From Assistant Principal Pastoral Care

An apple a day   

A colleague (thanks Mrs Baker) recently pointed me at an article which appeared in The Australian in late May by Sarah Berry, ‘Why do ultra-processed foods make us so sad?” 

Like many of the ongoing issues with parenting and the pastoral care of children in schools (and, yes, education has been trying to address it for years) there is the question of diet. I don’t smirk at Primary fruit break any more. 

Among the claims:  

• “the Journal of Affective Disorders, found that a diet high in ultra-processed foods (UPFs) can increase the risk of depression by as much as 23 per cent.”
   
• the likelihood of developing depression jumps when ultra-processed foods make up around 30 per cent of the total diet.  

• About one in five Australians over the age of 16 experiences a mental illness in any one year, with depression being one of the most common. By some estimates, ultra-processed foods account for nearly 40 per cent (38.8 per cent) of the average Australian adult’s diet. 

• We can spot UPFs because they are typically packaged in plastic and have one or more ingredients that we don’t tend to have at home including alphanumeric additives like emulsifiers, humectins, stabilisers, colourants and flavours. They barely resemble food at all and are instead, as the author of a new book on UPFs put it, “addictive edible substances”. 
    
• “UPFs include many products that might be considered by consumers as ‘neutral’ or even ‘healthy’ like flavoured yoghurts, diet soft drinks, protein bars, packaged preparations such as scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes and many ready-to-h/eat convenience foods.”  

So that’s all pretty self evident. Reduce screen time, eat well, sleep well, get some exercise… you’ve heard it all before, but as we know it is not easy in whole, or in part, to keep it all up amidst teenage angst and changing family dynamics. As with many things during the teenage years, we as parents just need to maintain the consistent line as best we can, perhaps bring the grocery list into family focus. Give the kids responsibility for making the decisions (within strict parameters of course). Provide the nutritionally sound options and then ignore the loud complaints. Even let them go hungry when they refuse to eat well. They won't starve! 

Hang in there.  As the owner of a number of skin cancers (about a hundred stitches worth at last count, and they are the gift that keeps on giving) I am forever into kids about wearing hats…I know it’s not politically correct, but a bit of muscle now will save much grief down the track. 

I’ll tell you another story.  

I know an old bloke who had what the doctor’s called diverticulitis which runs something along the lines of the bowel perforating, followed by other unpleasant things like peritonitis and sepsis. Said old bloke doesn’t recommend it for a jolly good time. 

The doctors suggested that the likely cause was many years of poor diet lacking in fibre. 

Stuff can catch up with you, but more immediately the link between diet and adolescent mental health demands consideration.