Low-calorie snack campaign has no real impact behavior change and towards healthier snack habits?!

Low-calorie snack campaign has no real impact behavior change and towards healthier snack habits?!

Childhood obesity is considered a public health challenge and problem both globally and UK. There is an association between the consumption of free sugars and developing obesity. To tackle the problem a camp[aign was launched in 2018 as Change 4Life (C4L) 100 cal snack campaign. The aim of the campaign was to encourage parents to lower their children’s intake of high sugar, fat, and calorie snacks. The campaign slogan was ‘ 100 calorie snacks, two a day max’. However, a study on the perceptions of the parents towards the campaign showed that “there was no agreement in terms of the parents reporting an impact of the campaign on behavior change and healthier snack habits”. This shows that we need more than a campaign to give proper information to the public, to eradicate poor eating habits.

Interestingly Beat criticized the C4L campaign as it may increase the risk of young people developing an eating disorder. They urge Public Health Institutes to “change the campaign to focus more on healthy eating rather than calorie counting”.

So to conclude, the real issue is childhood obesity. we can’t say for sure that by cutting down all snacks can avoid obesity. Without snacks, someone can get obese. The problem is with overall diet and lifestyle. If we can look back to the time period without the Tv’s and the lifestyle back then. People were more active. People eat real food. But then the Tv’s came and Technology came with screens which then stuck with our faces. We made life easier by making processed food, which actually seems to save time at the same time reducing the time we spend in the world. We started with a bicycle to a motorcycle, then to cars, Nowe we do not have to drive – Autopilot mode in Cars. All these factors make it really difficult to overcome this challenge to be healthy.

References
Day, R.E., Bridge, G., Austin, K. et al. Parents’ awareness and perceptions of the Change4Life 100 cal snack campaign, and perceived impact on snack consumption by children under 11 years. BMC Public Health 22, 1012 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12789-7

https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/news/beat-news/change4lifes-100-calorie-campaign/

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