Should school canteens be held accountable?

A review of 263 school menus across Australia identified that only 30 percent of primary schools and fewer than 19 percent of secondary schools are compliant with nutrition guidelines. What hope do kids have when national nutrition guidelines are flouted by the very school canteens and tuck shops where they should be most firmly upheld?

I actually believe that the next generation’s preferences for healthy or unhealthy foods are established long before those kids first put food into their mouths and several recent blog posts highlight the mechanism for these epigenetic, trans-generational effects and the importance of making them positive rather than negative ones. School tuckshops come a long way down my list of potential positive influences.

But let’s face it, lots of parents have missed the boat in bequeathing their kids a taste for healthy foods. Lots of parents don’t have the knowledge or the intestinal fortitude that it takes to change the junk-food diet that their kids favour. So can we expect school canteens to set an example? I believe we can - but this recent report indicates that Australia still has a long way to go in getting rid of soft drinks, confectionery, cakes, pastries and other unhealthy fare. Legislation? Hardly a popular move, even though one Australian state has taken that step.  

I don’t know what my local high school serves at its canteen. But trending to green and healthy would explain why on recently queuing to pay for petrol, I was delayed by half a dozen teenage boys on their way to said school, scratching around in pockets for loose change. Eventually boys exited the servo with several litres of Coca-Cola and at least two cans of energy drinks apiece. Pity the teachers whose classes they will inhabit. But power to someone who can change those habits or limit the availability of such choices by school students at 8:00 am - maybe NYC Mayor Bloomberg has an idea?

How loudly is your biological clock ticking?

I've been banging the preconception healthcare drum for nearly thirty years, so it never ceases to amaze me when somebody turns around and says “hey, I didn’t know it was going to be hard to get pregnant in my 30s - nobody ever talks about these things!” Hello, where have you been baby? The media is awash with articles, blogs and online forums are full of the TTC (trying to conceive), IVF specialists tout their wares, their ever-more-sophisticated techniques and their dubious successes at every opportunity.

Talk about blinkers on - but then I ask, who else is wearing blinkers? Whenever we’re bombarded with the plummeting fertility statistics and the drastic decline of fertility with age (and surprise, surprise men have a biological clock that ticks too!) where is the common sense? Am I the lone voice in the wilderness that says, hang on a minute, is age the only factor here? 

So do you want to know how you can preserve your fertility and ensure the healthiest baby possible? The answer’s simple - pay very close attention to your own health before conception. The reason for the rise in reproductive problems with age can be simply summarized as longer exposure to 21st century diets and lifestyles. Nutrition, lifestyle, environment and mental and emotional factors all need very careful attention by both partners if you plan to delay your baby-making (or if after attending to all the preconception issues, you consider that IVF is the only option). The four months immediately preceding conception are the most critical!

Comprehensive preconception health care has clearly been shown to give significant protection against age-related sub-fertility, miscarriage and foetal defect. The University of New England has conducted an independent study of 67 couples on the Natural Fertility Management conception program at The Jocelyn Centre. Developed by my co-author Francesca Naish, results of the program are more than merely encouraging. 52% of previously infertile couples can conceive within the first 4 months following completion of preconception care. Over the last 30 years, working with many thousands of couples, The Jocelyn Centre, despite a high proportion of patients being in their late 30s, early to mid 40s and beyond, has achieved successful pregnancies when all else has failed and an insignificant number of age-related defects.

The studies from Foresight - Association for Promotion of Preconceptual Care (UK) and the emerging research in the fields of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, (DOHaD), foetal origins and epigenetics also provide incontrovertible evidence...optimisation of nutritional status and complete avoidance of any potential toxicity by both partners for at least 4 months prior to conception is the only certain way to ensure the health of the next generation and to reduce the toll of compromised reproductive health (and that includes reducing the infertility rates across all age groups)!

Epigenetics - there's more to the weight story than DNA

Last week I followed the comments (that ran to several hundred) posted by the readers of The Sydney Morning Herald in response to the research that I mentioned January 19. Many of them were finger-pointing, there were accusations of sloth and gluttony, amongst many more balanced and reasonable. Clearly weight management is an extremely emotive issue, but it’s also a very complex one. Hormones, toxicity, and stress are contributing factors along with the more obvious issues of a sedentary lifestyle and over-supply of under-nutrition. But it’s the epigenetic effects that are really emerging as key factors - with new evidence indicating that the current epidemic of childhood obesity, is in part linked to the high fat diet of the father-to-be. 

So I’ll get on my soapbox again - ‘epigenetics’ literally means beyond genetics and it’s exciting research! About 20 years old and exploding, it has turned conventional genetic ‘wisdom’ on its head. It simply means we can no longer hold our DNA entirely responsible for our weight issues or our heart disease or our diabetes or whatever. We might have a genetic tendency to these or other conditions, but there is additional imprinting that can be both negative or positive, and there are triggers that can switch a genetic variation off or on. 

What preconception care endeavours to do is to remove any of those negative triggers and ensure that the positive ones only (and that includes positive mental and emotional effects) are the ones that will ensure the healthiest possible egg and sperm and the healthiest possible environment for the developing embryo and in that, the opportunity for the child (and grandchild and beyond) to enjoy optimal physical and mental health! As some wit said - wait until you've had your children to eat, drink and be merry!