everywhere. Despite we are now living in safer years, no kids are playing in the streets anymore. Also in the nearby park, they struggle to reach a 5 vs 5 football (soccer) match when we had plenty more for a 11 vs 11. A prominent psycologist just released…
Pre-cooked means NOTHING like what you find in north America.
You can get plenty pre cooked food that are healthy (and flavorful).
Of course you can also still ask for fries, but that's not common in Italy
Re: Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
#24Surely writing 374 lbs is easier than 26st 10lb.
And 1.125lbs is easier to write than 1 pound 2 ounces, yet Americans will look at you with a blank stare if you don't use ounces.
When it comes to units, you can't please everybody. Especially if it's tangentially related to the old colonies.
Re: Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
#25Nobody yet mentioned young-learnt habits: school cafeterias & snack machines.
When I was young, in lunch breaks you'd head over to the school's cafeteria. And what they had there? "Gevulde koek", stroopwafel, snack-sized bags of crisps, various (sweetened) dairy products, and iirc bananas & apples too. No veggies or fibre-rich food in sight. So of course kids would go for the sugar-laden & salty snacks. For drinks, there were vending machines. My favorite was hot chocolate. Again: high in sugar (no "more or less sugar" option).
Sometimes there were longer breaks due to a teacher falling ill or whatever. Then we'd head over to a supermarket nearby, and buy similar junkfood.
Of course we'd bring sandwiches from home. But not everyone, and not always. Some kids would throw their sandwiches in a trash can, and proceed to buy the junkfood mentioned above.
That school was 6 years of us kids' lives. Plenty of time to pick up unhealthy habits & bring those into adulthood.
Wouldn't surprise me at all if most schools worldwide are still like that. Healthy diet choices for pupils is far from #1 priority for school management given all the other things they have to deal with.
The fix would be to make healthier options the easy pick, and remove all junkfood offerings from schools' cafeterias. But good luck doing that nationwide under the watchful eye of junkfood multi-nationals.
Re: Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
#26Pasta and other carbohydrate-rich foods are nowhere near as bad as sugar for children. In the Nutella filled pastry, it is not the bread that’s the problem. Sugar (particularly in beverages) and lack of exercise are the main contribution of child obesity increase worldwide. Don’t blame the potato.
Regular pasta and pizza dough are as almost as bad as sugar. Bread might not be as bad as Nutella but is still bad. Most popular Italian food tastes good but is horrible health wise.
Not by a mile, at least for pasta. When you compare the calorie density and glycemic index of pasta with other grains or grain-derived foods, it's really not bad. The dose makes the poison.
Re: Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, something tells me there’s a lot of deli and processed meats involved.
Do remember that Italians cook all their meals, it's a cultural thing
Italy is also famous for deli meats. I’m going to hazard a guess that not every Italian is buying raw meat and then preparing traditional dishes from scratch with it using only the freshest of natural ingredients etc.
Re: Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
#28Surely writing 374 lbs is easier than 26st 10lb.
And 1.125lbs is easier to write than 1 pound 2 ounces, yet Americans will look at you with a blank stare if you don't use ounces. When it comes to units, you can't please everybody. Especially if it's tangentially related to the old colonies.
people love to take potshots about how Americans don't know the metric system, but we love our 9mm's and a few grams
Re: Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
#29And meanwhile, the Italian food lobbies are blocking Nutri-Score adoption at the EU level
Re: Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight
#30Nobody yet mentioned young-learnt habits: school cafeterias & snack machines. When I was young, in lunch breaks you'd head over to the school's cafeteria. And what they had there? "Gevulde koek", stroopwafel, snack-sized bags of crisps, various (sweetened) dairy products, and iirc bananas & apples too. No veggies or fibre-rich food in sight. So of course kids would go for the sugar-laden & salty snacks. For drinks, t…
In primary school (in Europe), we had a cafeteria, that served decent, regular meals, with one modest dessert. There were no vending machines, no child carried cash, only coupons for the cafeteria, tied to your name, entitling you to exactly one meal per day. There was also a smaller brunch at 10.
Why give children the option to make the wrong choice? If they were wise and disciplined, they wouldn't be children.