There were images this week of a rather rotund boy. Courtesy of The Daily Telegraph is the headline and accompanying pictures regarding this boy. The story illustrated how he got to be this heavy by the age of eight. Guess what it was?
His diet consists of burgers, sausages, chips and takeaway and he likes to snack every 20 minutes, putting away four packets of chips, three packets of biscuits and several chocolate bars each day.
And why was he fed such an appalling diet? Why not ask the mother.
Ms McKeown told British newspaper The Sun she knew what the right and wrong foods for her son to eat were but he “doesn’t like fruit or vegetables.”
Who would eat good food if you were fed all this good tasting but ultimately bad food?
It sounds like such a cop out to me. Sure it would be difficult being a single mother, however a mother that knows about good food should be passing on this knowledge and creating good habits instead of craving the peace she gets when feeding him want he wants. Bare in mind that an eight year old hasn’t fully developed a brain and therefore doesn’t really know what he wants. I have fond memories of my mother virtually forcing good food down my throat, and if I still didn’t eat it then I went without until I was ready to suck it up and do what I was told.
It got so bad for the boy that social workers were threatening to take the child away from his mother. Why not suggest drastic action such as this. He is verging on morbidly obese before he even fully develops. What she is doing is neglect, which is a form of abuse. There is no way he would be this heavy if it weren’t for the way his mother was feeding him.
I suspect the threats were aimed to be a kick in the pants for the mother to take her own drastic action before it had to be taken by others. She has since been allowed to keep her son after agreeing to change the eating and exercise habits of the family. Apparently he has already lost 10kg, which means he was even bigger before these pictures were taken.
Both mother and son just need some training to improve this situation.
He needs to be trained in healthy eating and forced to try new foods. If anyone has seen Jamie’s School Dinners you would know how bad it is over there. School kids don’t know a potato from celery. Their health system has even set up constipation clinics for young people because their diets don’t include enough fibre.
She needs to be trained as a parent as she is supposed to be in charge. She needs to learn how to dish out some tough love as well as good food. It is difficult as she is a single parent, but given some helpful hints I’m sure she could find that healthy dishes can be as quick and easy as their fast food competitors.
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2 comments:
I could say a lot on this topic, but I will just say two things:
1) Part of me wonders if the social workers would struggle to define this as 'neglect' in court - it is her responsibility to be making sure her child eats good food, but to an extent, the boy has to play his part, too. Looking at the photo, the mother and (what appears to be) her other children are of normal-ish size, so I doubt it's a genuine lack of insight. It could very well be that the boy is wilfully only eating junk? Note that I am not defending the mother here, just making a point.
Ultimately, I doubt they could take the child away for this alone (though the legislation is different in the UK). My hunch is that it would be laughed out of court.
2) I agree that an eight year-old hasn't got a fully-developed brain, but I wouldn't agree that it means he doesn't know what he wants. My gut feeling (ahaha) is that he knows exactly what he wants - junk food.
I might steal this idea and write about it on my own blog. Mwahaha!
I don't think the other children in one of the photos are hers. They may be just blow ins used to exaggerate how big he is.
In the end I think it was right to leave the child with the mother, but it definitely has been a kick along as she has severely changed things around the house. Amazing what the threat of removing a child will do to a mother.
I can't wait to read your musings on the topic as you have an interesting way of writing.
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