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Monday 5 September 2011

Mr Fat: Your children are too fat -so you will never see them again

A story appeared in two papers over the weekend reporting that a married couple in their 50's from Dundee in Scotland have been informed by the local authority that they are likely to lose four of their seven overweight/obese children into 'No Contact' foster care or adoption.

Now anyone reading my blogs will know that I write on any number of things and one of the things that is close to my heart is being FAT.

In 2009 I tipped the scales at 23 1/2 stones [329 lbs]. Being a good Scot I did and do like my mince and tatties and was extremely partial while living in Scotland to a black pudding in batter, now partial to the odd sausage in batter these days. But, my diet was also fairly healthy in that a lot of salad was and is eaten and I never have fat filled fry ups, everything is usually grilled.  I also eat a lot of fish and seafood as well. To check out some of what I eat today you can visit my Twitpic page.

As a kid, growing up in Scotland in the 60's there were no Jamie Oliver's about to tell us what we were eating was unhealthy and there was not the proliferation of 'fast food' establishments that we have today.  A relatively poor household, there was always plenty of bread, proper butter, mince and tatties, stovies, full fat bacon, mutton pies, etc, etc.

The latter was best enjoyed hot with a full buttered roll.  You would break or nibble the raised crust of the pie, get yourself a nice thickly buttered soft morning roll, place the pie inside, squash a little (so that you could at least get it into your gob without suffering lockjaw) and bite into it.  The sheer unadulterated pleasure of this is hard to describe if you haven't tried it as you get this culinary rarity into your gob and your teeth and lips close over it. The melted butter and the fat from the mutton are beginning to dribble down your chin and you can feel it warmly coursing down just like the first offerings of water down a dried up river bed at the beginning of the rainy season.  And, like the creatures of the plains who so rely on that first beginnings of rain and who eagerly lap at it, you, while lazily chewing in rapturous abandonment of that first life giving mouthful of pie and roll, you are also busy catching the drips on your chin with your fingers, licking the greasy mixture of mutton fat and molten butter off of them to add to the ecstasy of the pie, ah, sheer heavenly memories!

So, was I a fat kid, with all that unhealthy eating, not particularly.  I know it is trite these days to say it, but back in the sixties we weren't sat in front of an gaming console, nor did we have computers, and we did not have 24 hour TV with Music videos and cartoons or Movie's that the kids can sit in front of and become desensitized to the real world. We had to go out and play and run about, additionally, back in those days the school curriculum whether it was primary (junior) or secondary (high) school they had PE /gym sessions a couple of times a week.  And lets face it if you had school dinners (which I had but only when free) they were far from the healthy options that every one harps on about today.

So while an unhealthy diet is clearly as bad for you as say smoking, it is not as bad for you if you are also burning off the calories that you take in each day, and therein lies the problem with modern society.

I know it is not the only answer but surely it plays a big part in it.  Everyone agrees that one of the most healthiest, dietary speaking, periods here in the UK was during and after WWII, crazy, I know.  But if you speak to the experts they will all say the same thing.  Here in the UK when rationing was the norm during and after the war people were eating little meat and lots of vegetables.  Butter, sugar and everything else was heavily rationed.  Car ownership for the working class was still a wet dream for most of the car manufacturers and so everyone had to walk or cycle to work as most of the factories were within walking distance of the 'social housing estates' of the day.  So every one ate healthily and exercised, win win all round.

Then came the end of rationing and the introduction of supermarkets with shelves laden with all manner of unhealthy foods.  There was little by way of Food Standards and manufacturers were putting all sorts of unhealthy things and not just too much salt, into packaged food.  Of course standards have changed today but most of what we buy still has too much salt or sodium or this and that and flavour enhancers or colourings or whatever.  I mean for gods sake if it needs a flavour enhancer, WTF are we buying it in the first place?  And if it was so pallid in looks to the eye without the colouring, would our senses not baulk at it in its original state that we wouldn't want to eat it any way?





But all of that has nothing to do with the fact that a local authority has now threatened to remove  four of Seven children from their parents because they are 'lousy' at parenting and feed their kids so much junk food that they are endangering their very lives.  Well that must be the implication what other reason can there be for removing kids from the family home?

Obviously we are only getting parts of the story from a couple of mongrel newspapers and clearly we can not get too much detail because we need to protect the identity of the children involved, but there are a couple of things I personally find disturbing about this sorry affair that irks me to distraction, they are:

  1. That any local authority can remove children from their parents under a 'No Contact' rule for anything other than physical or sexual abuse, or where the parents are so incapable through drugs or alcohol to be unable to even look after their own needs let alone their children, has to be an unjust legal right on the part of the state /authority
  2. If there are seven children under the age of 16, as there appears to be from both newspaper reports, why are all 7 not being considered for removal?
  3. If, as the reports suggest, that the family were put into a council residential home for two years, with no change to the families dietary habits while under close supervision and scrutiny, why are we not reading that Dundee Social Services department are under investigation for what appears to be a complete failure in methodology and implementation of  dietary change within the family unit?
  4. How many other obese families fall within the boundaries of this case within the Dundee Council's catchment area and when are we going to see the court orders for removal of the rest of the FAT children within that catchment area?
You only need to open a web page or a radio or TV discussion programme to find and listen to more well intentioned do-gooders, Politicians, Jamie Oliver's, Medical Professionals and general pundits of this or that eschewing Fast Food outlets and or Unhealthy Foods in general.


We all know that certain foods are bad for us and we all know that a constant diet of fast foods is definitely bad for us, but what exacerbates the problem is the almost total lack of exercise.  Again I do know that this is probably a simplistic view on this subject, but don't we also know that often that it is the simplistic view and or rule that is often the best solution?

I know you can't force people to exercise.  I am a prime example of that.  I gave up exercise in favour of a comfy seat in front of the telly and letting my dog go for walks on its own to never return one day because I was to fat to take it for  a walk, and that is another one of those things that I regret in my life.

We blame the fast food outlets and the food manufacturers for our unhealthy diets, we blame the TV stations and production companies for giving us so much TV 24 hours a day and we blame everyone else but ourselves.

We also need to apportion blame to ALL adults, just like Dundee District council is doing in this case, but also in my view wrongly and we will deal with that in a moment.

Most children of whatever age are incapable in 99% of circumstances of being able to make the correct choices for themselves, sure you get the odd child prodigy who can probably perform heart surgery because his or her genetic main frame of a brain has developed in a way that most of us mere mortals would wish ours had, or who has presented a 75000 word dissertation giving them a Masters Degree at age 10, but generally they are the round biscuit in the box full of square ones, and so again in general children will eat a cheeseburger for breakfast lunch and supper if we serve it up to them and go merrilly on their way.  Now lets face it, most cheeseburgers also have a bit of salad leaf and a slice of tomato, so as far as the child  is concerned they are getting bread, meat veg (salad) and fruit (tomato) all in one go, so what's the problem?

Well three time a day with that would be fine if it wasn't in a cheeseburger and we would all applaud it if that was the case, but it is not.  And mixed into that after eating their 'cheeseburger' three times a day they are back to the TV, computer, games console - that's if they even left it in the first place to eat with the rest of the family - and so their total exercise is a short walk from their room to the kitchen and back again.

Their exercise in school is limited to the walk from class to class, or from class to playground where they are to busy on their smart phones or consoles texting, twittering or face booking, but you can't do that if you are running about, so the answer is not to run about!

I have to say here that I do despise almost all politicians, because it is the politicians who are in charge,  Yes, okay we can not and should not blame them for individual choices that we make as adults, but sometimes our choices are limited to the framework that we are given to live within and most of that is dictated to us by the decisions that generations of self serving arse holes have imposed on us.

It wasn't the decision of parents and schools that took away the playing fields and the physical education curriculum from our schools, it was the politicians.  We also recognise that a lot of what we do and are is instilled in us at an early age and through teaching and repetition.  I suspect if some anthropologist suddenly discovered a tribe of lost Indians somewhere and handed them a pair of socks, would they know what they were for and how and where to put them on the body, probably not, and would they keep them on, probably not, because that is not what they know or have been taught.

So if we are sending our kids into school for 5, 6 or 7 hours hours five days a week where they sit in a class learning academic subjects only, and they are doing that for the most formative years of their lives, without any formal introduction to keeping fit or to their dietary well being, how are they supposed to maintain a fit and healthy life style as they get older and then introduce that to their kids.




It's a bit like the recent riots in the UK.  While we now know that a number of those involved in the rioting and looting were people from decent educational back grounds with decent jobs, the vast majority were from people who have, at the hands of a politically debased educational system that has failed them and their parents and probably their parents and the cycle continues.

Is it any wonder then that we have people today who cannot look after themselves, let alone their offspring, no I do not believe that it is.

The father is quoted as saying
'We have tried very hard to do everything that was asked of us. My wife has cooked healthy foods like home-made spaghetti bolognese and mince and potatoes; but nothing we’ve done has ever been enough'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033486/Your-children-fat-again.html#ixzz1X5d4643a
Spaghetti Bolognese and Mince and potatoes, while nourishing they are not exactly the healthiest food options, but in the fathers mind, they are.  As I said earlier, education.  I am not having a pop at this family, but it beggars belief that as a result of years and years of neglect that we then take what are a seemingly law abiding family and threaten then with most dire of consequences that you could ever be presented to parents - the loss of their children.

This story needs more investigation, was the family 'taken into care for two years, as reported?

Did council  staff stand over them, as reported in the papers for two years, as they ate the mothers prepared meals but not give her any help and or assistance in the form of saying, "Hang on a minute Mrs Dundee [not real name], you gave the family bolognese last night, so it is not very healthy to give them a heaped plate of mince tonight"?

Have any of the family had medical tests to see if there is anything in their genetic make up to show that they cannot process these type of meals and that their burn up metabolic rate is not to blame.  My wife could devour mince and tatties seven days a week and I doubt she would put on any significant weight and other than the housework she does not do any exercise, except for the two minute walk to the bus stop.  So some people are luckier than others in that respect.

Are governments all over the Western world now going to start locking up parents who give their kids mince and tatties more than once a week or more than twice a month.

Are we finally going to see Westernised governments saying, child birth must be licensed and unless you can get a degree based education and then get a proper job and look after yourselves, you can not have children?

I don't like being Mr Fat and I have realised recently that the only way I can change that is to exercise and I am doing that.  My weight loss is slow and unpredictable, but I am a lot lighter than I was in 2009, I have lost over 100 lbs, slow but steady and without dieting.

I believe that there are times when local and national government needs to step in to remove a child from it's parents for the child's own sake, but again I ask if there are 7 children, why are all seven not being removed.  Why are they picking and choosing.  It does not make sense.

If you have read my blogs you will know I have pretty strong feelings on these matters and you will also know how I feel about politicians in general and to the generations of people who sit and sponge of the welfare system that feeds their obese lifestyles and generation after generation HAVE BEEN EDUCATED THROUGH REPETITION TO THAT WAY OF LIFE.  So it hardly seems right under those circumstances that a few families across the country are being targeted by their local authorities in this way

What do you think?


 Parents of fat children told they may be put up for adoption - mirror.co.uk:

Cafcass the law about children


3 comments:

  1. I agree, I hadn't seen the story (don't often read papers) but it sounds diabolical.

    ReplyDelete
  2. maybe they will come and tell my wife they are going to take me away for being too fat, although I hope not, she'd probably agree

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  3. yes but you seem to know you are too fat and you are doing something about it, however slowly, so how did you know? who told you? and who told you what to do about it? and how come you listened?
    I agree that we are not hearing the whole story just the sensational bits. Somehow, along the way we have handed over responsibility and choices for our children to the state,(Social Services in so many cases seem an incompetent joke!) the state can and does legally remove children on a whim, they adjust curricula so there is no PE,tell us we can all go to uni and manual labour is bad. and it continues to get worse

    ReplyDelete

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