Government might send you to slimming classes

Is this new? They've been doing GP referral for years. I've had it due to back problems. I think if they really want people to engage with it though I think fitness needs to be seen as something that is affordable and not for the latte swigging middle classes. I know anyone can get out and walk/jog/cycle, but I think gyms are far too overpriced. Wouldn't mind a no frills gym where it was £1 an entry or something!

I thought it was a convenient excuse to avoid teaching people about proper nutrition & exercise - from what I've heard, slimming clubs don't actually address that particular knowledge gap.

The news i watched focused more on the 3% loss and telling people to aim to just lose 3% long term instead of yo yo dieting

GP referrals for slimming clubs and/or 12 week gym programs has been around for years now although it tends to be aimed at the morbidly obese when many others could benefit from it

I know this is going to make me sound REALLY old and 'back in the day' ish - but when I was at school we were taught the main meal preparation skills ie baking using creaming, rubbing in and whisking methods, and how different cooking methods affected the nutrition of the foods we were preparing - steaming, grilling, poaching, boiling roasting etc. We were also required to produce a balanced family menu for a week and plan the shopping for it. All our menus had to be costed!

Things may have changed since my children were at school but at 13, both of mine (1 boy, 1 girl) were, amongst similar projects required

i) to design, draw and then make a pizza (using a bought pizza base), and then to carry out a survey on the resultant taste

ii) using pre purchased bread product(s) - design an animal, make it and carry out a survey on how it looked and tasted (mine made a snake made out of small bread rolls and a piggy head from a cottage loaf.

These were both fun, design based projects which taught them a bit about planning, execution and evaluation, but taught them not one thing about nutrition and the life skill of proper food preparation.

I can remember the shock my mother had when were were required to bake a Victoria sandwich packet mix but, the following week we had to make one from scratch and then compare the 2 products for taste, appearance and cost to make. I learned a lot from that!

I know this is going to make me sound REALLY old and 'back in the day' ish - but when I was at school we were taught the main meal preparation skills ie baking using creaming, rubbing in and whisking methods, and how different cooking methods affected the nutrition of the foods we were preparing - steaming, grilling, poaching, boiling roasting etc. We were also required to produce a balanced family menu for a week and plan the shopping for it. All our menus had to be costed!

Things may have changed since my children were at school but at 13, both of mine (1 boy, 1 girl) were, amongst similar projects required

i) to design, draw and then make a pizza (using a bought pizza base), and then to carry out a survey on the resultant taste

ii) using pre purchased bread product(s) - design an animal, make it and carry out a survey on how it looked and tasted (mine made a snake made out of small bread rolls and a piggy head from a cottage loaf.

These were both fun, design based projects which taught them a bit about planning, execution and evaluation, but taught them not one thing about nutrition and the life skill of proper food preparation.

I can remember the shock my mother had when were were required to bake a Victoria sandwich packet mix but, the following week we had to make one from scratch and then compare the 2 products for taste, appearance and cost to make. I learned a lot from that!

Lol, I am also of a "certain age" and I agree that the lessons nowadays are very different and less practical than what I had. However, I also remember that pretty much most of what I cooked at school was variations on cakes, pastry and bread, and very little on savoury foods and what you might eat for a balanced meal.

(btw I remember my mum being disgusted that one week we made sausage rolls from frozen puff pastry and frozen sausage meat, demanding to know where the skill was in that since we weren't making the puff pastry ourselves. My sausage rolls never even got made because I had forgotten to defrost the sausage meat before the lesson so I spent all the lesson desperately trying to defrost the meat! :embarassed: I went way off topic there but thanks for the nostalgia motivatedmartha! )

I know this is going to make me sound REALLY old and 'back in the day' ish - but when I was at school we were taught the main meal preparation skills ie baking using creaming, rubbing in and whisking methods, and how different cooking methods affected the nutrition of the foods we were preparing - steaming, grilling, poaching, boiling roasting etc. We were also required to produce a balanced family menu for a week and plan the shopping for it. All our menus had to be costed!

Things may have changed since my children were at school but at 13, both of mine (1 boy, 1 girl) were, amongst similar projects required

i) to design, draw and then make a pizza (using a bought pizza base), and then to carry out a survey on the resultant taste

ii) using pre purchased bread product(s) - design an animal, make it and carry out a survey on how it looked and tasted (mine made a snake made out of small bread rolls and a piggy head from a cottage loaf.

These were both fun, design based projects which taught them a bit about planning, execution and evaluation, but taught them not one thing about nutrition and the life skill of proper food preparation.

I can remember the shock my mother had when were were required to bake a Victoria sandwich packet mix but, the following week we had to make one from scratch and then compare the 2 products for taste, appearance and cost to make. I learned a lot from that!

Completely agree with you. I am on a household budgeting board on FB and the lack of knowledge about food, food prep, recipes etc is shocking. I was lucky in that my parents and my nanas both taught me the basics and then some, but we also had home economics lessons in school which did basic ingredients and recipes. Its a shame its not something which appears to be taught anymore.

My mother lives in Australia and they just announced on the news yesterday that the Government is going to pay 3 months worth of Weight Watchers for overweight people. I think that is ridiculous and I would not be a happy taxpayer! Just send them all to MFP.

If they really wanted it, they would already be on here.

I'm in the USA and find it kind of charming that the UK calls this "slimming class"

Here, they would probably call it something ultra dramatic like "Mandatory Obesity Management Course"

This actually made me LOL, literally. I was thinking the same thing re "slimming class." So quaint and proper.

Not to hijack the thread, but my hub (aged 55) had to take a class in high school called "bachelor living" (while the girls took home economics). In it, he learned how to iron a shirt, make a bed, sew a button, polish shoes, and bake biscuits. (American biscuits, not cookies...kind of like scones but not as good.) I'm only 7 years younger than him but I'm appalled!

Everything I learned about cooking and nutrition I learned on my own or from my mother, never at school.

I'm in the USA and find it kind of charming that the UK calls this "slimming class"

Here, they would probably call it something ultra dramatic like "Mandatory Obesity Management Course"

This actually made me LOL, literally. I was thinking the same thing re "slimming class." So quaint and proper.

Not to hijack the thread, but my hub (aged 55) had to take a class in high school called "bachelor living" (while the girls took home economics). In it, he learned how to iron a shirt, make a bed, sew a button, polish shoes, and bake biscuits. (American biscuits, not cookies...kind of like scones but not as good.) I'm only 7 years younger than him but I'm appalled!

Everything I learned about cooking and nutrition I learned on my own or from my mother, never at school.

I know 55 isn't that old, really, but to me that sounds almost cool for back then...better than the school just assuming that every man would find a wife immediately following high school who would take care of him from then on ;-) LOL

I learned lots about nutrition at school (even in college) and paid absolutely zero attention to all of it. I've learned more from my husband and this website in the past year and a half, because I'm actually interested.

Similar situation with cooking! My mom taught me to bake very young but she wasn't a great cook and didn't teach me much about that. Other female relatives tried, but I wasn't interested. I finally learned through trial & error and following recipes when I was in my mid to late 20's and have since learned more from my husband who has always been into cooking.

Home ec though was a big joke in my school in the early to mid 90's. It was basically a class where we memorized terms like crepe, moussaka, fillet, and types of knives for quizzes and then made instant mashed potatoes, fish sticks, salad, and Kool-Aid or iced tea (not kidding).

Completely agree with you. I am on a household budgeting board on FB and the lack of knowledge about food, food prep, recipes etc is shocking. I was lucky in that my parents and my nanas both taught me the basics and then some, but we also had home economics lessons in school which did basic ingredients and recipes. Its a shame its not something which appears to be taught anymore.

I dont' think its a lack of knowledge I believe its an attitude of " I don't care"
If people really cared about weight loss or was concerned, then all they would have to do, is find the time to walk 30min.
or instead of parking next to the store they could park at the furthest parking spot and substitute 1 meal for a plain salad ( no dressing) . But they don't.. because they don't care.

My mum was given vouchers for free Slimming World classes. I think they gave her 8 or 12 weeks, and if she lost a certain amount of weight, they gave her another 8 weeks. She continued with the classes after that and lost about 4 stone.

Since then she's stopped (work commitments, having to move to another class with an instructor she didn't like, excuses and so on) and she's put all of the weight back on.

I went to see the doctor and asked if they could give me any similar support and they said no (I live in Leeds).

This kind of reinforces that it may not be the best use of tax payers money??? 'Diets' - don't work - need to change the whole attitude to healthy eating and our relationship with food (IMHO I add hastily

If people really cared about weight loss or was concerned, then all they would have to do, is find the time to walk 30min.
or instead of parking next to the store they could park at the furthest parking spot and substitute 1 meal for a plain salad ( no dressing) . But they don't.. because they don't care.

Nothing wrong with walking a bit extra for possibly a slightly healthier lifestyle - but as far as weight loss goes it's almost insignificant and certainly not "all you have to do"

30 minutes of walking for me would burn 50 calories more than if I took the car! All the would do is slightly slow the weight gain down.

^ I agree. I set off walking MILES every night when I was at my heaviest and I did lose weight but it took literally years of that habit.

As for plain salads, no. Never going to happen.