August 28, 2024

207: Chris Hill – Rebellion For Kids

1 hour 23 minutes

Chris Hill

I’m a retired school teacher (Spanish) and Senior Leader from the state secondary sector with over 35 years teaching experience, often by choice in highly deprived areas, but I have also worked in more affluent areas too.

Whilst working in schools I became more and more concerned during the latter years about how I was seeing young people eat – breakfast was often a 2 litre bottle of coke or cans of energy drink and a family size pack of Haribo or a whole packet of chocolate biscuits. This would then result in many students having massive sugar highs which they freely acknowledged. This brought poor attention span, disruptive behaviour, inability to focus on work or listen and often a massive crash in energy leading to sleepiness and lack of a willingness to do anything.

This was then compounded by poor sleep due to staying up late on computer games, social media or TV. Children are experiencing the worst health crisis we have ever come across and for the first time ever are likely to live a shorter lifespan than their parents.

Rates of childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, eating disorders and mental health problems are soaring in our children and yet no one seems to do anything about it. It’s time to put a halt to this and hence The Real Food Rebellion was born- a project that sits within the Public Health Collaboration charity.

This programme is taught within the school curriculum as timetabled lessons in both Primary and Secondary sectors. We give students the knowledge to understand the difference between real food and ultra-processed food, how to read food labels correctly, how to eat and cook well on a budget and how to fight back against the tyranny of the big food companies and a government in their thrall.

The pre-pilots for the first phase of the programme are currently running in a number of schools across the country and we are inviting schools to join us for the main Pilot Programme which will run in Summer 2025.

I myself have struggled with an eating disorder from the age of 11 and now at age 61 am starting to feel the physical consequences of this. It stemmed from trauma, societal expectations and the incessant yoyo dieting treadmill. I wish I had known as a teen what the Real Food Rebellion is teaching children now – it could have meant a life free from food addiction and the ensuing misery it brings. If I can save just one child from a lifetime of unhealthy food and illness then that will mean more to me than all the thousands of children out there who have learnt Spanish from me at school!

Link to Show Notes on Website

https://fabulouslyketo.com/podcast/207.

Chris’ Top Tips

It is important for young people to feel loved and that they are ok as they are. Society and social media is not the be all and end all.

Please eat real food and give your children real food.

Do not ever go on that first diet.

Resources Mentioned

Sugar Blues – William Dufty

The Henry Project

Bite Back

Connect with Chris Hill on social media

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PHCukorg