Why we should all care about children nutrition | Natacha Neumann | TEDxFreiburg — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:05[Music]
2. 0:15you
3. 0:21what if I told you I held the key to
4. 0:24solving one of the biggest pandemics one
5. 0:27of the biggest health crisis that we
6. 0:30currently face what I'm talking about
7. 0:33currently is the biggest killer killing
8. 0:36one and every five people globally know
9. 0:40I haven't found the cure to cancer that
10. 0:41kills one in six I'm talking about
11. 0:45something that's self-inflicted I'm
12. 0:47talking about the cause of bad nutrition
13. 0:50an unbalanced diet causes obesity
14. 0:53overweight and this is the cause of a
15. 0:56lot of illnesses stroke heart disease
16. 0:59heart failure diabetes certain types of
17. 1:04cancers osteoporosis etc etc the list
18. 1:06goes on currently globally 39% of the
19. 1:12world population is overweight or obese
20. 1:15in developed countries like here it's
21. 1:18worse that's sixty percent this is
22. 1:21something that is killing us and it's
23. 1:24preventable and it's self-inflicted I
24. 1:27believe that the most valuable resource
25. 1:30that we have is our health and the
26. 1:31single most important factor that
27. 1:33influences our health is our nutrition
28. 1:35so why are we not doing something about
29. 1:37this well most most educated people will
30. 1:41tell you it's easy all you have to do is
31. 1:43eat plenty of fruit and veg whole grain
32. 1:46pulses reduce your calorie intake
33. 1:48finished problem solved but it's not
34. 1:51that easy right otherwise we wouldn't
35. 1:53have the problem that we're currently
36. 1:54seeing no the problem is our brains get
37. 1:58in the way we see that in the
38. 2:01subcortical of the brain we develop a
39. 2:04very strong emotional pull to certain
40. 2:06types of food as we develop an
41. 2:09association between the foods that were
42. 2:10eating and the emotions that we're
43. 2:12feeling foods are linked to emotions
44. 2:15such as belonging such as pleasure even
45. 2:19even love so these are very very
46. 2:22fundamental human emotions human needs
47. 2:25that are linked to the foods that were
48. 2:27used to eating over over the years do
49. 2:30you ever have this where you've had a
50. 2:32you have had a tough day you're feeling
51. 2:34a little bit under
52. 2:35whether and you crave this comfort food
53. 2:40yeah you crave something that maybe mom
54. 2:43used to cook for you when you weren't
55. 2:44feeling so good I I know I've been
56. 2:47leading a healthy diet for the last
57. 2:49decade and I still fall victim to this
58. 2:51this is really the strong emotional pull
59. 2:54that we have to our through to our food
60. 2:56which is the reason why changing our
61. 2:58eating habits as adults is really
62. 3:00difficult something else that gets in
63. 3:02the way is is a self mechanism defense
64. 3:06mechanism that created the brain stem
65. 3:09sending alarm bells every time we change
66. 3:11our diets now this makes dieting
67. 3:13particularly difficult this is the
68. 3:15feeling of irritation you feel when you
69. 3:17start a diet now this makes changing our
70. 3:20habits really difficult as as adults so
71. 3:24what's the solution well I'll tell you
72. 3:26I've given up on us I've given up on all
73. 3:29of you
74. 3:30I believe the solution is and children
75. 3:34developing healthy habits in children
76. 3:37from very earlier years in order to
77. 3:40guarantee that these healthy habits the
78. 3:42last few through the whole life have you
79. 3:48ever heard or heard yourself say a
80. 3:51sentence like eat your vegetables and
81. 3:54you'll get a dessert eat up your sweet
82. 3:58and you'll get it you'll get an ice
83. 4:00cream be a good girl and you'll get a
84. 4:02sweet and these are perfectly social be
85. 4:05socially acceptable sentences but
86. 4:08they're the reasons why we've got
87. 4:09completely the wrong associations I mean
88. 4:11we're bribing children to eat vegetables
89. 4:13and using sweets as a reward and we're
90. 4:16basically saying this stuff is bad don't
91. 4:17touch it I'll bribe you to eat it now
92. 4:19we're sending all the wrong signals yeah
93. 4:21if if I'm being bribed to eat something
94. 4:23now when I get to make my own decisions
95. 4:26I'm certainly not going to be eating it
96. 4:27freely so as parents we actually need to
97. 4:31stop doing this we need to not bribe our
98. 4:33children to eat vegetables we need to
99. 4:35not create negative negative
100. 4:37associations by by forcing them to eat
101. 4:40by shouting at them to eat by by sitting
102. 4:44them in front of a soup for hours on end
103. 4:46no we need to create positive
104. 4:48Asians yen children just want to have
105. 4:51fun right so let's make healthy fun
106. 4:55there are really a lot of ways we can do
107. 4:57this we can get creative we can call
108. 5:01vegetables funny names and tell stories
109. 5:03about them it's not steamed broccoli and
110. 5:07carrots it's it's kind of the carrots
111. 5:09going through an adventure in an in a
112. 5:11forest of mini broccoli trees yeah have
113. 5:13fun with this you can you can really
114. 5:16involve your children as well in this
115. 5:17yeah involve children in in the in the
116. 5:20decision or what's for supper kids
117. 5:22wouldn't be taken seriously they want to
118. 5:24be involved they want to be listened to
119. 5:26yeah involving them in the kitchen yeah
120. 5:28kids can chop up some vegetables there's
121. 5:31some some sauces getting them involved
122. 5:33children that are get involved in the
123. 5:35preparation of food are a lot more
124. 5:36likely to try new things and to eat
125. 5:39what's on the dining room table it's
126. 5:43also important to cook well one of the
127. 5:45biggest correlators we see is between
128. 5:48home-cooked meals eaten as a family and
129. 5:51and good weight within children this is
130. 5:54exactly this this positive relationship
131. 5:56that we're creating in that dining room
132. 5:58table we're having good healthy food and
133. 6:00we're having a good family time so
134. 6:03really eating as a family's very very
135. 6:05important and obviously you know we eat
136. 6:08with our eyes so we can make it
137. 6:10attractive as well as there are plenty
138. 6:12of ideas on the internet of how how you
139. 6:14can do this whether it's vegetable
140. 6:17trains or funny clown faces with big red
141. 6:20tomato noses really have fun with us be
142. 6:23a little bit of a food artist when
143. 6:25you're when you're at home with your
144. 6:26kids this is not easy I'm a mother of
145. 6:30three I know I get my food art regularly
146. 6:33rejected but it's so important we
147. 6:38currently live in a time where we look
148. 6:41for instant gratification and
149. 6:43unfortunately creating these long term
150. 6:47healthy eating habits is not instant it
151. 6:50needs time and we need to be patient
152. 6:53especially when it comes to nutrition
153. 6:54the studies show that we need to expose
154. 6:57children at least 15 times before they
155. 7:00develop
156. 7:02fifteen times that's a lot of spinach
157. 7:05getting spit up at you before a
158. 7:07relationship gets built up there but
159. 7:10it's worthless patience and say it's not
160. 7:12an easy job and I see that this job is
161. 7:16made even harder by the food industry if
162. 7:19you go out to your local supermarket you
163. 7:22will see shelves packed with usually
164. 7:25unhealthy foods that are colorful fun
165. 7:29for children they have characters on
166. 7:31them they're supported by marketing
167. 7:33campaigns that have good jingles to them
168. 7:35whereas healthy foods well they're
169. 7:38boring they are gray and beige and green
170. 7:41and have rolling hills on them yeah what
171. 7:44do we say saying what are we do go to
172. 7:46the supermarket and we are basically in
173. 7:48the supermarket saying no unhealthy fun
174. 7:52healthy boring and this is obviously
175. 7:55more shocking when you see what some of
176. 7:58the food companies are doing some of the
177. 8:00food companies are making products for
178. 8:03children I completely inadequate for
179. 8:06example in the breakfast cereal category
180. 8:08in children breakfast cereals there's on
181. 8:11average 40% more sugar than adults area
182. 8:15beans
183. 8:15this is crazy children don't need sugar
184. 8:17and since the food industry is making
185. 8:19sure that they get addicted to sugar
186. 8:21from very very early age and obviously
187. 8:24with this bright packaging and nice
188. 8:27marketing campaign around these things
189. 8:29plus plus false claims yeah this makes
190. 8:32me really mad some of the false claims
191. 8:34that we see out there you know some
192. 8:37brands of chocolate bars claiming to
193. 8:40contain a glass of milk for example a
194. 8:42glass of milk is firstly grossly
195. 8:45exaggerated and secondly the main
196. 8:47ingredients actually palm fat and sugar
197. 8:49and this is sending the wrong parent
198. 8:52signals parents parents see even glass
199. 8:55milk who cares probably good for my kid
200. 8:56they're sending out the wrong messages
201. 8:58you know this is this is really really
202. 9:02something that's that shouldn't be
203. 9:03acceptable this is where I've been
204. 9:05investing my time for the last decade
205. 9:06really making sure that firstly we make
206. 9:10healthy fun for children and secondly
207. 9:13that we really tackle
208. 9:14some of the food categories which are
209. 9:16way too high in the sugar levels this is
210. 9:18how the food industry in general can
211. 9:20really support this this problem and and
212. 9:23help to solve this pandemic but
213. 9:26obviously the food industry is not
214. 9:27incentivized to do that you know sugar
215. 9:30is cheap which is good for profits sugar
216. 9:34is addictive which is good for sales and
217. 9:37most brand manager out there will tell
218. 9:38you they fear changing the levels of
219. 9:41sugar in their products and the fear of
220. 9:43losing a bit of market share so this is
221. 9:47where governments also need to play a
222. 9:49role through legislation through laws
223. 9:52whether it's it's on packaging laws
224. 9:54whether it's on labeling whether it's
225. 9:56advertising to children laws there's a
226. 9:58lot that can be done there are a lot of
227. 10:00tools out there and in fact some
228. 10:01governments are even starting to do this
229. 10:03with with positive results but it's
230. 10:05really just the beginning there's a lot
231. 10:06lot more than can be done governments to
232. 10:11be fair should be incentivized to do
233. 10:12something about it even if they wouldn't
234. 10:14care about all the millions of deaths
235. 10:16being provoked by overweight and obesity
236. 10:18this is also economic problem there's a
237. 10:22osed analysis that shows that if we will
238. 10:25reduce just 20% in calorie high calorie
239. 10:30dense products in 42 countries we could
240. 10:32save thirteen point two billion in
241. 10:35healthcare expenditure and I'm not even
242. 10:38talking about productivity increase the
243. 10:39millions of lives that would be saved
244. 10:41GDP increase so we should really care
245. 10:44about this now the government's don't
246. 10:46really care about this in fact I mean
247. 10:49whether it's government or schools
248. 10:51school programs should be involved as
249. 10:54well we send our children to schools to
250. 10:56learn basic facts about life why are we
251. 10:59teaching them what to put in their
252. 11:01bodies is that not equally as important
253. 11:03as science as history as maths I mean if
254. 11:07we don't teach them that we're going to
255. 11:08carry on like current generation that
256. 11:10cares more about the quality of the
257. 11:12petrol getting into their car as the
258. 11:14quality of the food getting into their
259. 11:15bodies so we really only to care whether
260. 11:19it's schools government's families
261. 11:22parents the food industry or just an
262. 11:25individual that cares about humankind
263. 11:27and health
264. 11:28we all need to do something about this
265. 11:29we all play role as parents be patient
266. 11:34be creative think about the long-term
267. 11:38and not just of the short-term as
268. 11:41individuals go to your local supermarket
269. 11:43and challenge what you see on the
270. 11:45shelves there yeah rebel against these
271. 11:48food companies that are bringing out
272. 11:51products that are not adequate for our
273. 11:53children have protests against food
274. 11:56companies that are putting profits in
275. 11:58front of health and demand from your
276. 12:01government's policies to be put in place
277. 12:03in order to solve this problem
278. 12:06this is killing one in every five people
279. 12:11globally now 39 percent of the global
280. 12:15population 60 and a country like ours we
281. 12:18should really all care about it it's
282. 12:23preventable there's a solution so let's
283. 12:26start preventing it thank you
284. 12:29[Applause]
285. 12:38[Music]