Ann's Diet-ribe

Packed Lunches That Children Take to School Are Being Censored

Dr Ann Fehily — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:42:00 +0000

There are regulations on the nutrient composition of school meals to ensure that the menus help children build a healthy diet. Now, some children who choose to take a packed lunch to school, have certain items removed from it by the school, e.g. a chocolate bar. The chocolate bar is then returned to the child at the end of the day.

This practice is absolutely dreadful. Items that anyone has in their packed lunch on one day are irrelevant. It depends how often they have a particular item, what else they take in their packed lunch and their dietary intake outside school. Schools should work with children and parents, to guide them about better food choices for their packed lunch, rather than remove items from it. If a foodstuff is confiscated from a child’s lunch, they may return to class still hungry and not perform as well during the afternoon session as they would have done if they had been permitted to eat their lunch.

One has to ask why do children choose to take a packed lunch, rather than having a school dinner? School meals have improved, but some are still not that good. Children will take a packed lunch for many reasons, including special dietary or cultural needs or simply because they will be getting a main meal at home.

On-line Grocery Shopping: Now Much Improved

Dr Ann Fehily — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:22:00 +0000

Since my previous Blog, on-line grocery shopping has much improved. Log-in and check-out are both much faster, making the experience of grocery shopping on-line much better. In addition, you can view the nutition information, front-of-pack nutrition panels, ingredients lists and the price for most products, before deciding which ones you want to purchase. In 2009, it really is much faster to shop for groceries on line. Whatever you want to buy, you can probably buy it on-line and any delivery charge will be much less than driving to the store and back. So, what are you waiting for – now you really can do all your shopping on-line!

On-line Grocery Shopping: No Longer Faster Than Travelling 30 Miles to The Supermarket!

Dr Ann Fehily — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:49:00 +0100

Four years ago, shopping on-line was fantastic, very easy, great fun and saving a lot of time. For groceries, this is no longer the case. Now, it’s so slow one can travel 30 miles to the supermarket, buy a week’s groceries and be back home in less time than it would have taken to do the shopping on-line!

One can buy all sorts of things on-line, but only the groceries are slow. Logging on to the store takes ages, as does checking out. It is not clear why this should be the case. Certain shopping times are likely to be busier than others, but the supermarket should be able to deal with this. They should ensure that those employed to manage their website have adequate IT skills for this task.

If a lot of people want to shop at the same time, the Companies’ website should be able to channel the log-in requests through additional servers. It should not be necessary for everyone to come in through the same gateway. After all, when you go to the store, if there are long queues at the checkout, the supermarket opens more checkouts, if available. At many stores, there is also the option of using an automated checkout, which can be faster. Nevertheless, there are still sometimes long queues in stores. On-line shopping ought to relieve the congestion in stores, not simply relocate the congestion from stores to computers.

It has recently been stated that there is now so much traffic on the Internet that the web may come to a grinding halt within the next few years. So, perhaps at that point, we’ll all be back to going to the supermarket and queuing at checkouts as before. In the meantime, supermarkets whose IT staff cannot manage their web traffic will lose business to other supermarkets who can. Those of us who don’t have a choice of supermakets who will deliver to our location, will have to shop on-line at about 2am!

Company Prevented From Advertising Whole Milk To Children Because it is NOT Considered a “Healthy Food”

Dr Ann Fehily — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 12:44:00 +0100

Foods and drinks high in fat, salt and sugar cannot be broadcast around shows aimed at 4-9 year olds. The ...

Front of Pack Nutrition Panel More Confusing

Dr Ann Fehily — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 17:18:00 +0000

The front of pack nutrition panel was a great initiative to help people build a healthy diet. However, so ...

More People are Becoming Obese, Even 3-year Olds & Family Pets

Dr Ann Fehily — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 11:44:00 +0000

More and more people are becoming obese, even children as young as three years of age and family pets, e.g. ...

New Food Label Scheme to Help People Build a Healthy Diet

Dr Ann Fehily — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:21:00 +0000

There is a new food label scheme (front of pack) to help people build a healthy diet. This tells ...

Slow reaction time increases risk of death from a heart attack

Dr Ann Fehily — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 11:24:00 +0000

A study of 6,400 people, aged 18-99 years, showed that those with slower reaction times and poor memory are more ...

Misuse of the term “nutritionist”

Dr Ann Fehily — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 15:51:00 +0100

Nutritionists have a degree in nutrition. However, there is no legal definition: anyone can call themselves a nutritionist. Now, there ...

On-line shopping can help people make healthier food choices

Dr Ann Fehily — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:47:00 +0100

Giving on-line shoppers the chance to choose a lower fat option for a food increased lower fat choices. What’s more, ...

The proportion of children taking school meals has fallen by 20%

Dr Ann Fehily — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:02:00 +0100

We now have standards to ensure that school meals are nutritionally adequate, yet some children prefer the chip shop. The ...

Why is the prevalence of obesity increasing?

Dr Ann Fehily — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:24:00 +0100

The percentage of people (both adults and children) who are overweight or obese is increasing. This can not be explained ...

Nutritional Standards for School Meals

Dr Ann Fehily — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 09:17:00 +0100

At last we have nutritional standards for school meals. Caterers must now prove that they can meet the nutritional standards. ...

9 out of 10 nurses say they do not have time to feed patients

Dr Ann Fehily — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 11:16:00 +0100

This was reported by TV news, rightly, as disgraceful.

What people eat when in hospital affects their recovery and ...