Mumbai children top junk food eating charts

At 50 kilos, Abhay Gunjal, 8, outweighs his classmates, who call him Motu. He hates dal-chawal, roti-subzi — anything that is home-cooked or healthy. “He wants burgers and noodles for every meal. And he loves street food like bhelpuri and ragda-pattice,” says his mother Meera Gunjal, a housewife.

She enrolled him in a gym recently and found several overweight children of his age there.
Fact: bingeing on junk and unhealthy food is pushing children in Mumbai towards obesity. Snacking habits of school-going kids in the city are the worst among children in five  metros in the country, a survey has found.

The survey conducted by AC Nielsen in collaboration with top nutritionists found a majority of children in Mumbai are munching unhealthy snacks, particularly between 5pm and 8pm.

Nutritionists also studied eating habits of people, especially children, in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. They questioned 1,002 working women and housewives, who have children in the age group of 4-14 years,   about what their kids eat between 5pm and 8pm every day.

The results pointed to an unhealthy trend. According to the survey conducted in June-July, 75% of children surveyed in the five metros consume unhealthy snacks, especially before dinner. Mumbai leads this trend with 95% of the children in the city bingeing on pre-dinner snacks compared to 93% in Delhi, said Sagarika Luthra, senior client solutions executive, The Nielsen Company.

According to the survey, the frequency of eating unhealthy snacks like biscuits, chips, namkeen, samosa and vada is highest among the kids in Mumbai compared to those in other cities.

Because of snacking, more than 50% of the children have their dinner late, between 9.30pm and 11.30pm, the survey found.

It was also found that children in the city either prefer or have easy access to burgers, pizzas, french fries, samosas, vada-pav, bhel-puri and noodles. Healthier options such as vegetable salads, sprouts, poha, upma, idli and fruit juices were not on their menu.
Another trend that came to the fore is that junk food consumption is on the rise because people have little time or energy to cook at home.

The problem is compounded by the burgeoning fast food outlets serving a wide range of tasty but unhealthy snacks, the survey says.

Nutritionists say the 5-8pm timeframe is crucial in monitoring and managing a healthy lifestyle. For, this is the period that triggers extreme hunger pangs, forcing people to snack on whatever is available.

“Children as young as three and four years have started showing symptoms of obesity,” says Dr Meena Mehta, a nutritionist at Dr BMN College, SNDT, Matunga.

“Kids need to bridge the gap between lunch and dinner with healthy food. Unfortunately, more than half of school-going kids are not under adult supervision between school and dinner,” she said.

The survey confirms the trend. A large number of parents surveyed expressed helplessness or “lack of knowledge” in managing what their children eat before dinner. The survey found that the problem of pre-dinner snacking is peculiar to children of working couples who have little time to prepare healthy food.

Pooja Makhija, nutritionist and dietician, Clay Wellness, says parents must pay more attention to the overall diet of the child. “Emphasis should be on a nourishing pre-breakfast, substantial breakfast and a wholesome lunch,” Makhija said.

Parents should try to eat healthy and promote healthy eating habits in their children, she said. Parents, however, blame urban lifestyle and the western influence. “With both of us working late nights, our seven-year-old son spends his evenings in a creche or at the neighbour’s house. We have little control over what he is fed there,” says Smita Devaraj, a chartered accountant.