Purehealth News: Breakfast, Lunch, Lead and Childhood Obesity
This week, I’ve got a breakfast and lunch recipe for you, we discuss the shocking childhood obesity forecasts in The Lancet and a note about lead levels in children too, which I thought more people should see, especially given the advice to just wait for symptoms to appear! Hope you find something truly useful x
Quinoa/Chickpea Rice/Lentil Lunch Recipe
I’m always looking for simple lunches I can make that will last a few days in the fridge or come with me to sit on a bench by the sea (or on hospital visits – less said about that the better!). So, I liked this from Marilyn Glenville’s newsletter the other day. Simple, but tasty.
Take some cooked quinoa (either make it yourself or you can get pre-prepared pouches), a cup of lentils (again these can be pre-prepared), add chopped olives, fresh flat-leaf parsley or basil (or both), chopped avocado, 2 thinly sliced spring onions, capers and diced cherry tomatoes.
Season with the juice of one lemon, a generous drizzle of good quality oil, salt and pepper and enjoy.
Other delicious additions to this include a little feta or a chopped hard-boiled egg. This salad stores and travels well so, you can have it for a packed lunch.
Personally, I can’t have quinoa or use pouches, so I’d use cooked chickpea rice with some lentils and make a big batch of the salad. Amazingly, my parsley seems to have lasted the whole Winter on the terrace so I’ve plenty of that!
If you prefer a warm, more substantial type of dish, I really liked the look of this recipe here, too. You could have this hot or cold for a few days and could use white beans/chickpeas etc, depending on what you have in.
Cinnamon for Cholesterol and Blood Sugar
Following my hibiscus tea post last week, which I showed was fab for both cholesterol and blood sugar, I thought I’d share a quick reminder about how cinnamon can help those too. I liked this quick breakfast video as I have this same sort of thing for breakfast and snacks, actually.
Just use whichever yoghurt you can have – I would use Cocos coconut yoghurt myself as it has tapioca starch in it rather than corn and no added flavourings or citric acid that could be corny, but you could choose dairy, soya, goats, almond etc – just check the ingredients. Soya would be a good choice for hormone balancing and is very high protein.
Oh, and I’d also use much better, single source, raw local honey preferably, not crap plasticy-bottled mixed stuff ;). If using the breakfast to help balance blood sugar, maybe use a smaller amount of honey, a little black strap molasses or stevia/monkfruit alternatives.
Is Lead Affecting Your Child’s – Or Your! – IQ/Cognition?
I saw this earlier this week and posted a note about it on Substack.
1,000s of children could be suffering from undiagnosed lead poisoning, causing them to have lower IQ & learning difficulties. Researchers claim lifelong impacts of exposure to lead is a hidden problem in UK. Latest data showed lead poisoning in children is on the rise. Experts believe this is just a fraction of the numbers affected. Prof. Jane Entwistle of Northumbria Uni, & head of UKs leading research team on lead poisoning said: “People mistakenly think this is an issue of the past, it is not.
The best estimate is that around 200,000 children in UK have elevated lead levels in their blood.” Experts say children are still being exposed to lead through lead paint & lead water pipes.” Although lead paint was banned in 1992 & lead pipes in 1970, UK has one of the oldest housing stocks in Europe & many homes still have poisonous fittings. Govt guidance states that lead paint often contains up to 50% lead & is toxic.”
Mail on Sunday 23.2.25 “ALERT OVER RISING NUMBER OF CHILDREN WITH LEAD POISONING”
I note that the article says GPs just have to wait to spot symptoms. I think the Quicksilver Metals test or a hair test might be a better option! See the Metals Test info here.
I truly hope you find my Purehealth newsletters useful. If you like what I’m doing, please subscribe here, like and share on your socials; it really helps others get life-changing info they may need x
Shocking Childhood Obesity Rates
Did you see the media reports on this recently? It is truly shocking. A study published in The Lancet found that a third of children and teenagers are predicted to be overweight or obese by 2050.
Why does this matter? As the report explains, the impact on health (and health costs) alone could be staggering:
Excess body mass is now well established as a leading modifiable risk factor for death and disability-adjusted life-years globally.1,2 Although overweight in early life is often framed as a risk for future health, obesity is increasingly considered a complex chronic disease3 that has immediate impacts on child and adolescent physical and mental health and causes serious disease and dysfunction before adulthood (eg, metabolic-associated fatty liver disease, hypertension, diabetes, and ovulatory or endometrial dysfunction).4–11
Beyond the substantial disease-related impacts, obesity also has crippling societal impacts, with the total economic impact of overweight and obesity estimated to exceed 3% of the world’s gross domestic product by 2060.12 Once obesity is established, it is difficult for children and adolescents to return to normal weight.13–17 Indeed, obesity rarely resolves after adolescence,14,16,17 and further risks develop in adulthood, including infertility, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and diseases of the liver and kidneys.1,5,18–22
We really need to get a handle on it.
I liked the fact that the report calls for a difference between being overweight and being obese, actually; you don’t see that very often, it all gets lumped in together. Being overweight is one thing and more easily reversed, being obese has much more impact on health throughout life and is so much harder to turn around.
The problem seems to be global with very few regions escaping the rise. The worst regions, by far, seemed to be North Africa and the Middle East, plus Latin America and the Caribbean. Europe fares much better but numbers are still rising exponentially.
…there is no indication of any plateau in the increase of obesity prevalence, which is not expected to stabilise in any region before 2050. If these global forecasts are realised, the impacts will not only be overwhelming for individuals, but the resulting burden will be devastating across health, social, planetary, and economic systems.12,73
So what can be done about it?
To be honest, it immediately made me want to create a course or go out and teach right from the ‘trying to conceive’ stage with Mums and Dads as I really believe we can do a lot to prevent it if we ‘grow’ metabolically-healthier babies and children, and know how to look after our own metabolic health more, if you see what I mean? That’s not to say parents aren’t doing a good job – they truly are in the vast majority of cases as we all want the best for our children. But the odds are massively stacked against us, aren’t they?
Food advertising, crap food sugar, salt and additive levels, cost of healthier food, let alone poverty levels affecting food choices, time-poor lives needing quick convenience foods, lack of cooking ability, often not being taught how to at school anymore, school meals not brilliantly healthy, a much more toxic chemical environment and a propensity to sit on our backsides playing on our phones!
We’ve sort of lost the plot somewhere.
I noted that the report writers called for government action as it is difficult to address weight whilst living in a so-called ‘obesogenic environment’ ie. all of the above. We can all do our bit but to have real impact societal change is needed.
While families and individuals can work to balance their physical activity, dietary intake, and sleep to uphold a healthy lifestyle, this lifestyle is difficult to maintain while living in obesogenic environments. ….Instead, it is governments rather than individuals that are required to address population-level drivers of obesity, such as its commercial determinants (eg, marketing, pricing, and food industry lobbying).
They conclude:
Both overweight and obesity increased substantially in every world region between 1990 and 2021, suggesting that current approaches to curbing increases in overweight and obesity have failed a generation of children and adolescents…. Increases in obesity are expected to continue for all populations in all world regions. Because substantial change is forecasted to occur between 2022 and 2030, immediate actions are needed to address this public health crisis.
They do leave us with a bit of hope, though:
it is not too late to stop most of the world’s children and adolescents transitioning from overweight to obesity predominance….Interruption of this transition is urgently needed.
Blimey, I’ll say. What should we be doing? Answers on a postcard…
That’s it for this issue, folks!
I truly hope you find my Purehealth newsletters useful. If you like what I’m doing, please subscribe here, like and share on your socials; it really helps others get life-changing info they may need x
If buying supplements mentioned in this article through Natural Dispensary, please use Micki Rose during registration when prompted. If using Amrita, use this code to register for access to advanced products, no need to do it again then: 4Y2AE7. Lab tests are here.
