Childhood obesity
When I was about 7 years old I was a skinny little thing.
I played out with friends, hung upside down on the schools climbing frame for what seemed like hours to me and twizzied round in circles till I was nearly sick and/ or fell over.
When I was 9 or thereabouts, I was called fatty Arbuckle in the playground. I wore cats eye type glasses, had a brace on really crooked teeth and wore a hideous fine pleated navy skirt which sat on an unnatural waistline just below my chest and above a plump stomach which spread the pleats out.
What happened? I don’t remember. We always had snacks at home. Mum always baked. Pies and fairy cakes were always present at home time. Convenience foods, frozen and dried were just appearing in our shops. And Mum, who’d always cooked homely meals took to them readily for us kids. She still cooked meat and two veg for Dad. Maybe it was just for speed. Angel Delight and Birds frozen mouses for pud were staples. We always got sixpence in the morning for sweets on the way to school too.
The thing is, at that time I had no clue what this would do to me. Mum wasn’t a stupid woman. I fact she was quite clever but she came from an impoverished background where skinny equalled poor and ill. She herself had suffered wire worms so badly that she was emaciated and malnourished. She had T. B. in later life when her weight dropped to dangerous levels. So, she’s feed us with sugary, fatty things at any hint of illness making fudge with butter, sugar and cream to build us up. Egg nog ( minus alcohol) with sugar and full cream milk when we didn’t want to eat.
Information about obesity is all over the place now and times for most people are very different. Sugar is the devils own food. Fun type of exercise in playgrounds and at home when you don’t even realise it is exercise like playing tag and footy with a can has been banned in most places. Such a shame. Risk and skinning your knees is a necessary learning curve but that’s another topic entirely and I haven’t got time for that right now.