How We Are Eating Ourselves Ill

By Cole Moreton

Doctors estimate that more than three million people in the UK are malnourished. Most do not realise it, although diagnosis rates in hospitals have soared by 44% over the past five years. The most extreme cases echo symptoms found among famine victims in the developing world. Wasted limbs and pot bellies are being seen in hospitals here, where 40% cent of patients are thought to be malnourished. Marasmus, the protein deficiency most often seen in Africa, has been found among anorexic women here.

But the majority of cases are people who lack the vitamins and nutrients vital for the body to function properly. Malnourishment has recently been recognised as a major problem for the sick, elderly and frail, but new statistics gathered for the Department of Health show it affects pregnant women and newborn babies, schoolchildren and adults who believe themselves to be healthy.

One woman who vomited frequently during pregnancy developed a vitamin deficiency that went undiagnosed. She suffered brain damage. The calcium shortage found in 8% of young people can lead to crumbling or brittle bones.

“If you are young and well, you can still end up malnourished,” said Dr Alistair McKinlay, consultant gastroenterologist at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and one of the country’s leading authorities on the condition.

“In 75% of people, the problem is not identified.”

Malnutrition costs the NHS pound(s)7.3bn a year, according to the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, the experts in the field. That figure is more than double the estimated cost of obesity.

Alcohol and drugs can disturb the balance of our bodies – but the main cause, doctors believe, is a poor diet.

So how can this be? When there is so much food about, from low- fat diet meals to high-fat takeaways, how can so many people be short of the nutrients essential for a healthy life? What has gone wrong between the British and our food?

Gordon Ramsay, one of the best chefs in the world, blames habits learned in the home. “If we are going to be a healthy nation then you’ve got to discipline the parents,” he said. “The only way to implement severe standards now is if their kids become obesely overweight and out of control. Then I would seriously fine (the parents) and threaten them with a court appearance, because they often don’t realise what they’re doing.”

Obsessive

Children need to be given a strong lead. Ramsay said: “Children eat with their eyes.

They’re lazy. If you don’t tell them about what they’re eating, trust me, they will eat as much cr*p as they can when they get home. They get connected to junk food in a way that becomes obsessive.”

The Michelin-star winning father of four gave his children tripe the other week, in a stew with red peppers, tomato and garlic. He didn’t tell them what it was. “It was absolutely delicious. They said, ‘What was that?’ I showed them a picture of a cow, and took out the stomach bag, and their faces dropped. But they asked for it again.”

Ramsay was full of praise for the efforts of Jamie Oliver to improve school dinners. “He helped to make every parent feel guilty, for the first time, about what their children were eating at school. He woke everyone up.”

Oliver said: “I think many parents are unaware of how much junk their kids are eating and drinking. As well as the frightening rise in obesity there’s a growing number of kids, of whatever shape and size, that simply aren’t getting fed enough nutrients like iron, calcium and vitamins. It’s having a huge effect on their brainpower, behaviour and ability to concentrate and learn at school.”

Adults may not realise they have serious problems. The national diet and nutrition surveys carried out by the Department of Health show two-thirds of women are short of vitamin B2, riboflavin, which can cause a range of illnesses (so are nearly a quarter of pre- school infants). Young men and women alike have high levels of the amino acid homocysteine, which indicates their vitamin levels are disturbed. Doctors believe our drinking culture must take part of the blame.

Epidemic

People are eating less home-cooked food and more junk, said Dr Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum formed to tackle the epidemic. Fast food can not only make you fat, it can also leave you malnourished. “I would definitely question the vitamin and mineral trace of some fast food outlets,” he said.

Hospital food also came under severe attack last year when the Government admitted that many elderly people were not getting enough vitamins, nutrients and fatty acids.

The trouble is that most doctors were trained during a time when malnutrition appeared to have died out, said Dr Waine. “The best diet we had was during the First World War when we had a good rationing system – people had the right nutrients in the right amounts.”

Bianca Incocciati’s GP did not realise her patient’s skin problems were a result of micronutrient malnutrition. “You think it happens to starving children in the third world,” said Ms Incocciati. “You don’t expect it to happen to you. It’s scary.”

The doctor she went to for a second opinion asked what she had been eating. Ms Incocciati was studying English at Warwick University and waitressing at a French restaurant in the evenings, scoffing late at night and unable to face breakfast. After closing, the restaurant’s chefs sometimes whipped up a rich dinner, heavy on cheese and creamy sauces, for the staff. At other times she would snack at home on pasta or toast. She was also a self-confessed crisp addict.

“I felt I had no energy at all,” she said. “I was always tired and constantly had a cold. I had spots all the time too.” Ms Incocciati was shocked to be told she had very low levels of vitamin A, vitamin B12 and iron. “Eating late, you’re not digesting food properly.

Getting up late, having a coffee, you’re running on empty.”

After two weeks of increasing her fruit and vegetable intake and eating more regularly Ms Incocciati had more energy and felt more ‘with it’. After four months she had lost weight. Eighteen months since she was diagnosed, she is a reformed character. “Where I’d been going wrong was that I wasn’t cooking food at home, wasn’t making sure I was having vegetables and fruit.”

Her parents had given her an example Gordon Ramsay would approve of. “They were always really good about having dinner together and having cooked meals.” But despite their best efforts she grew into bad habits. “Once you leave home, it’s easy to buy rubbish,” she said.

Ms Incocciati was not alone. Despite all the campaigns to educate people about healthy eating, as reports today show, for three million malnourished people the message still hasn’t got through.

(c) 2007 Belfast Telegraph. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.