A Gateshead mam has made a number of healthy changes to the way she cooks while still serving up her kids' favourite meals.
Debra Thompson, 42, has brought her two children Kieron and Hannah up on curries, burgers and roast dinners, but has made a series of healthy changes to how she cooks in the hope of combatting the rising childhood obesity crisis. Debra was shocked to hear that almost 40% of children aged 10-11 are either overweight or obese after new research from Northumberland County Council's annual report found that families struggle with healthy eating habits.
The report also found that an increasing number of fast-food outlets and a rise in food costs has made it difficult to provide a balanced diet for youngsters. The figures, from 2020/21 showed that 15.3% of Year 6 children were overweight, while 18.9% were obese, and a further 5.8% were severely obese.
Read more: Councillor blames 'Greggs diet' for shocking levels of childhood obesity in Northumberland
Debra, who learned to make healthy lifestyle changes after joining Slimming World, decided to make swaps to benefit not only her health, but her two children too. She said: "It’s important that my whole family eat healthy meals so that they are getting lots of goodness from their food.
"Food optimising is family-friendly and it begins to just come naturally. I have adapted our meals by making swaps such as spray oils instead of vegetable or olive oil and we switched to using extra light mayonnaise instead of full fat.
"Recently my daughter found a recipe online and asked if we could make it healthier because it had double cream in the base, so we used fat free natural fromage frais instead. It tasted delicious. We have a lot of pasta-based dishes using passata and vegetables, and we will add meat such as meatballs or bolognaise using 5% or less fat mince.
"We have roast dinners using lean meat or poultry and have lots of fresh vegetables and salads. Homemade burgers and Slimming World chips with a salad is one of our favourites as well as the easy chicken curry recipe we found on the app, it’s so simple to make and tastes lovely."
Debra says that her children are still allowed treats and fast food occasionally, as she believes the food optimising techniques she has learned help to create a balanced diet. She added: "As adults, I want them to be able to make healthy choices as well as having treats along the way."
Since joining Slimming World, Debra has lost nearly two-and-a-half stone through the Food Optimising healthy eating plan, which aims to enable members to make healthy good choices without calorie counting or obsessive weighing and measuring. As well as helping her family to have a more balanced diet, she has found ways to save money when cooking meals from scratch.
She said: "A bag of potatoes is reasonably priced and can be cooked in a number of different ways. They can also do a couple of meals and work out cheaper than buying expensive frozen oven chips or wedges.
"To make it healthier, we use a carton of passata instead of a jar of ready made sauce and it’s so much cheaper than a lot of those jars which are also full of salt and sugar. If you cook a larger portion of tomato sauce it can be put into a container and frozen for a second meal another day.
"We like to use tinned potatoes in the air fryer to make roast potatoes and they’re great because they’re very low cost. Frozen vegetables are also very handy and much cheaper. I find making a meal plan and trying to stick to a list saves from added extras."
Slimming World's own research found that within three months of joining a group, 77% of members had encouraged their children to eat more healthily.
A spokesperson for Slimming World said: "Because our Food Optimising eating plan and Body Magic activity programme are based on the current government healthy lifestyle guidance, it can support all members of the family to adopt healthy habits.
"In fact, we know that many of our members already cook Food Optimising meals for the whole family to enjoy, and Family Affair will support more members and give them the reassurance that our approach is/can be suitable for the whole family. Whilst it wouldn’t be suitable for the whole family to follow the Food Optimising eating plan in full, we have a set of resources for parents and guardians to support them in helping their children to make healthier lifestyle choices."
What healthy options do you and your family eat? Let us know!
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