Healthy Snacking Choices: Are Children the Future?

 

Find out how and why you should get on board with fighting obesity issues. By getting the kids involved at your family attraction, you could be saving their futures.

Obesity is ever-rising, having doubled in over two decades in the UK alone. To compound this, the shocking realisation that obesity is now one of the top causes for cancer has really added the final blow.

In order to combat these issues, it’s important that big businesses get on board, setting an example and spurring the force. By providing your visitors with healthy snacks and options to-go, you could make all the difference to your customers’ experience. Get your FREE tickets to the Family Attraction Expo to discover the best ways you can do your bit. For now, discover how the family attraction industry can get involved, here...

Tomatoes, mushrooms, chillies, garlic, and peppers in a pan

Obesity: The Facts and Figures


Obesity can increase your chances of accumulating a number of health problems, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease. These issues can then become fatal, putting you at risk of both stroke and heart attack!

But, there’s more. Through extensive research, involving decades of statistics and millions of subjects, Cancer Research UK have the low-down on what we can expect from this rising epidemic. Namely that obesity is the second cause-factor, after smoking, for cancer, provoking around 1 in 20 cases of the disease (read more, here).

How does it work, though? Well, fat cells are extremely active within our bodies, controlling when and where activity occurs in our cells. This means that the more fat residing in your body, the more signals your cells will receive, causing them to split. When your cells split, cancer cells are likely to form, bridging the gap between cells, and allowing them to grow and cause harm.

Although this may sound pretty scary, these issues are avoidable. But where and when can we start to make these changes?

Reducing Sugary Foods Is The Answer


With recent studies emphasising these links between obesity and cancer, learning to curb our cravings has never been so important. There are a number of ways we can do this, and it’s so simple for the family attraction industry to take the necessary steps to help the public make the choices they need to do so.

Although saturated fats and salty goods are often deemed the main culprits for an increase in body weight, it is sugary foods that can really creep up on us. In fact, a study has shown that, when a group of obese children were fed less sugar than they normally consumed, exchanging these calories for carbohydrates, they started to fill fuller for longer. Not only that, but their health improved drastically, including a boost in liver health, and a cut in triglycerides, insulin, and blood pressure.

A long shelf, with multiple sweet jars along it

That said, the convenience of sugary foods, packaged up and ready-to-go, make them too easily accessible, especially on a day out with the kids when access is all that matters. Even baby foods, pureed and packaged, can be packed with sugar.

With that in mind, we’re here to let you in on the possibilities of providing healthy, portable snack options for your visitors. At our Family Attraction Expo, you’ll get to know some of the leading food and drink experts who pave the way for sugar-free goods. Polar Krush, for example, provide delicious slushy drinks for kids, and adults too, sweetened using stevia, rather than the usual sugary alternatives.

What's more, with tickets to the Family Attraction Expo, you'll also have full access to our Leisure Food and Beverage Expo, filled with fantastic companies, some who put healthy snacks first. Fruitypot, for example, focuses their attention on fruity snacks to take on-the-go, making healthy eating a breeze.

That said, what may surprise you is that sugar, even from fruit and fruity snacks, can cause obesity and tooth decay, as well as decreased metabolism in children. That’s why it’s always important to check the sugar content in products, even if they may seem healthy to begin with.

This is where companies, like Hullabaloo, come in handy. Their new initiative of producing chocolate bars with 75 percent less sugar than the average bar of choccy is a great step to spur the healthy-eating movement. We all want to treat ourselves now and again, especially during a family outing, and what better way to get your sugar-fix than from something a little less sugary!

Two heart-shaped bowls of colourful fruit


Getting Our Children Involved: The First Step


The answer to implementing health eating at family attraction resorts, and throughout our society, seems so simple. The question is, how can we ingrain these ideas into a society that’s already set in their ways? Our children, of course! Studies show that, unlike adults, the risk of cancer in children doesn’t link to bodyweight. That said, this doesn’t mean that we can’t start with our kids.

Introducing our children to healthy foods from a young age can be a challenge, however, our current generation are growing up wise to the global spikes in obesity and cancer rates. They will, and have, put forth actions to do what they can to help our world and we, at the Family Attraction Expo, have every faith that our youngest generation are the change we wish to see.

To help them out, there are actions we adults can take to spur our children forth. By introducing them to a variety of tastes and flavours, through green vegetables and the like, we can help them become well-rounded human beings.

Not only can we do this at home, but out and about too, with the help of the ever-changing snacking industry. In doing so, we can hand our kids the baton to take healthy eating into later life, and improve their health prospects.

Do you think you have a new and innovative addition to the family attraction industry to help combat the obesity epidemic? If so, don’t be shy to get in touch to set up an exhibitor stand at our Family Attraction Expo, on 6th-7th November 2019, at the NEC Birmingham. Just contact our Event Director, Oliver Hayes, at oliver.hayes@prysmgroup.co.uk, or call +44 (0)117 929 6087, for more information.
Otherwise, if you just want to come along and get to know a bit more about the industry, we also have FREE tickets available, so grab yours now. We’ll see you there!

Share This Post On Social Media: