Children are at risk of being subject to “overwhelmingly” high levels of fat, salt and sugar when they consume a meal at leisure parks or other days out, according to a new report.

The food available at leisure centres, theme parks, wildlife parks and heritage sites all contained high levels of fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar and protein said the Local Government Association.

“Britain will continue its slide towards the unwanted title of fat capital of the world”

Environmental health and trading standards officers across the UK tested 397 different meals 7-10 year olds at 220 sites for a day out.
None of the meals adhered with the School Food Trust recommendations for healthier food designed to tackle Britain’s growing child obesity problem.

The unhealthiest meals had four times more fat than the accepted limit. One meal contained 45.6 grams of saturated fat, seven times more than the SFT’s limit of 6.5 grams.

No individual leisure attractions were named and shamed, though the report did say children’s meals at theme parks contained on average more fat, saturated fat, protein and salt than those sold at wildlife parks, museums, leisure centres, heritage sites and outdoor farm parks.

Attractions in the East Midlands sold the unhealthiest food of the six regions tested.

Geoffrey Theobald, chairman of the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services, said: “Britain is in very real danger of producing a generation of people whose quality of life will suffer and life expectancy will drop because of their weight.

“There are no easy answers but unless action is taken by producers, marketing and advertising companies and the outlets that sell this food, Britain will continue its slide towards the unwanted title of fat capital of the world.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 1:25 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.