Junk Food Kids: Who's To Blame?

I caught up with an extremely disturbing programme today which was on Chanel 4 last night, Junk Food Kids. It wasn't billed as being about child abuse, but I strongly feel it was, and that the appropriate authorities should be stepping in and dealing with the perpetrators; namely the parent/carers, or better still educating them on how to care for their children before they reach this sorry state, because clearly they have no clue!

Mum of four year old Tallulah, allows her to eat pretty much whatever she likes, "because it's easier" she felt no guilt at missing an appointment at a dental clinic to educate her on how to brush her daughters teeth, because "who needs to be shown how to brush their teeth in circles, she doesn't want to brush her teeth when she could be watching TV"!

It's not often I shout at the TV, well, not that often, but my heart was breaking for these kids, who were being badly let down and ending up in surgery having almost all of their milk teeth removed!

The professionals were laying the blame firmly with the parents, albeit not to their faces, but lets face it, a four year old is not responsible for the weekly shop, and although she may accompany Mum, she shouldn't ultimately dictate what goes in the trolley.  Sadly the Mum kept trotting out lines like, "you do it for a quiet life" and "it's easier to just let her have it".

Yes, yes it is easier to opt for the quiet life and pander to your child's every whim, but don't you want better for them than a life of obesity, and laying on an operating table at the age of 4?

Apparently this is child abuse:                                         But this isn't: 

Maybe the child that turns up with bruises, acquired them because Mum wanted 'the easy life', because the threat of a smack keeps that child quiet in much the same way that a bag of sweets keeps another child quiet. And if the beaten child needed surgery because of those injuries there would be uproar; neglect, abuse, we would shout, social services would be in and there would be all sorts of questions to answer.  The same with a malnourished child, that would be completely wrong and professionals such as teachers or nursery workers are aware of looking for signs of malnutrition, physical abuse or neglect etc.

So how do we live in a Country where it is ok to overfeed your child? When does an obese child become a victim of abuse?

Should there be more restrictions on food and fast food?  I'm partial to the odd McDonald's and I like a glass of Diet Coke so I don't necessarily want to see these banned, but how do we control the intake of such sugary goodness?

I am not a perfect parent, I have made many poor decisions, and I was mortified when one of my children needed a filling. We also eat our fair share of rubbish, because sometimes life's hectic and you do want to go for the quick fix. I also believe there are perfectly well looked after and loved children out there, who for one reason or another have needed dental surgery or are overweight, so to scream "I blame the parents!" helps no one.  But some of these parents do need to take responsibility for their lack of care towards their children, and somewhere it needs picking up that they need educating on how to properly do this.

Throwback Thursday: A Post From The Past

Thought I'd have a little fun and resurface an old post occasionally. This was originally written on 26/2/13.

We're half way through Lent now, and I've seen the usual facebook posts and heard from friends who are missing chocolate or caffeine or whatever it is they've given up.

I asked my husband if I should give up tea, to which he replied "no way, it'll be too hard......for me".  It's true I don't move from HQ (my bed) until I've had a cuppa, but I kind of thought the whole point of Lent was to forego the things we would miss, and at the point we're about to combust because we haven't had our sugar rush or caffeine fix or whatever it might be, we turn to God and spend that time in thankful prayer! 

I've never given anything up for Lent, so thought it would just be silly to start this year (I don't think God minds!)

But I heard an interesting Lent story this week about a man who had given up 'fear of people' for Lent! He had decided that throughout Lent, whatever he felt led by the Holy Spirit to do, he would step out and do it without fear!  My first thought was I'd get to day 40 and sheepishly glance upwards and wonder why I hadn't been asked to do anything!

One thing this guy did was to go to the cinema and see Les Mis, he really felt he had a message for the people who would be there and had been prompted by God to step out of his comfort zone and face his fears, so before the film started he announced to the audience, "this film is about forgiveness and redemption and if you want to know true forgiveness you really should meet Jesus!" Ballsy or what?!

It made me wonder if I'd missed a trick when I went to see Die-Hard, should I have perhaps stood in front of the whole cinema and announced "this film is about.......well who cares really, but there's a great car chase, lots of shoot outs and Bruce Willis dangles from a jeep which dangles from a helicopter, falls about 100 feet through many plate glass windows and lives! But if you want to know true eternal life, you have to meet with Jesus! Yippee ki yay!"

Do You 'Do' Lent?

Lent starts this week, and I confess, I have never given anything up for Lent. My daughter and her colleagues decided to draw foods out of a hat, and they would give up whichever food they drew. I don't think they actually put the food in the hat, it wouldn't be big enough for a start; actually I'm not sure they even had a hat?

One year I thought I might give up bread, but I forgot and bought myself a Greggs for lunch, and it was only the first day.  What sort of hopeless Christian am I? When I challenge myself to live without bread for 40 days and I can't even walk past a Greggs on day one?

I'll tell you what sort of Christian I am. One who is forgiven daily for saying the wrong things, behaving the wrong way and hurting the Lord I love. This is why I need a Saviour who can overcome temptation. If I'd been in the desert and was hungry and tired and Satan had said to me "tell these stones to become bread" If I had the power to do so, I'd have said, "don't mind if I do - in fact better than that, I've got a Greggs card, d'you fancy a Cajun chicken bap?"  Thank God that Jesus went through that temptation and was able to think straight, even though He was starving, and answer the Devil by saying "Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God" He didn't need the quick fix of the 'food' the Devil was offering, He knew all He needed was provided for Him by God.

Of course there's nothing wrong with eating bread, even for Jesus I don't think it would've been wrong for him to eat, but he had gone into the desert to fast and the Devil was tempting Jesus with a short cut solution to his problem.

Often this is how temptation works, it's not something that's necessarily bad for us we end up being tempted with, perhaps just something at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.

Maybe that year I failed at giving up bread was because I hadn't really prepared myself, I hadn't set about it with the right mindset, it was just a fad thought that I'd give it a try because everyone seemed to be talking about what they were giving up, and I felt I might be missing out, so inevitably when the temptation arose, I didn't even give a seconds thought to the 'commitment' I'd made.

Do you do Lent? If I do it this year, I'm going to try to make sure I go into it with the right heartset, because I want to put more focus on God and not because I want to keep up with what others are doing, although I'm still not sure it's something I'll follow through on! Me, I'm all about the pancakes.

 

It's Just One Day

It's just one day, people the globe over are going mad buying in provisions that would last a small army a month, but just for one day.  It's not even substantial food, aside from a good roast dinner we are filling our fridges and cupboards with Pringles and pork pies, trifles and truffles, spending hundreds, only to realise by the day after boxing day there'll be nothing to cook for dinner, unless you count heating up a scotch egg and steaming some celery. All this food just for one day.

And the gift shopping, it can't be done in one trip. No, you have to keep returning, because despite having had 12 months to think about what to buy people, you're convinced that if you just leave it and return in a couple of days one of two things will have happened; either, you will have  become a present buying genius and will walk straight to your shop of choice, pick up the perfect gift that actually turns out to be priced lower than your budget and take it straight to a queue-less till, or..... the shops will have stopped selling over-priced tat, which clouds your judgement and sends you into the panic impulse buy of a 'potty putter', yes, the

gift every household needs, something to entertain you whilst on the loo.  What the designer of this magnificent gift hasn't taken into account, is that on this one day most household occupancy doubles, therefore so does the loo queue, and you have now sold me something that is going to encourage Uncle Fred to stay in the bathroom longer than required, while little nephew Jonny jumps up and down outside the door with his legs crossed, but no, he can't hold it, so while Fred's having the time of his life taking a dump whilst playing pitch and putt, I'm outside cleaning up wee and finding spare clothes and all because I thought I could complete my Christmas shopping in one day, for just one day.

And the relentless TV adverts that think they can sell us happiness, which, it appears comes in ice cream shaped like a champagne bottle or a toy penguin, depending on your persuasion. For just one day.

But what is this one day, that draws people in all over the world? From the strongest atheist to the most humble God botherer, we are all taking part in the preparation and stress and fun and for some sorrow that leads us to this one day. The day that in history can change your future. Jesus was born to bring a peace and hope to a world that without Him would be in a far worse state than it is in now, and for some of us that's hard to imagine as the world does seem pretty screwed up. But we know that through Him all things can be made new, even this mixed up imperfect planet and even more so ourselves.  Imagine if retailers and advertisers and shoppers all led to this one day with just one person in mind: Jesus. How different would the experience be? Quite incredible I think and probably very enjoyable! Knowing that you were going to hit the shops and be treated with the integrity and humility and love and patience and presence of Jesus, beautiful.

I pray you have a blessed and peaceful Christmas, filled with love and joy and hope that Jesus Christ our Saviour brings!

It's Good To Talk....Just Maybe Not To Me

Today is World Mental Health Day where many charities and organisations are trying to raise awareness of different mental health conditions and quash the stigmas that surround many of them.

It seems to me the recurring theme of advice surrounding mental health of a family or friend is 'have a conversation, ask them how they're doing, sit down with them with a cuppa' after all as the old BT ad used to say 'it's good to talk', I think they may have been on to something there......

Sometimes though it's not easy to talk, especially to those we are closest to; that's my experience anyway. We worry about what they might think of us, will we disappoint them, what if they can't take what I want to say? Maybe we blame those close to us for the way we are feeling, so in no way will we want to open up to them.

Looking back to when I was a teenager I think I felt that way, I learned to keep my feelings in and some things that I would've done good to talk about got bottled up and hidden away for years, the trouble with that is eventually they find a way out, no matter how well you think you've tidied them away and moved on with your life.

I suppose I may have started to think about this a bit when our children were younger, around the time you start imparting your wisdom to them and letting them know everything you think they need to know, whether they're interested or not. I said to each one of our four children the usual, "you know you can always tell me anything," and I always followed it with "but if you can't talk to me, it's okay for you to talk to someone else who you feel you can talk to." I know I was just stressing to them the importance of not bottling things up but recognising that I may not be the one they want to open up to, and that's okay; I won't be jealous, I won't feel offended, I will just be glad that they are talking to someone about what's on their mind.

I believe this could possibly the best advice I gave my children, they are now older and I know they have taken this on board and although I think our relationship and communication together is excellent, I also know that sometimes if they feel they need to they will find someone who isn't me, who isn't their Mum, to have a heat to heart with, and that's okay!

So on this World Mental Health Day, I would say yes, absolutely try to have a conversation with whoever you are concerned about, but also give your blessing for them to have that conversation with someone else if they want to.

Wonga Wipe Out

Wonga are writing off £220 million pounds worth of debt for 330,000 customers, who they realised actually couldn't afford their payday loans in the first place.  Earlier in the year Justin Welby declared a war on Wonga, and the C of E launched a new scheme to take on the payday lenders, the Church Credit Champions Network.  "The Church of England is the best branch network in the country," he said. "A major high street bank has at most 3000 branches, but the Church of England has 16,000! The purpose of the Champions Network is to harness that unparalleled presence in the community. The goal is both to help those afflicted by financial problems and equip us all to save and borrow in a responsible way."

You may think they were irresponsible loaning money to people who clearly weren't in a position to pay it back, but a certain amount of responsibility must also lie with the borrower.

Being in debt is a horrible, sad, frustrating place to be. You feel elated when you are able to cover a bill, but guilty when you treat yourself to something that isn't essential.  The generation before us were an 'if you can't afford it, you can't have it' generation. My generation have been fed a diet of credit cards, loans and store cards, and don't worry if you can't pay those off, here's a payday loan to tide you over.....that just grows and grows and grows.

Hopefully now it is turning around again and the next generation will be more frugal with their finances. I always wished that back in the early years of our marriage, someone would have taken the time to educate myself and my husband a bit more about credit cards etc...although our spending was firmly our responsibility, I do feel we were a bit blind about some of the debts we built up.  

Nowadays, you have the likes of Martin Lewis doing an excellent job of guiding the nation through the highs and lows of every financial situation you could possibly imagine. There are also a number of charities who are steering people towards living debt free such as CAP and StepChange who offer free advice; I still think more could be done to educate our young adults at school and at home though.

I am determined not to let our children share our experience, so much so, that our eldest daughter who is in full time work and can afford to buy pretty much what she wants, says I have ruined shopping for her because she's too scared to spend her money!  Imagine that, a world where a 19 year old girl doesn't buy a new pair of shoes or a different shade of lipstick each week.  That's kind of gone a bit too far the other way, but at least she'll be able to move out sooner..........won't she?.......Please?

Have Wonga done the right thing? I think so, but I really hope that those customers who have found their debt cleared do not end up repeating their mistakes and borrow what they can't afford again, I pray that this can be a fresh start for them.

The Signs Are There.....But Are You Following Another Way?

We are surrounded by 'signs', direction signs, low battery signs, your teenager is on the edge and about to blow signs, I've got a headache signs....you get the idea.  The world around us is giving us indicators all the time, but are we taking notice?

The other day my husband and I were out on a day trip in a different town, and although very quaint I was getting a bit bored of just wandering round the shops looking at stuff I couldn't afford and didn't need and suggested we should head to the outskirts to see if there was anything more interesting. I was pretty sure there was a park or a riverside we could go for a nice walk through; soon enough we came to the edge of town and we could see a huge wall with 'private' 'no entry' signs at various points, but just around a corner I spotted a sign that said 'park entrance this way'. 

That looked promising and I was keen to find this entrance and have a wander through the park, so immediately my husband led me.....in the opposite direction. "I'm pretty sure we can go this way and find the entrance" he said.  I was confused but couldn't be bothered to argue so just followed, until after finding no such entrance I insisted we u-turned and went the way the sign had pointed!

On questioning his stupidity decision to go in the opposite direction of the sign, he had no explanation other than he just 'thought there was another way'.  Must be a man thing because I pointed out that clearly he had ignored the sign completely and thought he knew better when he obviously didn't - I took no joy in that, well, not a lot of joy anyway.

Thing is, even though on this occasion the blame is landing firmly on my husband, I know I too in the past have looked directly at a sign and ignored it, I had thought there was another way.

So if we can miss these signs that are staring us in the face, how much harder we have to look to notice the signs from God, to follow the 'directions' he has given us, to see the sign from God and not say I think there's another way.

Some Christians are doing this at the moment whenever the subject of Gay marriage arises, they are seeing clearly what is written in the Bible, that marriage is between one man and one woman, but they are saying "I think there's another way". Perhaps we all do that sometimes when we see the sign from God but it doesn't sit well with what is culturally acceptable around us, it becomes easier for us to follow the 'other way'.

High profile Christian Vicky Beeching says "We owe the verses about women as well as the relevant verses in Leviticus [18:22 and 20:13] and Romans [1:26-27], and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah [Genesis 19] a deeper look…" (full article here) Has Vicky found another way?