Why we’re blind to children’s obesity
ON ONE and the same day we are presented with two seemingly conflicting stories, both concerning children’s weight. The first is that the parents of obese children fail to realise that their offspring are dangerously fat. Remarkable figures reveal that 31 per cent of parents did not appear to have noticed that their children were not just a tad chubby but life- threateningly fat.
Four hundred children surveyed were clinically obese. Only four parents appreciated that their kids fell into that category. Simultaneously we are informed that one fifth of girls under the age of 11 have already been on a diet.
As young girls progress through school their body image deteriorates dramatically making them prone to vomiting or purging and crash dieting.
What are we supposed to believe? How can we be immune to fat, unable to see our own children’s voluminous waist measurements, oblivious of their vast thighs rubbing together, incapable of waking up to their inability to enjoy sport or resist pudding and at the same time so over- sensitive to weight that we turn a blind eye as our normalsized children try to shed imaginary pounds by starving themselves?
As a former famous fat person I think the explanation for our confusion lies in the numerous mixed and bewildering signals constantly punted in our direction. We are all suckers for chubby babies. We adore their pneumatic knees and wrists.
What’s more, there’s nothing more terrifying to a new parent than a baby that will not feed. We devour books telling us how to persuade baby to breastfeed. We replace them with tomes delivering instructions on weaning, pureeing, preparing child- friendly recipes and how to keep our children nourished and hydrated at all times. We cannot help seeing it as a mark of our excellent parenting if our toddlers are “good eaters”. We are relieved and thrilled when they polish off everything on their plates. We love them to be bonny and bouncing. We gain confidence when they carry a few extra pounds. “They need a bit of a buffer to tide them through childhood illnesses,” we tell ourselves.
Weirdly at the same moment that we are doing our level best to shovel food down our tiny tots, we are obsessed with shifting our own baby weight. We are subsisting on a handful of calories a day, doing our utmost to “diet down” and into our skinny jeans. We despise fat and revere slimness and we show it. Without meaning to, entirely inadvertently, we are sending out contradictory messages. “Eat – maybe a little too much – to be strong and robust. Eat – far too little – to be slim and svelte.”
In our homes, in front of our children, who suck up all we do like blobs of blotting paper, we are living out both today’s top news stories. It is hardly surprising that exactly like ourselves, our children are both far too fat and far too thin, diet ignorers or diet obsessives.
What is the answer? It is easy to say but so hard to do. We must get back to healthy eating, active living, exercise and food as fuel not entertainment/ comfort/ emotional solace. It is a tall order but it is time we held a mirror up to our own eating and took responsibility for the potentially dire consequences.