From the school of stating-the-bleeding-obvious comes Modern life 'poisoning' childhood
Childhood creativity is being stifled by a combination of junk food, school targets and mass marketing, a group of authors and academics has claimed. Dozens of teachers joined children's authors and psychologists to write a letter to the Daily Telegraph. The signatories highlighted "the escalating incidence of childhood depression" and demanded action.
Although, considering it is the bleedin' obvious you would think there wouldn't be any need to state it.
Patrick Holford, a psychologist and nutritionist, who heads the Food for the Brain Foundation, believes swift action is needed to help children. He said: "There is absolutely no question that there is a profound link between children, their poor performance and a poor diet."And not just children, either. I read of a Young Offenders Institute where they took junk off the menu and replaced it with healthy food in a balanced diet, and behaviour improved significantly...within days.
I find it interesting to read that with the move to healthier school dinners, children are complaining it's not salty enough and are craving crisps. I will admit that I am a little bit salt averse: I don't even add it to chips. However, I do use it in cooking - it draws out other flavours by osmosis. I tried eating in the office canteen a few times but found the food far too salty. I thought it was just me but someone else said the same thing without me prompting them. I think that my "low end of normal" blood pressure may be down to my low-salt diet and I just wonder whether most of the rest of the nation is drowning their food in salt and ruining their health. I wonder - and I stress I am asking this from the perspective of someone who is salt averse - why do people put so much salt on food, even before they have tasted it? I am sure - and correct me if I'm wrong - that, other than chips, food from good quality ingredients and properly cooked, shouldn't require any added salt.
Then I read Parents meddling in student life
Universities gearing up to welcome students in a few weeks' time are bracing themselves for a potentially more daunting onslaught: "helicopter parents". A new generation of over-involved parents hover over their offspring - flooding campus orientation sessions, interfering in registration, meddling with lecturers, administrators and potential room-mates.
I'm not sure whether to be shocked or sceptical. I can believe it happens. A few months ago I met up with some relatives after a University Open Day and decided to keep my thoughts to myself, thankfully, because they showed their surprise that that particular prestigious London university encouraged parents to attend open days. I can sort of understand it at that stage, when you're talking about 17-year-olds, but when you read
Education expert Prof Miriam E David's research at London University's Institute of Education highlighted the increasing role of mothers in selecting their children's university, one has to ask whether the 'child' has the intellectual capacity or the maturity to be at University, which is supposed to be for intelligent adults.
Even though I went to a horrendously posh University full of Oxbridge rejects and with ridiculous aspirations to be the equivalent* of Camford, it was accepted that by six pm on Day One, parents were gone. Long before registrations and orientations and whatnots began. That was if parents came along at all. There were quite a few mature students, although probably fewer than now and fewer than eg the redbricks. There were loads of Overseas Students and people came from all over England, Wales and Northern Ireland. And even at East Midlands Finishing School there were people whose parents simply couldn't afford to travel and stay over and so on. I wonder at what point the parents let go. I expect they choose their 'children's' job too, and turn up for the first day of work.
* in certain subjects it was far superior to Oxbridge and Cambridge but rather than playing it to its strengths, it tried to be a poor imitation
