Health Notes, May 4th 2008, by Sarah Stacey

Ryan Giggs talks about breakfast!

Compared with the privations of their lives in previous generations, you might think that children in the affluent West have never had it so good.  But, according to a health report from The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Inquiry, there’s mounting concern about an increase in mental and physical health issues among youngsters.  In a survey of over 1100 UK residents, a significant number said that children are a ‘lot less happy’ today compared to their own childhoods.  Participants cited poor diet, lack of exercise and drugs as having the most negative impact on health, with family breakdown and conflict, also peer pressure, exerting the most damaging impact on wellbeing. 

An overwhelming majority (88 per cent) agreed that children need more education about healthy diets and that computer games and watching TV deterred children from being more active, plus lack of local exercise facilities and parents not playing with their children.  Nearly all agreed that there’s a link between physical health and mental wellbeing. 

To help give children a better start in life, the charity has teamed up with Manchester United football club to develop a simple health guide for families, called ‘Shaping Up With The Children’s Society and Manchester United’.  There are four sections, with simple, easy-to-follow advice on fitness, nutrition, motivation and family relationships.  The emphasis throughout is on the whole family participating, a subject that’s ‘close to the heart’ of Man U’s legender winger Ryan Giggs, he says when he phones me one morning on the way to training.

‘I’ve always been a great believer in the family.  My father [Danny Wilson] was a rugby player and loved basketball.  I looked up to him and loved sport from an early age.  I trained with him on the odd occasion, mainly running and kicking the ball to each other.   Now I have two young children myself, Liberty and Zach [with his wife Stacey Cooke] and it’s really important as parents to encourage children to be healthy.  Kids don’t concentrate for long so we try to exercise in a fun way and keep it short and sweet.  We go to the local park with Echo, our German shepherd dog, or swimming together as a family.’ Although Ryan, 34, confesses he couldn’t swim until he was a lot older, ‘it’s something I would have liked to be able to do and everyone can start at an early age. Libby [four] can swim already, and Zach [one] loves the water.’ 

Foodwise, ‘breakfast is obviously important especially for kids’ Ryan says.  His own diet centres round eating ‘plenty of veg and fruit with protein from chicken and fish plus potatoes, bread, pasta and cereals for the carbohydrates you need before a game’ – which, in fact, follow the guidelines for everyone.

Being physically active is acknowledged by scientists as a very effective mood-enhancer, something Ryan thinks everyone should take notice of.  ‘Exercise makes you feel good.  If you’ve sat on the settee all afternoon, or stayed in bed watching Hollyoaks, you won’t feel as good as if you’ve done a run or gone swimming. You need to get into that mindset: when I sat around all day I felt bad all day – so why would I want to do that again?’

‘Shaping Up’ with tips, comments and anecdotes from the Man U team plus expert advice on key health and wellbeing topics is free to download from www.childrenssociety.org.uk/manutd.

Essential remedies for pain

Please keep arnica essential oil patches in your medicine cupboard.  I slipped  and bashed my shin on concrete recently, slapped on a couple of patches, bandaged it and abracadabra! no soreness.  My foot was painful because I twisted my ankle under as I went down so I sprayed on Stopain, another household must. Essential Oil Patches (arnica) by Naturopatch of Vermont, £9.95 for ten; Stopain Spray by LifeTime Vitamins, £9.95, from Victoria Health, www.victoriahealth.com.

Sleep well pillow

An insomniac friend finds it much easier to drop off with a seed-filled eye pillow, which provides a gently  comforting weight to literally make your eyelids feel heavy, as well as blocking out light.  A plain cotton and linseed-filled eye pillow (YogaMatters, £4.99, in black, blue or purple) works well, but for a touch of luxury, my friend recommends the Holistic Silk eye pillow filled with soothing lavender and organic seed (£32.50 each, in jade, lilac or rose), ‘it smell delicious and the silk feels wonderfully cool on my forehead’.  From Victoria Health, www.victoriahealth.com.

Book of the week: Green Babycare by Susannah Marriott

Every new parent should have a copy of this important (and sustainably produced) book, whose mission statement is to do what’s right for children and protect the future of the planet.  There’s lots of information for everyone.

To order a copy for £8.44 (usual price £12.99) from Amazon, click here