The headlines have been hard to ignore.
According to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), the UK is now on course to raise one of the unhealthiest generations of children in decades.
Click to read the summary 👇️
That is a remarkable statement from the organisation representing the country’s paediatricians, and one that deserves far more than a fleeting news cycle.
The report paints a worrying picture.
Progress in child health has stalled or gone backwards across multiple indicators including obesity, mental health, asthma, and infant mortality.
Children growing up in deprived areas are consistently affected the most, highlighting that health inequalities begin early in life and often persist into adulthood.
As Chiropractors, we like root causes (when we can get them), there is another question we should ask.
How did we get here?
It is tempting to believe that all we need is a better school lunch or another public health campaign encouraging children to eat more vegetables.
While these initiatives undoubtedly have value, they risk overlooking the elephant standing in the kitchen in the children home.
Children do not buy the shopping.
Children do not prepare the meals.
Children rarely control what fills the cupboards.
Children at a certain age can also buy their own food.
In Tower Hamlets, there are 42 takeaway shops and convenience shops per school and the kids are not buying fruit and veg, or grass-fed beef jerky.
Today’s children are, in many cases, the second generation raised on highly processed, calorie-dense but nutrient poor diets.
Many of the parents now struggling with obesity, insulin resistance and poor metabolic health were themselves raised on exactly the same foods, and they know no difference.
In other words, we are no longer dealing with a single generation making poor dietary choices.
We are witnessing the consequences of nutritional habits being passed from one generation to the next.
Giving a child one nutritious school meal each day is certainly better than none.
But if breakfast consists of sugary cereal or, even worse, a can of monster, after school snacks are crisps and chocolate, dinner is beige convenience food and evenings finish with fizzy drinks, that one healthy meal is fighting a very lonely battle.
Jamie Oliver discovered this almost twenty years ago when he transformed school meals.
While healthier food was introduced inside the school gates, some parents reportedly responded by passing burgers, chips and other fast food through the railings at lunchtime, so their children did not have to eat the healthier alternatives.
The story became symbolic of a much larger problem.
Changing the food environment at school is difficult enough.
Changing what happens at home is far harder.
This is where nutrition education becomes so important.
At ACN, we have previously explored how childhood obesity is not simply a problem of eating too many calories.
It is increasingly a problem of poor food quality, ultra processed foods and diets that fail to provide adequate amounts of protein, vitamins, minerals and healthy fats.
A child can consume more than enough calories yet still be relatively undernourished.
Our previous article, The Truth About Childhood Obesity, discussed how modern food environments encourage overconsumption while simultaneously delivering fewer nutrients than whole foods.
Worth a re-read, click it 👇️
Likewise, Is Protein Deficiency Making People Overeat? highlighted an emerging concept known as the Protein Leverage Hypothesis.
In simple terms, humans appear to continue eating until their protein requirements are satisfied.
The target molecule of Ozempic is GLP1 receptor, that is they are agonists to it. It is the “stop eating, you are satisfied molecule.”
We make it naturally if we give the body what it wants nutritionally, and that is protein (to give AMINO ACIDS):
And fat:
You can re-read that too, it’s a belter 👇️
If the diet is heavy with refined carbohydrates, but contains relatively little protein, total calorie intake may continue climbing in an unconscious attempt to obtain enough amino acids via protein.
Try drinking a pint of double cream, see what happens….. your body will say NO.
Drinking a pint of coke, no issues, there is no off switch for sugars as, from an evolutionary POV, sugar is high calorie, but rarely found (fruit and honey only).
So when you taste sugar, your body demands more and more, to get the calories in while they are available (before the food goes off), and then you store the excess as fat for later to burn off in ketosis when there is no food on offer.
It is a fascinating concept – you are hard-wired for overeating sugars.
Imagine trying to fill a bucket with water while someone has punch holes in the bottom.
You simply keep pouring water in.
We should be cautious not to present protein leverage as the sole explanation for obesity, but it offers one plausible mechanism supported by an expanding body of research and fits remarkably well with modern dietary patterns.
The solution is unlikely to be another low-fat snack bar, another breakfast biscuit or another “healthy” ultra processed product carrying impressive marketing claims.
Instead, perhaps we should return to the foods that nourished humans for thousands of years.
Real, whole foods.
Foods naturally rich in protein and quality fats.
Foods rich in iron, zinc, magnesium, B vitamins, omega 3 fats and other essential nutrients required for growth, immune function and brain development.
In our article Why the Masai’s Health Baffles Experts, we discussed a population consuming diets based largely around minimally processed animal foods alongside traditional lifestyles.
While no single ancestral diet should be copied wholesale, the principle remains valuable.
Nutrient density matters.
Protein matters. Real food matters.
Children need building materials, not simply calories.
Muscles, bones, connective tissue, neurotransmitters, immune cells and growing brains are all constructed from nutrients.
You cannot build premium quality bricks using poor quality raw materials.
I give my kids SIMPLE COLLAGEN daily, with almost zero flavour and can be added to foods easily or added to drinks with flavour – Remember, bones, tendons, ligaments, cartilage and skin are all collagen and kids are growing rapidly need building blocks.
https://inhealthsupplements.co.uk/product/a-single-retail-pack-of-simple-collagen-powder-400g/
None of this diminishes the importance of wider public health measures. The RCPCH quite rightly highlights the need for better investment, improved child health data and meaningful national targets.
These are sensible recommendations that deserve support.
However, practitioners working with families also have an opportunity.
Rather than simply telling parents what to remove from the diet, perhaps we should focus more on what to add.
More eggs.
More fish.
More good quality meat.
More dairy if tolerated.
More colourful vegetables.
More fruit.
More beans and pulses (if tolerated)
More meals cooked from ingredients rather than manufactured in factories.
Small changes, repeated consistently across months and years, have the potential to alter the trajectory not just of one child, but of future generations.
If today’s unhealthy children become tomorrow’s unhealthy parents, the cycle simply continues.
If today’s children instead grow up understanding the value of real, nutrient dense food, perhaps they will become the first generation to hand something healthier to their own children than they themselves received.
That would be a headline worth celebrating.