Childhood obesity

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LovelyLadyLux
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Childhood obesity

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

There has been a new study done in Canada and it is linking the use of household disinfectants to childhood obesity based on examination of gut bacteria. When there is higher amounts of a certain type of bacteria in the gut it increases obesity and disinfectant use decreases other bacteria which allows the growth of this one type bacteria. If disinfectants are used daily this increased this type of bacteria. The study was done on infants, again at 2yrs and at 8yrs when the BMI was calcuated amongst other tests. Granted this is a very simplistic version of all that was stated.

I've always considered the extreme use of high sugar cereals, fast food and all 'round junk food to be the prime causation of obesity in children & adults myself but I can see the validity of this theory as well. Course I also think genetics factors in greatly. My own kids got the same food and the oldest daughter used to eat like the proverbial horse yet was so skinny as a little kid her bones showed. Her sister had an equally healthy appetite but never had the super skinny look.

Course when I was a kid I grew up so dirty - bath once a week if I was lucky, soap only to wash my hands (we never had any fancy disinfectant towels) and I lived in the barn with all the animals so based on this theory I should be a mere shadow! Turn sideways and you can't see me! ;) ;) ;)

Overall I don't like or use all the fancy disinfectants that are out there today. Everything is clean but I'm not a user of disinfectant wipes nor do I constantly use that stuff to sterilize your hands. I don't use 'spray' to take away odors (if anything smells it will go out itself) nor do I like those things that you plug in to make the air smell nice.


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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Mad Dilys »

This has given me pause for thought, I was just thinking today about our weekly baths - because I was much smaller than my sister and six years younger I got the first bath usually and my sister followed in the same water topped with a couple of kettles. We had a "bungalow bath" which was like a galvanized iron trough about 4 feet or so long.

We were very thin but well nourished, staying thin until after the birth of our children when we became obsessed with cleanliness .......... and put on weight.

However both my daughter's are slim, my eldest daughter is underweight and always has been. When she had her son who was a pretty normal 7lb birth weight she got straight back in her normal jeans the next day as I did when she was born. Very few people realised I was pregnant. Odd.
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Grandad »

I think I would want to see a very large clinical study before giving credence to this theory.
I can certainly echo what you ladies say about general hygiene in our early years. We too had a galvanised bath that hung on a hook outside the kitchen door and was brought in on wash day Monday to use the water from the copper for baths, a succession of baths as described by MD. :lol:
I really think the biggest cause of obesity in children and adults is poor diet. With so much 'junk food' many do not ever see a proper range of vegetables in their diet. Prepared food and a microwave seem to be the order of the day. :( But not in my house I hasten to add.
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Mad Dilys »

I wonder if it's about the energy we used keeping warm as well as a lot of walking, cycling and not forgetting chores!

Of course sugar was rationed but we ate lots of fats of various kinds as well as bread and pastries. Not much meat or fish and seasonal veggies and fruit that were seldom sprayed with chemicals. :tk
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Mad Dilys »

P.S. No television etc! :lol:
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

We didn't have a TV until I was about 11 yrs old. My Grannie had one when I was about 7 though and it was always a treat to watch it when we'd visit here if the visit was in the evening (I don't think the TV broadcast during the day and if it did the TV wasn't turned on). I think the sweetest thing I ate as a kid back then was daily jam on my bread but everything came out of the garden or was caught/fish/shot or somehow home grown on my grandfather's farm. We really didn't have junk food. We had some but it sure wasn't a regular part of our diet.

I tend to think that poor diet full of junk food along with computer/TV/cyberworld watching contributes to obesity and who really knows anymore what we are eating with all the chemical preservatives added to our food to say nothing of GMO. Seems like nothing is real anymore and really who knows how this is interacting with our bodies.

Seems that bacterias, bugs, viruses are becoming stronger and more resistant to everything. Not sure that can be contributed to our abilities to use cleaning solvents to kill 'em.
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Mad Dilys »

My friend who shared my double desk at school developed TB and no one queried whether I might have it too. TB was quite common when I was at primary school, the funny thing is I was never immunised as I was so "fragile". Rickets, worms and lice were also common.


I remember a child at primary school who was sewn into his woollen vest for the winter. After a couple of months the teachers found out and after school one day removed the vest, gave him a big tea and a bath and fitted him out with enough vests so that they could be changed. ( And they changed them. I believe once a week.) Some people were unimaginably poor - families were bigger, but so many had died in the war and with the bombing devastation communities were broken up. It was very hard for single mothers.

Styes on eyes and whitlows and chilblains on fingers were very common too. Oh, ringworm used to make an appearance from time to time as if we didn't have enough problems.


Not everything in the garden was lovely. :tk
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Horus »

Thats nothing! we were so poor that all my school clothes came from the ex army and navy stores :(
You try going to school dressed as a Japanese Admiral :D
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Grandad »

Times were so hard for us, the mice used to give back the cheese from the mouse traps. :lol: :lol:
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Mad Dilys »

But I had a wonderful childhood, running free without a care in the world - every day was an adventure. I know and I knew how lucky I was. :up
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Horus »

I dont think we knew at the time, but I do now as to what a wonderful childhood we had compared to todays children. We were relatively free to roam, we were scruffy and adventurous, often hungry and poorly dressed, but we had fun.
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Grandad »

Horus, I think your phrase 'free to roam' sums up our childhood and as well as myself that would seem to apply to you and MD. We lived on the edge of the city where the urban met the rural. Small groups of 3 or 4 lads would spend many happy hours around the countryside, into the woods, down to the river, scrumping apples, and birds nesting. and that was from the age of about 6 or 7.
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Mad Dilys »

Horus wrote:I dont think we knew at the time, but I do now as to what a wonderful childhood we had compared to todays children. We were relatively free to roam, we were scruffy and adventurous, often hungry and poorly dressed, but we had fun.
We were constantly being told by adults how lucky we were, understandable as it was just after the war I suppose when so many men had been fighting in places they may not have heard of, let alone knew anything about and were shocked at what they saw.

I was never hungry, I always had a small appetite which my mother understood so gave me small portions, but others always told us, "eat up there are hungry children in Africa who would love to have that". I could never understand the logic but I did realise from a very young age that many were less fortunate than me Sunday school also rammed it home.
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Grandad »

As we are reminiscing away from topic, I do remember that we were very knowledgeable about things around us. The wildlife particularly the birds, and trees, we knew all the common types. Through the war years we could identify all the aircraft, friend and foe, many of those I can remember to this day.
We had a radio, accumulator driven, and the big morale booster program through the war years was ITMA (It's That Man Again) with Tommy Handley and all his supporting characters.
There was just the BBC Home Service for the serious stuff and The Light Program for, yes, the lighter stuff. Anyone else remember programs from the forties (or fifties for the youngsters among us ;) )? Like Rays a Laugh. ;)
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I don't remember any programs from the 50ies as we didn't have TV then in our area of Canada nor did we get radio programs. I think it was because we lived way out in the country and radio reception wasn't there nor do I remember us even having a radio. We listened extensively to records playing music though. When I did get to see TV it was mostly American - Gunsmoke, Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Ed Sullivan.

I was able to basically come and go from the house and roam most anywhere. I did have some boundaries though - I could go for miles in the fields behind the house & barn but I wasn't allowed to cross the road in front of the house. It was paved which meant ever few hours a truck would come barrelling down it so I could have been hit however I would have really have to have stood out there for ages waiting. Once I got mobile on the horse my territory increased dramatically and I could literally cover miles and miles in a day.

I do remember as a child often being cold. A real bone numbing type cold where I never seemed warm. It was a combination of not having warm enough clothes for the weather, living in an old farm house that had no insulation and really no consistent heating system plus always trying to conserve on fuel. We burned coal but whatever we got had to be eeked out all winter so we'd usually only have a fire in the evenings going on the theory that once we were in bed under the blankets we'd be warm. Weekends my dad would get up and make a fire in the morning (no sense heating a house during the week when none of us were home) but unless we were below freezing the rule was to just put on another sweater. We all mostly lived in the kitchen area which was the warmest room. Never really got to go into the front room cause I'd get it dirty and that room had to be kept 'for good' (not really sure what that ever meant).
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Grandad »

You paint a vivid picture LLL, and a young girl going off into the countryside on her horse has a certain charm about it. :up

As you have led me down memory lane, I remembered one of our favourite haunts for birds nesting. I checked it out on Google maps and it has changed little in nearly 80 years. The main difference is that the trees completely overhung the lane. There is a rough path at the top of the bank on each side of the road and this lane is what we called 'The Hanging Banks'
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Mad Dilys »

Our Front Room was treated with the same respect and rarely if ever used. :lol:
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

We had a very formal front room that ultimately had a light cream coloured sofa with a faint green floral fleck along with an essentially white wool rug made in India. Two barrel style side chairs with light light green SILK seats along with coffee table, side tables. The room was always 100% pristine and NOBODY ever got to go into the room and sit on anything. It was a beautiful looking room but it was all mostly WHITE and since I basically lived in the barn with the horse and other animals I was expressly forbidden to go in there. When I reflect back I don't think I ever did actually sit in that room. It was reserved for visiting relatives (not Grandparents who came all the time but rather for relatives who arrived from afar), the Minister who would inevitably arrive once a year and really nobody else.

Same with the good china dishes. My mother collected an entire set of Royal Albert which was all the fashion back then. Probably once a month during a shopping trip into the city we'd go to whichever store she was buying a piece from and she'd add a plate or cup. Again I don't have any recollections of all of us ever eating off of these dishes which were displayed in a formal china cabinet.

I'd usually saddle up early morning with a western saddle. It creaked and was lined with heavy sheepskin with roses carved into the leather. It also had silver conchos on it with leather threaded through that dangled. The bridle, all leather, went over one ear only and down the side to a curb bit. Since I'd taught neck reigning I hardly ever needed to do much other than touch the neck to run on a dime.

We'd pass field lined with huge old hickory fields and once we crossed the railway tracks the road leveled out and we'd gallop easily for a couple miles 'til we came to a secondary paved road. This road was asphalt and narrow enough that two cars could pass but had to slow down to do so. The dog almost always came with and while I could out run her for parts of my route she'd usually catch up on this stretch with her tongue lolling out while we all walked to the next turn. Farm was there and the old Ukranian man had several huge domed chicken and turkey barns but he also often kept geese outside in his yard and depending they could be mean if they were outside the gate. We'd circle the roads and end up back home. Loved the ride and looked forward to it every day.
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Mad Dilys »

I yearned for a horse all my life, but finances didn't allow riding lessons and my Mother and sister were close to being knocked down by a runaway horse and cart when she was a toddler, hence her fear of horses.

I got a job managing a show kennel of Salukis which was attached to a riding school. While I was there I made friends with a girl whose mother wanted her to go to the riding school where reputedly Princess Anne was a pupil. My friend wouldn't go by herself so her mother paid for me to have lessons with her - how lucky am I!

Eventually I became an instructor and riding became an important part of my life. It's also the reason I have difficulty walking these days - apart from the falls when a horse stands on your foot it often breaks the small bones and arthritis sets in later.

I distinctly remember one occasion when a stupid mare who stood close to 6ft tall at her shoulder trod on my right foot and wouldn't move. Eventually I managed to reach the pitchfork I had used to make her bed and clouted her with it. My reinforced shoe was permemantly dented as was my foot! I'm 5ft 8+ and I had to stand on a box to groom her - which she routinely kicked me off. She was the most brainless animal I ever met, couldn't be turned and couldn't be stopped. When she first came into our yard, completely unresponsive to treats or threats - fortunately I wasn't required to ride her. The first time the Boss rode her across the field she not only wouldn't turn, she went straight into a thick hedge, which stopped her but we had to cut her out.
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Re: Childhood obesity

Post by Grandad »

You are painting some vivid pictures of your youth ladies ;) :up
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