pressure have meant that there are more

I remember her spending time preparing delicious, wholesome meals with the fresh ingredients, with one day a week earmarked as " baking day". A typical Saturday morning would see us up early and, following a good breakfast-of porridge, Weetabix or maybe boiled egg and  we would go out to play on our bikes, going for walks, making dens, skipping; generally being physically active. Being born in  think I ever knew anyone that was "on a diet". We were a typical family of that era, my dad was a builder and mum stayed at home until I, being the youngest of two started school, then she returned to work part-time.Unsurprisingly it is the overweight people who have trolleys loaded with high fat, high sugar items and little fresh fruit, veg, fish, white meat and whole grains. Societal changes and peer pressure have meant that there are more busy working mums who demand quick and easy convenience foods, often containing high quantities of sugar and/or fat this, combined with the fact that children often get lifts to and from school, spend hours on computer games, the PC or watching TV means that something is bound to give-usually the waistline.

Do you remember the time when weight-loss wasnt a term you heard on a regular basis and obesity was virtually unknown? Imagine a world were you never heard terms such as low calorie, low carbohydrate, low fat, Atkins diet, Scarsdale diet; I certainly can. The really unfortunate thing is that advances in medical science and technology have brought around cures for many illnesses meaning that our life expectancy has increased however these advances are going to be of limited value if we are slowly killing ourselves with overindulgence, gluttony, greed and ignorance. The jars in our cupboards contained either jam, marmalade or chutney and the only packet food were oxo&39;s, bisto and flour. Around mid-morning I would go shopping with my mum.As a child I was very lucky to live in a lovely location, on the outskirts of a village in the Derbyshire Peak District, woods, orchards and fields abound.

Whilst out shopping I have fallen into the habit of trolley watching looking at the contents of other peoples trollies whilst standing at the check-out queue... Oh how we have moved on and as far as diet and exercise is concerned our moving forward is not necessarily advancing in the right direction. We&39;d walk up the hill to the village (mum didn&39;t drive) and follow an established route; butchers, fish mongers, general store, newsagent, bakers and lastly the green grocers, during the walk home I would nibble at the crust of the freshly baked bread-my weekly treat! We didn&39;t have too many bags to carry as ABS luggage Factory mum would do a similar shop every couple of days.

Slim girls and boys were the norm, wed have a few chubby children in school but hardly anyone who was seriously overweight, so what;s happened? Well, lets take a closer look at the lifestyle I enjoyed all those years ago. Ok so i may have missed a few things out-it is over thirty years ago! But you get the picture, there were very few ready made convenience foods around back then-in fact the first convenience foods I remember were Vesta meals-we never had them- I dot think my mum approved. Everything was fresh and apart from baked beans I don&39;t remember any other produce that came in a tin.