It never fails to make me laugh when I hear doctors and experts banging
on about how we need to 'do more' to eliminate so-called childhood
obesity. Especially when in the next sentence they go on to bemoan the
growing mental health crisis amongst Britain's children and youngsters,
who by many measures are some of the most depressed, angry, stressed and
anxious in the world.
Here's a perfect example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31661794
Don't they realise that the obsessive focus on beating our kids around the head with the message that fat is the worst thing ever is one of the major sources of those mental health problems? And that's not only in fat children who now spend their entire childhoods being poked, prodded, weighed, pathologised, problematised and reminded a dozen times a day that their 'unacceptable' bodies reflect poorly not only on them but on their parents too.
It also affects the average-sized and thin children who are encouraged to fear fatness and the accompanying stigma - the kids who end up throwing away their lunch, who bully fat kids as a way of reinforcing their 'normal' status, whose parents become preoccupied with calories, exercise, and other things that under-10s shouldn't even have to worry about.
Look. Cookery lessons are good. It's a useful skill to have, though no panacea in a world where work demands ever more of our lives. Running about outside (provided it doesn't become a power trip for the PE teacher, and allows those who don't enjoy competitive team sports to find other ways to move) is good, as kids have far more energy than adults, and a lack of an outlet can cause behavioural problems. Providing a hot nutritious meal at lunchtime, originally motivated by the numbers of children going hungry, is good (and yet, that original goal has been undermined by reductions in portion sizes motivated by fear of 'obesity').
But for me it's all about the way it's framed. And these days, any such initiative has to be motivated by a desire to 'fight obesity'. 'We're not putting in bike lanes to provide a safer and more sustainable way of getting about. We're doing it to make the fatties thin'. What a negative motivation, and one that reminds fat and thin alike that this is about solving the 'problem' of their existence. I would much rather see the approach favoured in the 2012 'Reflections' report, which because its conclusions didn't support the obesity moral panic was ridiculed, denigrated and ultimately forgotten.
I am actually surprised that 'childhood obesity' HASN'T been a bigger election issue. But I suspect that's largely down to the cozy consensus amongst every one of the parties. None have indicated that there will be a ceasefire or even a tactical withdrawal in the war on fat people. They all take the legitimacy of its existence as a given. More worryingly, if the figures reported in the article are correct, the majority of the public have fallen for it. The Royal College of Paediatrics has very much got its own way, and it doesn't even seem to realise it.
Here's a perfect example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31661794
Don't they realise that the obsessive focus on beating our kids around the head with the message that fat is the worst thing ever is one of the major sources of those mental health problems? And that's not only in fat children who now spend their entire childhoods being poked, prodded, weighed, pathologised, problematised and reminded a dozen times a day that their 'unacceptable' bodies reflect poorly not only on them but on their parents too.
It also affects the average-sized and thin children who are encouraged to fear fatness and the accompanying stigma - the kids who end up throwing away their lunch, who bully fat kids as a way of reinforcing their 'normal' status, whose parents become preoccupied with calories, exercise, and other things that under-10s shouldn't even have to worry about.
Look. Cookery lessons are good. It's a useful skill to have, though no panacea in a world where work demands ever more of our lives. Running about outside (provided it doesn't become a power trip for the PE teacher, and allows those who don't enjoy competitive team sports to find other ways to move) is good, as kids have far more energy than adults, and a lack of an outlet can cause behavioural problems. Providing a hot nutritious meal at lunchtime, originally motivated by the numbers of children going hungry, is good (and yet, that original goal has been undermined by reductions in portion sizes motivated by fear of 'obesity').
But for me it's all about the way it's framed. And these days, any such initiative has to be motivated by a desire to 'fight obesity'. 'We're not putting in bike lanes to provide a safer and more sustainable way of getting about. We're doing it to make the fatties thin'. What a negative motivation, and one that reminds fat and thin alike that this is about solving the 'problem' of their existence. I would much rather see the approach favoured in the 2012 'Reflections' report, which because its conclusions didn't support the obesity moral panic was ridiculed, denigrated and ultimately forgotten.
I am actually surprised that 'childhood obesity' HASN'T been a bigger election issue. But I suspect that's largely down to the cozy consensus amongst every one of the parties. None have indicated that there will be a ceasefire or even a tactical withdrawal in the war on fat people. They all take the legitimacy of its existence as a given. More worryingly, if the figures reported in the article are correct, the majority of the public have fallen for it. The Royal College of Paediatrics has very much got its own way, and it doesn't even seem to realise it.
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