Rendered at 01:59:08 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
fco356pal 10 hours ago [-]
Pasta and other carbohydrate-rich foods are nowhere near as bad as sugar for children. In the Nutella filled pastry, it is not the bread that’s the problem.
Sugar (particularly in beverages) and lack of exercise are the main contribution of child obesity increase worldwide.
Don’t blame the potato.
cogman10 9 hours ago [-]
> Pasta and other carbohydrate-rich foods are nowhere near as bad as sugar for children.
Sugar is as bad as it is because it's almost instantly absorbed. Plenty of carbohydrates are the same.
Fiber is what separates healthy carbs from unhealthy carbs, heck, even sugars.
An apple is healthy even though it's loaded with sugar because it's also loaded with fiber.
Apple juice is unhealthy because it's basically just the sugar.
Were I to guess, what's changed in italy is what's changed in the US. Flour has become highly refined, removing all the fiber that used to be present. This gives flour nice properties in terms of baking and pasta making, but it also removes a vital part of pasta.
porridgeraisin 8 hours ago [-]
> removing all the fiber
Yes this.
Also reduced vegetable intake. In many cases the fiber from vegetables can offset some refined carbs intake.
dlahoda 1 hours ago [-]
On huberman show one guest described mechanics.
Fiber wraps and gelates fast carbs, and they reach later stages of processing were good bacteria lives and feeds on carbs.
As I recall from others sources, these bacteria produce drugs too, like barbiturate. They make host happier long after meal.
weezing 9 hours ago [-]
Regular pasta and pizza dough are as almost as bad as sugar. Bread might not be as bad as Nutella but is still bad. Most popular Italian food tastes good but is horrible health wise.
bitshiftfaced 6 hours ago [-]
Not by a mile, at least for pasta. When you compare the calorie density and glycemic index of pasta with other grains or grain-derived foods, it's really not bad. The dose makes the poison.
0xcde4c3db 2 hours ago [-]
We've been doing variations of "educate the general public about healthy dietary choices" for roughly as long as the obesity epidemic has been around. Shouldn't it have worked by now, if it were going to? As purportedly modern, scientific, data-driven societies, why do we keep engaging in this impotent self-flagellation?
teolemon 5 hours ago [-]
And meanwhile, the Italian food lobbies are blocking Nutri-Score adoption at the EU level
thi2 4 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure nutri score is helpfull, most people don't understand how it even works and whats actually being compared for the rating.
diath 3 hours ago [-]
Nutriscore is a meme because it only refers to products in the same product category. Some Nestle's ultra processed sugary cereal has scores of A-B, it does not mean it's healthy, it just means it's less bad than other sugary cereal slop. It's very misleading.
dlahoda 1 hours ago [-]
Yeah, in America they have processed level score thing alike and use it in schools.
RetroTechie 6 hours ago [-]
Nobody yet mentioned young-learnt habits: school cafeterias & snack machines.
When I was young, in lunch breaks you'd head over to the school's cafeteria. And what they had there? "Gevulde koek", stroopwafel, snack-sized bags of crisps, various (sweetened) dairy products, and iirc bananas & apples too. No veggies or fibre-rich food in sight. So of course kids would go for the sugar-laden & salty snacks. For drinks, there were vending machines. My favorite was hot chocolate. Again: high in sugar (no "more or less sugar" option).
Sometimes there were longer breaks due to a teacher falling ill or whatever. Then we'd head over to a supermarket nearby, and buy similar junkfood.
Of course we'd bring sandwiches from home. But not everyone, and not always. Some kids would throw their sandwiches in a trash can, and proceed to buy the junkfood mentioned above.
That school was 6 years of us kids' lives. Plenty of time to pick up unhealthy habits & bring those into adulthood.
Wouldn't surprise me at all if most schools worldwide are still like that. Healthy diet choices for pupils is far from #1 priority for school management given all the other things they have to deal with.
The fix would be to make healthier options the easy pick, and remove all junkfood offerings from schools' cafeterias. But good luck doing that nationwide under the watchful eye of junkfood multi-nationals.
like_any_other 4 hours ago [-]
In primary school (in Europe), we had a cafeteria, that served decent, regular meals, with one modest dessert. There were no vending machines, no child carried cash, only coupons for the cafeteria, tied to your name, entitling you to exactly one meal per day. There was also a smaller brunch at 10.
Why give children the option to make the wrong choice? If they were wise and disciplined, they wouldn't be children.
Tldr; highly processed food looses vitamins(micro nutrient starvation) and starch/fiber are needed to slow absorption until it gets to bacteria producing drugs(barbiturate and precursors to neuromediators including), and give signals over vagus nerve to head. May be summary of few books from me too. Do not recall. Add on top chewing fibery food takes time, feeling full starts earlier of being full, and saliva ferments help to digest either.
BiraIgnacio 7 hours ago [-]
So the problem is not Pizza nor pasta nor potatoes nor bread nor protein but all the extra supper high calories, near zero nutrition things that go on top of them?
bni 10 hours ago [-]
Article is good but with one puzzling flaw. They mention protein is one of the culprits, but nothing about why or how.
bryanlarsen 8 hours ago [-]
They don't say that. They say the 5P diet is unhealthy and the Mediterranean diet is healthy. But the Mediterranean diet contains the 5 P's too -- just in moderation and accompanied by lots of vegetables. So the 5 P's aren't necessarily unhealthy by themselves, but a diet that basically only has the 5P's is.
clickety_clack 7 hours ago [-]
Yes, something tells me there’s a lot of deli and processed meats involved.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 6 hours ago [-]
Do remember that Italians cook all their meals, it's a cultural thing
clickety_clack 6 hours ago [-]
Italy is also famous for deli meats. I’m going to hazard a guess that not every Italian is buying raw meat and then preparing traditional dishes from scratch with it using only the freshest of natural ingredients etc.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3 hours ago [-]
No of course, but a whole prosciutto package is very little (100g). There aren't enough calories in a single package to make you fat. Way easier to attribute the problem to pasta. Eating that lunch and dinner, if you make it using non-veggies a pasta dish can easily be more than 600 calories (and that also depends on how much is eaten).
Prosciutto is often eaten with melon, or with figs, so yeah it's processed meat, but then it's eaten with fiber and healthy micronutrients.
Mozzarella could be a problem too (center of Italy), eating a mozzarella with tomato and basil (caprese) is simple, yet the mozzarella is loaded with calories.
Then again, most dishes in Italy use natural ingredients, but that doesn't spare you from getting fat. Take pasta with egg and guanciale (carbonara) is a ton of calories even if home made
I wonder if biscotti is the real deal. In Italy, kids have breakfast with a cup of milk and X amount of biscuits, those are sugar, flour, egg, milk and something else to give flavor. Eat 4 of those and it's 200 calories. Eat 8 of those and it starts to get scary (400 calories) + 1 cup of milk = ~550 calories.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3 hours ago [-]
I did not realize this is mostly in the SOUTH.
This would be funny to hear for you, but to become fat in the south you just have to have a good appetite: most moms, grandmas and aunts will cook you INCREDIBLE meals (very flavorful stuff), but of course it will also be loaded with fats.
The likelihood of this being a problem related to preprocessed stuff is low
drweevil 13 hours ago [-]
In 2004 I visited my family in Valencia, Spain. There was a local construction boom. There were family owned shops everywhere. Bakeries, fruit stands, etc.
When I went back in 2014, it seems everything had changed. The shops were gone. The construction had slacked off. Instead there were now giant supermarkets and superstores. They were on the Euro now. My cousins blamed the EU for this. I'm assuming something similar happened in Italy, tho it is not mentioned in the article, which instead tends to blame the victims. When you replace the local food supply chain with prepared branded foods (Nutella, etc.), you get this. The EU has been great for European capitalists, but a detriment to the people in Europe.
PS This was one of the major complaints of the long forgotten yellow-vests protests in France.
mercurialuser 10 hours ago [-]
I'm over 50. I played in the streets whole afternoons, full days during school vacations. They were dangerous years in Rome, terrorism, political violence, heroin everywhere.
Despite we are now living in safer years, no kids are playing in the streets anymore. Also in the nearby park, they struggle to reach a 5 vs 5 football (soccer) match when we had plenty more for a 11 vs 11.
A prominent psycologist just released an interview: why do italian parents love Sinner, the tennis player, praise his capabilities, his energy and willingness to train, but accept that their kids spend hours sitting on the couch playing games or browsing socials?
I also agree with you about local, family owned shops: in my area there were 2 supermarkets and they were far away. Now there are at least 6 and one is less than 300mt from my house.
The family shops are still operating and thriving, but some have changed, adding locally pre-cooked food to the old offer.
So, less sport, more easily available junk food, more parents working late to keep supers open so more use of pre cooked food, more time spent on social media... a explosive mix
Fire-Dragon-DoL 6 hours ago [-]
Pre-cooked means NOTHING like what you find in north America.
You can get plenty pre cooked food that are healthy (and flavorful).
Of course you can also still ask for fries, but that's not common in Italy
ragall 3 hours ago [-]
I vecchi hanno così tanto potere politico ora, al punto tale che stanno facendo chiudere i campi di calcetto degli oratori, lamentandosi del rumore. I bambini non hanno più dove andare all'aperto senza infastidire qualche adulto.
tweetle_beetle 10 hours ago [-]
The hypermarket concept was more or less invented in France in 1963. Clearly joining the EU allowed greater trade options which suit large scale market leaders, but their growth would have happened anyway.
A lazy illustration, but there is not a single mention of the EU, the introduction of the Euro, or the single market on the extensive Wikipedia about the topic in the context of France, suggesting minimal impact.
And 1.125lbs is easier to write than 1 pound 2 ounces, yet Americans will look at you with a blank stare if you don't use ounces.
When it comes to units, you can't please everybody. Especially if it's tangentially related to the old colonies.
anonym29 5 hours ago [-]
people love to take potshots about how Americans don't know the metric system, but we love our 9mm's and a few grams
julianlam 8 hours ago [-]
What an Americentric point of view.
Not everybody measures weight in pounds, and to the primary readership of the BBC, stones and kilograms mean much more than weighing pounds.
Source: Canadian who understands neither kg or stones.
release-object 9 hours ago [-]
The 2nd number immediately means something to me. While I have to consider the first. From my perspective it isn’t easier to comprehend.
An unrelated point. I’ve noticed more people in the UK measuring their weight in KG. I think I may be in a dwindling minority of people who think in stones and pounds.
pfannkuchen 7 hours ago [-]
Isn’t stones/pounds just like feet/inches? Do you support dropping feet and only using inches? If not, why not?
Fire-Dragon-DoL 6 hours ago [-]
I have no clue, give me kg thanks.
thefz 8 hours ago [-]
...In the South.
It's a culture thing.
Schiendelman 7 hours ago [-]
Could it be explained by the local population density - basically the walkability for each resident?
Sugar (particularly in beverages) and lack of exercise are the main contribution of child obesity increase worldwide.
Don’t blame the potato.
Sugar is as bad as it is because it's almost instantly absorbed. Plenty of carbohydrates are the same.
Fiber is what separates healthy carbs from unhealthy carbs, heck, even sugars.
An apple is healthy even though it's loaded with sugar because it's also loaded with fiber.
Apple juice is unhealthy because it's basically just the sugar.
Were I to guess, what's changed in italy is what's changed in the US. Flour has become highly refined, removing all the fiber that used to be present. This gives flour nice properties in terms of baking and pasta making, but it also removes a vital part of pasta.
Yes this.
Also reduced vegetable intake. In many cases the fiber from vegetables can offset some refined carbs intake.
Fiber wraps and gelates fast carbs, and they reach later stages of processing were good bacteria lives and feeds on carbs.
As I recall from others sources, these bacteria produce drugs too, like barbiturate. They make host happier long after meal.
When I was young, in lunch breaks you'd head over to the school's cafeteria. And what they had there? "Gevulde koek", stroopwafel, snack-sized bags of crisps, various (sweetened) dairy products, and iirc bananas & apples too. No veggies or fibre-rich food in sight. So of course kids would go for the sugar-laden & salty snacks. For drinks, there were vending machines. My favorite was hot chocolate. Again: high in sugar (no "more or less sugar" option).
Sometimes there were longer breaks due to a teacher falling ill or whatever. Then we'd head over to a supermarket nearby, and buy similar junkfood.
Of course we'd bring sandwiches from home. But not everyone, and not always. Some kids would throw their sandwiches in a trash can, and proceed to buy the junkfood mentioned above.
That school was 6 years of us kids' lives. Plenty of time to pick up unhealthy habits & bring those into adulthood.
Wouldn't surprise me at all if most schools worldwide are still like that. Healthy diet choices for pupils is far from #1 priority for school management given all the other things they have to deal with.
The fix would be to make healthier options the easy pick, and remove all junkfood offerings from schools' cafeterias. But good luck doing that nationwide under the watchful eye of junkfood multi-nationals.
Why give children the option to make the wrong choice? If they were wise and disciplined, they wouldn't be children.
Tldr; highly processed food looses vitamins(micro nutrient starvation) and starch/fiber are needed to slow absorption until it gets to bacteria producing drugs(barbiturate and precursors to neuromediators including), and give signals over vagus nerve to head. May be summary of few books from me too. Do not recall. Add on top chewing fibery food takes time, feeling full starts earlier of being full, and saliva ferments help to digest either.
Prosciutto is often eaten with melon, or with figs, so yeah it's processed meat, but then it's eaten with fiber and healthy micronutrients.
Mozzarella could be a problem too (center of Italy), eating a mozzarella with tomato and basil (caprese) is simple, yet the mozzarella is loaded with calories.
Then again, most dishes in Italy use natural ingredients, but that doesn't spare you from getting fat. Take pasta with egg and guanciale (carbonara) is a ton of calories even if home made
I wonder if biscotti is the real deal. In Italy, kids have breakfast with a cup of milk and X amount of biscuits, those are sugar, flour, egg, milk and something else to give flavor. Eat 4 of those and it's 200 calories. Eat 8 of those and it starts to get scary (400 calories) + 1 cup of milk = ~550 calories.
This would be funny to hear for you, but to become fat in the south you just have to have a good appetite: most moms, grandmas and aunts will cook you INCREDIBLE meals (very flavorful stuff), but of course it will also be loaded with fats.
The likelihood of this being a problem related to preprocessed stuff is low
PS This was one of the major complaints of the long forgotten yellow-vests protests in France.
Despite we are now living in safer years, no kids are playing in the streets anymore. Also in the nearby park, they struggle to reach a 5 vs 5 football (soccer) match when we had plenty more for a 11 vs 11.
A prominent psycologist just released an interview: why do italian parents love Sinner, the tennis player, praise his capabilities, his energy and willingness to train, but accept that their kids spend hours sitting on the couch playing games or browsing socials?
I also agree with you about local, family owned shops: in my area there were 2 supermarkets and they were far away. Now there are at least 6 and one is less than 300mt from my house. The family shops are still operating and thriving, but some have changed, adding locally pre-cooked food to the old offer.
So, less sport, more easily available junk food, more parents working late to keep supers open so more use of pre cooked food, more time spent on social media... a explosive mix
You can get plenty pre cooked food that are healthy (and flavorful).
Of course you can also still ask for fries, but that's not common in Italy
A lazy illustration, but there is not a single mention of the EU, the introduction of the Euro, or the single market on the extensive Wikipedia about the topic in the context of France, suggesting minimal impact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-scale_retail_in_France
I do look for regional food, though they are more expensive but also Aldi + Lidl are a bless.
When it comes to units, you can't please everybody. Especially if it's tangentially related to the old colonies.
Not everybody measures weight in pounds, and to the primary readership of the BBC, stones and kilograms mean much more than weighing pounds.
Source: Canadian who understands neither kg or stones.
An unrelated point. I’ve noticed more people in the UK measuring their weight in KG. I think I may be in a dwindling minority of people who think in stones and pounds.
It's a culture thing.