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Posted at 1:57PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

OOPS <poor nutrition>

Posted at 2:51PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

But on a more important note than this breakfast thing, Russell, no musical entertainment tonight?

DJ Lilly. We couldn't afford a band. And anyway, bands smell.

Russell, regarding the Karajoz blend events in Auckland and Wellington, I expect it comes down to logistics, finance and demographics...but is there any chance of them coming to Christchurch and Dunedin at any stage?

Unlikely at the moment, but more sponsorship might change that.

PS: Jo, do say hello this time ...

Posted at 3:12PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

Lilly is awesome
Next time put the call out for bands, i know a few who would play for the love, and some quality beverages.

Posted at 3:22PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

Next time put the call out for bands, i know a few who would play for the love, and some quality beverages.

Yeah, people are usally keen to play for very little - it's the production that racks up the $$. Next time, though. Anyway, off to the venue ...

Posted at 3:28PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

I don't think I've had more than a coffee for breakfast since I was a small kid - eating time cuts into sleeping time! Unless you regard a mochachino as a balanced meal?

Posted at 3:51PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

I like to ensure that I have a good solid breakfast to start the day: it's the only way to maintain good nutrition. Four fried eggs with lashings of hollandaise, a dozen rashers of pancetta, a generous hunk of black pudding, half a dozen old-fashioned pork sausages and three hash browns (twice-cooked in goose fat, of course), all served on French toast with a side of chilli beans (for roughage) and washed down with a pint of Lagavulin.

But kids these days...

Posted at 4:10PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

Someone mentioned earlier about the quality of food - or lack of it - in lower socio homes:

"It's not just about missing breakfast but about WHAT the kids are eating. So many of today's behaviour issues can be directly attributable to the total crap that goes into their systems.

When large bottles of Coke are selling for 2 for $5 and 2 litrres of milk costs $4.55 a bottle it's not hard to see where some households will spend their $"

Very true.

But to say eating crap is driven by cost is only part of the picture.

Next time you're in the supermarket, have a look at the cost of traditional breakfast foods.

The cheapest options are actually the most healthy - rolled oats (yep, good old porridge), loaves of bread, bananas and apples are not expensive when compared to the alternatives (sugar disguised as cereal, for example).

Let's face it - breakfast is one of the cheapest meals to cater; many people don't eat it because:

a. they can't be bothered
b. they get up too late to make time for it
c. they simply don't feel hungry first thing
d. they prefer to eat crap and don't have respect for their health
e. all of the above.

Instead of focussing on breakfast, perhaps we should be more worried about the disturbing obesity statistics.

If our waistlines are growing at such a ridiculous rate, lower-socio groups in equal numbers, obviously "going hungry" is not the problem...eating crap with no nutritional value that piles on the pounds should surely be the target of our concern?

Posted at 4:45PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

If you ask me, legislating parenting is a mighty slippery slope. After all, your definition of 'behaviour which adversely affects the development of children' (ensuring they are not exposed to violence and enjoy proper nutrition) might be awfully different to some future governments definition (parents must ensure their children attend one hour of religious education each day to ensure proper moral upbringing).

Parenting legislation is classic 'Road to Serfdom' stuff - it sounds great in principle, but how are you going to monitor it? Should parents inform on each other? Should teachers inform on parents?

OK, well we're already on that 'slippery slope'. You can already report some of these things to the police, and Child Youth and Family, or whatever it's name is this week. I'm fairly confident that the debate that we have in this country about where the line is between what government can do and can't do is robust enough.

Anyway, my point wasn't that you should legislate to tell parents what they're not allowed to do, but that you should make positive efforts to improve the standard of parenting across the whole country. Particularly in the obvious target areas - low socio-economic, single parent, history of violence or sexual abuse - but generally across the whole society.

I'm no expert on the field, but I would have thought throwing a few million dollars at that problem would probably raise the standard of parenting across the board. The impacts in terms of outcomes of youth, and their future in terms of education, health, employment, crime, and just not being little shits, hell, I'd guess that's a good investment of tax money. Good parenting at the top of the cliff stops a heap of ambulances at the bottom I say.

Posted at 7:23PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

Now I'm not an especially politically-informed person, but isn't the Red party the one that is all about giving people free stuff, whereas the Blue party is about making people work for stuff? So if this Blue party guy pushes this beat-up of a story to the point of it one day becoming policy, wouldn't that somewhat undermine their stand against that Red party?

Posted at 7:28PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

One disturbing trend in this social research is the separation of Maori and Pacific Island figures. From the original data it would appear much more important to classify by family size. And don't try to draw socioconclusions before cutting out the breakfast skippers. I had no idea that teenage girls ate breakfast.

For the large families, we may need to bring back the old family benefit. Non means tested so that it doesn't raise effective marginal tax rates, and universal so that there is no social stigma.
Far less complicated than "working for families", and it would allow John Key to outflank labour on the left.

That all went because the tory party of the Holyoake era thought that making babies was fun and the poor should be punished for it. We now have a sub-replacement breeding rate. The rich won't make babies and the poor can't afford to bring them up. Even John Howard does better than us.

Posted at 8:34PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

As for what parents feed their kids, ask yourself where parents get their nutrition information, compared to one or two generations ago. I'd suggest that the answer is: almost entirely from TV advertising by large corporates, who don't give a sh*t about nutrition.

Case in point: tonight's Campbell Live article on "fresh" fish in Auckland. In case you missed it, Snapper fillets from Foodtown, Dominion Road contain about thirty-three million bacteria per gram (when the recommended upper level is one million per gram) and were rated, by independent testers, a "4" on a scale from 1=fresh to 5=putrid (and that's worth $32 / kg?). In total five Auckland fish retailers were tested and 4 (I think) failed.

Here's another: Remember Coco Pops' "One bowl of Coco Pops with milk contains 10% of your daily calcium requirements". I'm sure a lot of people think that means that Coco Pops is a healthful food.

I hate to sound under-graduate about it, but the source reason for a great deal of these societal problems is unconstrained corporatocracy. These organisations are not on the side of New Zealanders; They are exploiters, and their marketing trickery is more responsible for NZ's nutrition problems than anyone else, including parents-as-a-group.

Posted at 9:40PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

Those darn kids.

Coming to school hungry ............. and obese.

I teach secondary school students at a decile 6 school but in reality its more like 4-5 (thanks to the wealthier families in the area sending their kids elsewhere) and we have many kids who are decile 1, 2, and 3. I haven't as yet come across any kids who are really going hungry. You can kinda tell. They would be the ones looking dizzy, lethargic and unable to concentrate. Oh , hang on, that describes every teenager in New Zealand. If I ever see kids like that the first question I ask them is if they ate breakfast, morning tea, lunch, have they drunk some water etc. The answer is invariably yes. They either eat at home, on the way to school, scab off their mates or else buy from the tuck shop. And many of the girls don't eat (much) because of those damn skinny models at New York fashion week.

I suggest carpet bombing New York.

Posted at 9:48PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

Oh one other observation from school.

I don't recall seeing a single piece of fruit being eaten by anybody in my form class in the whole of last year aside from the odd mandarin (because they liked throwing the peels at each others heads). They were Year 9 (third form).

We are doomed. Fruit will become something from the old days that grand parents talk about once eating ;)

Posted at 10:23PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

I'm a teacher at decile 2 intermediate here in lower Hutt - and while we do not do breakfasts, we actively encourage students to eat something to get some energy in their system for the day.

It is frustrating to see them slugging down a V from the corner dairy, that washes down a pie - if only cause they'll probably crash by about 10:30.

We are part of the health-promoting schools initiative, although I'm not sure who/where the cash comes from. Health is pretty general - including an upgrade to toilet facilities, but also fruit breaks and healthy sandwiches - ie. ham and salad, tuna and salad, all on brown bread.

Fruit breaks are fresh fruit, some supplied by the students, that are chopped up in class - and about 2pm - kids get 5 min to get a drink of water and some fruit. They seem to enjoy the fruit breaks, but the sandwiches are so-so.

Much like the Jamie Oliver experience, the taste and texture is something that most students don't know.

Does it help? Not sure if it makes them extra healthy or is preventing scurvy or anything that dramatic. For me as a teacher, having students who get a boost early afternoon is handy, particularly these past few blazing hot days in the Hutt!

one of these days I'm getting to a Blend - annoyed i totally missed the timing of this one.

Posted at 11:00PM on 8 Feb 07. Permalink.

'...and how to best roll back the "reforms" that created them in the first place.'

Yep. There was never hunger or poverty prior to 1984. Genius.

Posted at 5:04AM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

PS: Jo, do say hello this time ...

I did this time! I mean, admittedly I was hardly sober, and my mind was mostly on thinking about my next plunge into the ocean,but still, I was polite!

Posted at 9:01AM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

a generous hunk of black pudding

Now we are talking! Sell this stuff in the tuck shops instead of the pies & chips & see what happens.

Tom, there used to be a gourmet sandwich place off Lambton Quay - they did a breakfast sandwich: bacon, egg, baked beans & black pudding. Magic. But not for the faint hearted.

Posted at 9:14AM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

To pick up on Richard Bartlett's point about free stuff from different parties...

To me the issue and division between the red and blue points of view has never really been about generosity and a desire to help folks do well. Both red and blue see themselves as generous in their own ways and I believe that self analysis is generally correct.

The fundamental differences are whether provision of help to people whether for education, health or cash should contain an element of judgment about whether recipients are "deserving" or not *and* whether this sort of help should be viewed as charitable or a right that citizens should expect.

My own view is that charitable work has its place and there are incredibly generous people both rich and poor who give away significant portions of their income and time because they see a need and want to do something about it. These efforts cannot be belittled.

We should recognise the fact that they also only represent the interests of the donors at a particular point in time. So when hungry school kids are off the front page and replaced with starving cats the chances are food for kids programms will turn into save our cats and we will be back to square one.

Posted at 1:06PM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

Perhaps its time to look at one of the oldest of sayings, give a man fish and your into lifetime of giving, teach him to fish and watch him grow into self sufficient and wonderful contributer to society. schools have some nice spaces, plant trees for fruit crop, dig gardens and teach the young to grow there own food parcels.
I feel the effect is 2fold, its very rewarding to eat your own produce and gardening is a gr8 counter to obesity,boredom and lack of appretiation of the joy in life.It seems to me that most problems have a simple solution that does not provide big income to someone, but these are the ones that noone is interested in. we talk about the need to break the cycle but all i see are ways to keep it turning and give some people a bigger slice of whats not needed in the 1st place.
Anarchy is the only real solution
Cheers

Posted at 1:13PM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

A MODEST PROPOSAL
(with a nod to Jonathan Swift and Billy Connolly)
Feed the obese kids to the ones that don't have any breakfast.

Posted at 1:47PM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

Feed the obese kids to the ones that don't have any breakfast

or at least tell the skinny ones how tasty the fat one's are.

fear should cause the bigun's to *actually run*, and the wee ones can eat the abandoned lunches.

a natural equilibrium should ensue, with minimal bloodshed.

Posted at 3:33PM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

When I was at high school ('88 - '92), many of my friends and I went through phases of not eating breakfast because logic dictated that eating makes you fat, and so therefore fewer meals means fewer kilograms.

One PE teacher would talk to us about the importance of having a good breakfast, but it's hard to be swayed by a frumpy old PE teacher (or rapping vegetables).

I also remember one of my friends declaring that from now on she was only going to eat "healthy food", which that day was represented by a box of Tiny Teddies.

I ate absolute rubbish for the first few years of high school - the sort of thing that would make any middle-class mother cry - but I did really well at school.

It wasn't until I was in my mid 20s that I learned about good nutrition.

Posted at 3:53PM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

Seems Key has achieved his real goal of setting the agenda of talking points. Doesn't matter a damn whether he has any solutions. The purpose of a speech like this is:
1. To differentiate him from Brash
2. To push some emotional buttons
3. To see the reaction to the buttons
4. To get people listening to him

Success. His choice of emotional buttons is different from Brash. It attacks Labour where they are perceived as strong. And from government responses and the media including the blogosphere, it seems that we're all listening. The reaction provides National with feedback on which buttons to target.

Hungry kids is a good choice, it pushes lots of buttons. As a problem it's very hard, so no quick solution from Labour will just fix the issue. As many note, kids often don't eat breakfast because they don't want to. I was like that.

Underclass issues are always popular. There's always an underclass, depending on definitions. The bottom 1% pretty much fit the bill no matter what the actual state of their lives is. People living in shanty towns might think our underclass has it pretty sweet, but NZers have little perspective on the matter. Good button.

But Key is still on honeymoon. Brash already tried the approach of pushing buttons but offering no alternatives other than tax cuts, and it didn't work for him. Nothing has changed but the buttons. Key has chosen buttons that are actually a pretty hard ask for National whilst still maintaining a minimal state agenda. Labour can be expected to hammer this when the time comes.

Posted at 4:03PM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

His choice of emotional buttons is different from Brash. It attacks Labour where they are perceived as strong.

Yes indeed. Whether it's deliberate or not, I can't tell, but that's precisely the strategy Karl Rove is known for.

Posted at 8:52PM on 9 Feb 07. Permalink.

The other classic Rove strategy is to accuse your opponent of your own weakness. I wonder how that will manifest?

Posted at 1:04AM on 10 Feb 07. Permalink.

FFS... I really wish some of the faux outrage flowing around here would kick in when we get another fatuous scare story about the so-called 'obesity epidemic' - another health scare story that ends up being much less than meets the eye. (Gee, you mean that when you consume more calories that you ever expend - and too much of it is made up of sugar and fat - it all goes somewhere. And banning fizzy drinks and treating kids like crackheads when they have a bag of crisps in their lunch boxes occasionally isn't really that useful.) Sorry, Russell, but it's hardly a clutch-my-pearls moment to be reminded the Herald is hardly the gold standard for statistical literacy.

Then again, it has been interesting spending sixteen days in Australia - where the politicians are at least trying (with very mixed results, admittedly) to have a semi-rational debate on shit that actually matters. Like making sure children (and everyone else) will continue to have access to a water supply fir for human consumption.

Posted at 1:50AM on 10 Feb 07. Permalink.

Craig said "fit". This was always what Craig said.

Where will the Rove blame the other guy strategy hit? I would have thought it had already hit. The "underclass" speech was a rainbow-six style double tap. It tagged the emotional buttons, it tagged the supporting the people who struggle within a society.

Basically, he's claiming that the benefit system (is evil and must be replaced with tax rebates) isn't up to the job of ensuring all NZers are equal. When National have a clear history of creating inequality in NZ(ers) - bing, both Rove requisites tagged.

[this comment is admittedly hideously partisan, given the generally bipartisan and cosmopolitan nature of these boards (nice work Russell et al), but I've lived enough of Nationals solutions to a failing economy and families that can't support themselves alone to know I don't like it.]

Posted at 2:35AM on 10 Feb 07. Permalink.

Greg:

Basically, I don't blame Helen Clark or John Key for the simple fact that I'm over-weight - and am only moving the cholesterol in the right direction by *gasp* eating properly and exercising more. Strangely enough, I don't think the right has any monopoly on the notion that not every problem in the world can be reduced to a fatuous bumper sticker and legislated away.

As I said, it's not really a jaw-dropper for me that the media (or politicians for that matter) don't always let intellectual rigour get in the way of scaring the shit out of people for fun and profit. It would be a delightful novelty, for example, if some folks would cease to accuse others of being Darth Rove's apprentice, while slagging off anyone who doesn't agree with them as a kitten-eating bastard.

Posted at 10:00AM on 10 Feb 07. Permalink.

Is it just me or is there a stack MORE junk food being pedalled in the last couple of decades than ever before?

Kids, like it or not, don't know everything. That includes about how to eat decent food and what it all does to your body. You learn it, you don't just know it. So any helping hand they can get to learn that information is good. And any helping hand to stay away from it would also be good. No?

We would do well not to stick shit food in their face in supermarkets, dairies, homes, and schools. Look in a fridge in a lunchbar, or behind the counter of anywhere that sells drinks. The bottles of fruit juice and water aren't usually at face height, dominating the fridge. Take a look at a "coke machine". They haven't been called that for nothing. They don't get swathed in advertising for the finest mineral water.

We don't need to ban junk food, but banning it in certain places seems like a pretty mild thing to do. No smoking in bars for adults, no fizzy drinks and bags of chips at school. Trust me, sh*t arse food has a rather dogs balls flow on effect into classroom behaviour which is a major pain in the rear for the teacher and gives their classmates a bloody headache.

Posted at 5:12PM on 10 Feb 07. Permalink.

It would be a delightful novelty, for example, if some folks would cease to accuse others of being Darth Rove's apprentice, while slagging off anyone who doesn't agree with them as a kitten-eating bastard.

Now you see Craig, if you'd just lay off the kittens, you'd find that your cholesterol would come right in an instant.

But yeah, I think the Rove comparison's a bit strong. What we're seeing is the news media being so friggin' desperate for a narrative that they're jumping on every Key diversion, even when there's not a lot there (and, as the Herald did, they have to make stuff up). As John Armstrong noted, Key is just flipping from one thing to the next at the moment: the media follows him and Labour seethes.

But Key will want to be careful. The 12 year-old girl whose new friend he is comes from just the kind of family that National and Act MPs have vilified in the past: Mum on DPB after split; has two more kids, making five in total with new boyfriend who doesn't live on the premises. At some point Judith Collins or someone is going to spit venom about DPB mums, and someone is going to ask Key whether that applies to that nice welfare family from McGehan Close.