Sylvia Rose, a former social worker, writes (Letters, 6 December) on the class-based reasons people choose junk food: “In part, it’s historical: manual labourers, post-Industrial Revolution, cramming in as many cheap calories as possible – white bread, sugar, jam. In part, it’s the misery of being poor or marginalised, of needing a little something to cheer you up, to blunt the edge of it all, be it biscuits or cigarettes.”
I wonder if she has met anyone who works for the NHS? My husband is an NHS surgeon. The standard daily fare in his last doctors’ mess was white toast, jam, sugary tea and coffee. When he’s on call – and lucky to get a quick break in the middle of the night – it’s McDonald’s or a kebab. As my mum, an NHS midwife for 30 years, says, the NHS runs on sugary tea, tins of biscuits and boxes of chocolates. These aren’t marginalised, poorly educated people, with no knowledge about health or the consequences of lifestyle, but people (like thousands outside the NHS) doing stressful jobs, where there’s no time to take breaks, who are overworked and looking for a quick burst of calories to get them through their shift.
So while class and education are a factor, they are only two, and it’s pertinent that those at the other end of the socioeconomic scale are also struggling. Perhaps our modern lifestyles, where time to eat and learn to cook are sadly scarce, across all classes, are to blame.
Name and address supplied
• How I agree with Sylvia Rose. Surely the solution lies in inspiring schoolchildren to love cooking? I am forever grateful for the basic cookery lessons that I received in the 1950s. It was these formal full days of “domestic science” every fortnight that inspired me to take for granted that I cook from scratch.
Jen Fitton
Ripon, North Yorkshire
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