AS someone who works in the field of diet and fitness, I am unsure whether or not your columnist Helen Mead had her tongue jammed firmly in her cheek when writing her article (LET, March 21) "Why my children like tucking into junk food."

I am concerned to think that she feeds her offspring junk food because, as she states, "they are so easy."

I am at a loss to understand why someone would knowingly feed their children on reconstituted rubbish for the sole reason that it makes life "less troublesome."

Over the past ten years there has been a huge change in the nation's diet.

Part of the problem revolves around this modern belief that children must be given what they want to eat. In the past, they ate what they were given.

Children and teenagers need to be told what to eat, quite simply because they are children and teenagers.

By now we should all be aware that junk food diets, together with sedentary lifestyles, are storing up serious health issues for our children's future.

I do understand that having hungry, cantankerous children marauding around the house before mealtimes is stressful, particularly so for the poor working mums and dads.

However, there are thousands of quick and easy healthy eating options available and it is not difficult to find them.

It takes just a little extra thought and planning to prepare a nutritious meal.

If Jamie Oliver is able to do it for 37p, then surely so should we.

KATH MORRIS, Rosemary Conley Diet & Fitness Clubs, Brothers Street, Blackburn.