Could you stomach a fat tax?

The other night I watched a rather good episode of Panorama called ‘Taxing the Fat’. For those who didn’t catch it, despite what the title might suggest it didn’t actually go down the obvious route.

It didn’t suggest that the very obese should pay more towards their own self-inflicted health problems – although they probably should. It didn’t suggest that mobility scooters should be limited to those who really deserve them – although they probably should. It didn’t even suggest that those who weigh more than a set of monogrammed Louis Vuitton suitcases should have to pay excess baggage – although they probably should.

No, rather the program was suggesting that everyone, regardless of their weight or size, should have to pay that little bit more for calorie-laden, high-fat, nutritionally devoid substances. The sort of food and drinks that serve no other purpose in life other than to fill us up quick, make us happy and pile on the pounds.

Unsurprisingly rather a lot of people are a tad concerned, no, let’s make that downright horrified at the very idea. But they shouldn’t be.

Don’t get me wrong,  I don’t particularly want to see the price of a chunky KitKat double overnight, but, as far as the principles of making certain foods a treat as opposed to a staple, I couldn’t agree with the theory more. The Danes have already imposed a ‘fat tax’ and it’s made them the healthiest bunch in Europe.

So how does that actually work for them you may wonder. Well, the forward thinking government over there has piled a 25% tax onto ice-cream, chocolate, sweets and soft-drinks, with margarine, oils, animal fats and high-fat dairy products to be targeted later on in the year. That’s not to say it’s all bad news of course, tax has also been decreased on sugar-free soft drinks.

But while it may have slimmed down their nation’s waistlines, can you imagine the outcry over here if Cameron N’ Clegg dared to try and stop people eating like pigs. Which is, after all, the whole point of such a tax.

People would be striking left, right and centre and coming out with all sorts:
They don’t have the right to dictate what I eat. They can’t police my fridge. They can’t make me healthy if I don’t want to be. They can’t prevent me eating my weight in pizza every night.

But why can’t they? The government already has to use taxes to pay for the disability allowances and stomach stapling operations that people who simply can’t and won’t stop eating say they need, so why not try some alternative funding?

After all cigarettes and alcohol are taxed are they not? And while you may say, but that’s because they’re drugs and bad for your health, well so’s food really. Well it certainly is for those who seem determined to eat their way to diabetes and a very large, early grave.

Of course those who live on junk and junk alone will always give the same excuse for doing so – it’s cheap.  And those who protest against taxing unhealthy food will always say the same thing – it’s not fair. Rubbish and simply not true.

The argument that lower-income families need BOGOF bargain basement food to just survive is a very flawed one indeed. Experts may well claim that the cost of such foods are ‘cheaper per calorie’ than healthier options (and therefore cost you less to fill your tummy) but when these cheaper calories are empty calories then surely that theory is knocked on the head.

Besides which, if you choose to stock your trolley with nothing but rubbish, processed junk and microwaveable crap, and fill your body with nothing but saturated fats, sugar and salt, then let’s be honest, it isn’t all about the low-cost is it. It’s about being bloody lazy.

To sum it all up, there was a woman on the program who came out with an observational gem that went something along the lines of this: “But if they put up the prices then we won’t be able to buy a multi-bag of crisps for ₤1 anymore..”

Yes dear, that is kind of the point.

Demon children and saintly spoodles

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Taking your child away on holiday can sometimes be a very dangerous thing to do. In only a few short weeks they can morph into a human being barely recognisable from the one you once knew. As routine, balanced diet and consistency goes out the window, everything you ever taught them seems to follow, including good manners, eating habits and general all round intelligence.

In the case of my 3 year-old, this certainly seemed to be the case. He left Perth a mild-mannered, book loving, happy eater, and arrived in England a screeching, uncontrollable terror. Who wouldn’t eat a single vegetable. Including beans. Coated in tomato sauce. Made by Heinz. Heavens above, what child refuses those?

What the hell happened up there at 33,000 feet you might ask? I’m still pondering the very same question myself – but looking back it’s easy to see where it all went so wrong.

A stranger to sugar and capable of sleeping for up to 4 hours in his afternoon nap, my son found his world being tipped upside down as he was dragged from his bed and shoe horned into the car on the way to the airport. There we were, in the middle of the night, singing to try to keep him awake. Dragging him behind us at speed, force feeding him cookies (albeit low-fat ones) to coax him on a plane he didn’t want to go on, and then telling him he must then lie down and go back to sleep, with bright lights and dinner trays clattering all around him.

It was a recipe for disaster from the start, and the rest of the holiday carried on in much the same vein. Erratic bed times, long stretches in the car, sporadic mealtimes containing all the wrong foods and a difference set of people every time he woke up. To say he was a fish out of water was an understatement. More like a little boy in a parallel universe.

As a direct result of this holiday madness, and so not really his fault at all, his behaviour often veered on the side of manic. Energy levels went through the roof, ears sealed off to reasoning and his mouth went into screeching overdrive. And all in a country where you are no longer allowed to ‘discipline’ your child in public … tricky.

He now saw eating – unless the food in question came under the food group ‘treat’ – as an unncessary inconvenience, and as mentioned before, anything that had once grown up from, across or dropped to the ground was now met with a pursed mouth and muffled cries of “Don’t like it”. A tad frustrating, especially as the week before he’d happily opened up for aubergine and olives.

The ‘highlight’ of this out-of-control behaviour came however, at perhaps the very worst time possible of our entire holiday. I’d go as far as to say, that in the collective 12 years my offspring have been alive, never have I wanted to hang my head so low in shame.

While visiting a potential school for my daughter, my son reached deep into his inner demon and pulled out quite possibly the worst behaviour that the inside of the headmasters office has ever seen. He spread crumbs far and wide (from a biscuit off the tea-tray he’d launched himself at), squeezed his juice box across the polished table and pulled himself back and forwards across the floor like the member of a crack commando team. He climbed on the window seats, threw cushions on the floor and very nearly pulled down the curtains – 4 times. He struggled when I picked him up, pulled at me when I put him down and slithered to the ground when I put him back in his seat. The entire time he screeched and shrieked and laughed like a nutter possessed.

It was pretty toe-curling stuff, as any parent could well imagine.

There we were, talking about school reports and untapped potential and trying to give a good impression. And there was  my little monster – who would also be eligible to go there in a years time – bouncing off the walls like Tiger on a mixture of crack cocaine and speed.

The only saving grace in this whole embarrassing ordeal was that the headmaster knew better than to judge the entire family based off of the actions of its smallest member. As well as being a parent,  he was also my old English teacher – the teacher who had in fact inspired me to start writing in the first place, many light years ago.

Should this worrying tale of holiday woe begin to put off any parent thinking of taking a break, then fear not, it does have a happy ending.

After the episode at the school, sugar was abruptly cut out of his diet (which was unfortunate for him as this happened before Christmas). Within days he started to ease off his high and calm down again – apparently it takes at least 2 weeks for somebody to go cold turkey where the sweet stuff is involved. Now back in Perth, my son is already back to his old self, and get this, better than before. His manners are perfect, he’s calm and controllable and best of all, he’s eating vegetables faster than I can get them on his plate.

Not that I’d ever recommend killing your child’s routine and dragging them round the world to help knock them into shape, but on this occasion, it seems to have done the job.

Incidentally, the same also seems to be true of Charlie. He went into the kennels as a naughty, barking, escape artist, and come out a changed dog. He is now well-behaved, quiet and far more obedient than the 2 year-old Spoodle that went in. He didn’t even make a run for it the other day, when I accidently opened the garage door without shutting him inside first.

Now, if my daughter had gone in the same direction as my son and the dog, I could have said I had a hat trick on my hands. Unfortunately the excellent behaviour she showed when away (which was enough to get her offered a place at the school) has worn off some, and been replaced with the somewhat emotional and pouting little girl of before.

Still, can’t win them all, and 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

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Taxing the fat to pay the thin

So, finally a doctor in the UK has been brave enough to speak out and voice what many people already think  – that instead of pandering to the needs of the morbidly and super morbidly obese with free mobility scooters and Disability Living Allowance, they should be made to contribute towards the massive strain they are placing on the health system, by paying more tax. And in turn, those who work hard to remain fit and healthy should be financially rewarded for their effort.

With obesity related issues draining every last penny out of the already overstretched NHS budget and £6.3 billion being spent fighting fat, this scheme sounds about on the mark to me. No doubt it’ll be met with cries of “You can’t say that”, but it has nothing to do with being judgmental or ‘fattist’, it’s just common sense. As is Dr Chand’s proposal to add tax to the type of fattening food that offers little or no nutritional value, yet guarantees maximum ‘junk in your trunk’.

Such a tax would of course cause outrage amongst the loyal Happy Meal brigade, all of whom would shriek loudly that it’s unfair to target those on lower incomes, who consider fast food a cheaper alternative. Quite frankly, tough. Tobacco and alcohol are already taxed in an effort to target smoking related illnesses and binge drinking, so why shouldn’t unhealthy food be too?

And as for the argument that junk food is the cheaper alternative, what a load of rubbish. It’s the easier alternative. With every supermarket offering cut prices bargains and more BOGOF offers than you can shake a stick at, it’s far cheaper to cook simple healthy food that it is to buy in a round of up-sized burgers, chips and coke. Even if you do have limited funds and an army of hungry mouths at home to feed. People who choose takeaways every night over cooking are just lazy, and parents who feed their kid’s junk for breakfast, lunch and tea should be done for child abuse. (see related post).

Strangely enough, many of these parents who claim they can’t afford to buy healthy food for their kids just so happen to smoke and drink. They think nothing of puffing £5 into thin air or pouring it down their throat, but they can’t stretch the family budget enough to incorporate something that hasn’t been regurgitated out of a deep fat fryer and into a styrofoam box. For £5 you can buy an entire chicken. So do you spend your money on 20 cigarettes, or a whole birds worth of protein to feed the kids? There’s the difficult decision of the week.

The argument that fast food is even fast is the biggest myth of all. At tea time it takes less time to scramble an egg, microwave a potato or even cook some pasta than it does to climb into the car, drive to the nearest nugget dispensing outlet, queue up, order, collect and scoff. Of course most children would probably prefer the nugget option, and as such be more likely to eat it up without a moan or a struggle, but since when was feeding them meant to be about taking the path of least resistance?

Children are just that, children. They should be eating what’s right for them, not what’s easiest for the parent, no matter how much money they have, how brain dead they are in the kitchen or whether by the end of the day they’ve simply lost the will to live. God knows I could well do without the constant battles about how many vegetables are lurking on my kid’s dinner plates, but I’d rather deal with the fuss they sometimes make than watch them both turn into Weebles, and wobble right off their Trip Trap chairs.

So is the idea of taxing the morbidly obese ever going to work? Nope, not a chance in hell. Why? Because many of those who fall into this category probably aren’t able to work in the first place. Their size, and the associated health problems that comes along with it, prevent them from carrying out even the simplest day-to-day tasks, never mind holding down paid employment. So if they were forced to pay more tax, they would no doubt need to be awarded more disability allowance to afford it.

Obesity is a problem that will carry on for many, many years to come. In part this is because many of those individuals who are contributing to the problem, simply refuse to accept any responsibility for their own actions. Instead they prefer to blame the government for its lack of support in helping them to lose weight. They complain about the shortage of free local sports centres and wide open spaces in which to jog. They claim that a bunch of carrots are exorbitantly priced and no one ever taught them how to cook.

In answer to that. It’s not up to the government (who lets face it can’t even run the country properly never mind a weight loss club) to prise the fork out of each and every chubby little hand across the land. There are 1000′s of miles of free pavements in the UK, go walk on them. If you can afford to upsize your £4.50 McDonalds meal you can afford a bunch of carrots. Go buy a cook book, or cheaper still, turn on the TV and listen to Jamie Oliver.

It seems incredible that so many people simply refuse to put two and two together and start addressing the problem, instead of comfort feeding and making it even worse. Even with all the fat fighting campaigns, health lectures and awareness raising TV programmes out there, all trying to ram the obvious message home, it’s hard to see what the solution will be.

Perhaps if those who need to shed the weight actually climbed out of their complimentary buggies and used their feet, they might be surprised to find the weight starting to drop off. Obviously there’s no miracle cure to losing this amount of weight, unless you see stomach stapling as a viable option, but it has been done, and is therefore not impossible.

I’m not even going to pretend to have a clue about the horrible vicious circle of a situation that you’d find yourself in, when you reach this sort of size. Or how demoralising and depressing it  could be to live with everyday.

I’m pretty sure that getting the weight loss ball rolling would indeed be painful, and a tremendous struggle of mind over matter to say the least. But any type of exercise was never designed to be easy, it was designed to be exercise. And anyone who’s ever tried a step class (and failed miserably) will know that exercise can be painful, complicated and downright humiliating whatever size you are.

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Fags, fame and photoshop

So poor old Kerry Katona has been dropped as the ‘face’ of supermarket chain Iceland has she. Poor love, how’s she going to fuel her drug habit now? I feel another stint in The Priory is on the cards for her any day now.

Having had just 2 run-ins with the police this week, and ‘on the verge of being sectioned’ amid fears over her mental health, the surprise isn’t really that Iceland has finally kicked her to the curb, but that they ever paid her to help sell their frozen pies and chips in the first place.

It says a lot about the power of celebrity endorsement, that a company would ever feel she would actually appeal to the average customer and inspire them to flock to their aisles and fill up their freezers.

I suppose when Kerry was first signed up, she was, on paper at least, the perfect candidate for the job. Riding high on the D list celebrity train, she was cheap and cheerful and had more column inches than the PM and Posh Spice put together. A few years on however, and she’s proved to the world a 1000 times over that she is just the perfect example of the bolshy white trash that now gets paid to scream and swear on TV, and roll around drunk in the gutter. Never mind the fact she must surely have sniffed more Coke up her snout since being signed to Iceland, than all of their customers have managed to buy and drink in a year.

So who is this lovely specimen of trashy tabloid fodder? Nobody really. She’s famous for doing precisely bugger all. Or to put it another way, famous for doing nothing of any real value or importance.

She originally climbed up into the public eye as a member of Atomic Kitten – a girl band that really only made it big once she had left, and her speaking vocals (she never actually sang a note) were taken off the music they released. Not wanting to lose the fading limelight, she quickly married into boy band ‘royalty’, and then of course got divorced. Before the marital sheets could even be washed, she milked her misery for all it was worth, bleating on in a heart-wrenching autobiography about her downtrodden upbringing, broken heart and terribly tragic existence. Well she didn’t actually write it herself – anyone who ever heard her speak would soon realise that – but her picture was on the front cover.

Appearing in as many reality shows as possible, she helped to take TV to an all new level of low, as she smoked and drunk her way through 4 pregnancies, screamed at her husband, neglected her kids and appeared as high as a kite on countless TV shows.

Did I forget to mention she was also given her own column in ‘OK’ magazine – a chance for her to air her views and opinions on her fellow celebrities. Seriously what on earth was the editor thinking? Did they really believe that any reader would really give a sh*t what this woman had to say in her 2 syllable or less weekly drivel?

I think it’s fairly obvious to say that these sort of pointless people really irritate me, but I can’t be the only person fed up with the rich and pandered getting away with bloody murder, just because they live out their life in the press and have Max Clifford on speed dial. Take the once great supermodel Kate Moss. When she is seen out with her child, she’s constantly flapping a cigarette in her face or rolling joints. And when photographed doing drugs a few years back, she merely said she was sorry, and then promptly landed new contracts and went on to double her income for the year.

I don’t think it would be so grating that some people get paid so much to do so little, if they really earned the money they got. But they don’t. With Kate Moss, it’s plain to see that it’s the guys with the airbrush who deserve the big bucks. The retouching must take longer than the original shoot.

The one thing I will say for Kate Moss is that at least she makes me feel pretty good about myself. We’re the same age, give or take a few extra months on her side, yet I don’t have a fraction of the wrinkles she does. So I guess I’m the lucky one really, not having been exposed to 20 years of partying through the night and a diet of lettuce, nicotine and narcotics.

Reality strikes, and it’s pretty dumb

I am a self-confessed lover of most things reality. I say most things, as even I absolutely draw the line at Australian Idol and Big Brother.

Australian Idol because it’s quite frankly a load of talentless crap, and Big Brother, because the programme is now at least 7 years past it’s ‘Sell by Date’. The first 2 series of BB in the UK were funny and captivating – due to their originality and the people who walked into the house. They had no real notion of what to expect or what wide spread coverage they would receive, and they treated each other with at least some respect.

The following series that have been thrown up on screens every year since, have however, been just plain boring. This is due to their predictability and the attention seeking w*nkers, sorry, I mean housemates, who clamber over each other to live like guinea pigs, fight like toddlers and mate like rabbits.

The audition requirements must now surely be about finding the oddest of oddballs. Those who are guaranteed to strip, clash and pash. So if you’re a blood drinking, devil worshiping, plastic surgery obsessed, brain-dead sex-o-holic, who can’t seem to make a definitive choice between girls or boys, then you’re definitely in with a shot of getting on the show.

Maybe I have just gotten very old in these past 8 years, but it seems to me that BB has spawned a whole new breed of desperate and talentless weirdos. People whose skill sets range anywhere from merely having had a boob job or a sex change, to looking like a pig, thinking they’re God’s gift or simply being the first person born without a single brain cell between their ears.

For these fame fanatics, their 16 step ‘life plan’ would go something like this:

1. Get onto Big Brother and humiliate myself on national TV.
2. Prove that my IQ really can be smaller than my shoe size.
3. Feature on the front cover of HEAT magazine.
4. Meet a fellow non-entity, and be caught in a trendy club having sex.
5. Marry and divorce the said non-entity within 3 months.
6. Turn orange, lose weight, get new boobs/haircut/wardrobe.
7. Release DVD of me lifting Gucci handbag in weight-loss programme.
8. Feature on the front cover of HEAT magazine.
9. Release a single – prove I can’t sing.
10. Date an entire Premier Division football club.
11. Apply to go on Celebrity Mastermind – get laughed off.
12. Apply to go on Dancing with the Stars – get turned down.
13. Apply to go on I’m a (Z list) Celebrity Get Me Out of Here – get accepted.
14. Humiliate myself on national TV.
15. Prove that my IQ is still smaller than my shoe size.
16. Feature on the front cover of HEAT magazine.

Of course truth be told, even if I wanted to watch Big Brother, I couldn’t. My husband only has to hear the music and he starts frothing at the mouth. And that’s not in excitement I might add.  As a rule he really doesn’t like any form of reality TV, and will generally protest for many, many weeks about what he is being forced to watch. He’ll complain about how pathetic the format is, how fake the contestants are, and declare, quite rightly, that the presenters are enough to make you want to throw up your dinner into your hands.

Over the years I have worn him down, and have somehow managed to successfully get him hooked on shows like Dancing on Ice, So You Think You Can Dance, The Apprentice, the Biggest Loser (only the Aussie version) and Masterchef. Wife Swap, I’m sad to say, is simply never going to happen.

But of all these shows, my favourite have to be those that prove that beauty really is only skin deep.

America’s/Australia’s/Britain’s Next Top Model – oh you’ve got to love them for the sheer drama and brilliant bitchiness that these girls, many of whom aren’t even old even to cross the road on their own, have already mastered at such an tender young age.  As they cry, sulk and pout over every makeover haircut, and squeal with every Tara/Sarah/Lisa Mail that appears, it seems they just can’t help themselves but to prove the theory true that models are an incredibly dumb breed. And that large groups of catty girls are infinitely more dangerous to be around than a stick of lit dynamite.

I know this stereotype of models is something of an unfair generalisation, namely because I too once shimmed my way down a catwalk, and I’d like to think I possess matter between my ears that I know how to use. But oh my God, most of the vain little prima donnas on these shows apparently fell right out of the nearest stupid tree, hitting each and every branch on the way down.

So yes, it does makes me realise that I must be aging considerably faster than I care to admit, because many of these model wannabes seem young enough to still need the placenta attached to survive. They also appear to be completely unequipped to deal with the big bad world of reality that awaits them, on the other side of the competition. A world of fashion that will gobble them up, strip the meat of their jutting hip bones and then spit them out when they’re 20, over the hill and past it.

The final of Australia’s Next Top of Model is on tonight, and as far as I can see there is only one obvious winner. In one corner you have Tahnee – a girl with a beautiful face and a body that looks how it should at 17. In other words, there is still some sign of the puppy fat that you are supposed to have at that age, if it hasn’t been forcibly starved off and thrown up.

In the other corner is Cassi – a chain smoking, bad mouthed brat, with bad teeth, serious anger management issues and a body that would look right at home on a 6 year old.  In a word, she’s a Bogan. An Australian word for slapper, or a common little oik who struts around wearing micro-minis, white stilettos and a chip on her bony shoulder. Think Vicky Pollard on a hunger strike.

If this girl wins it will be a sad day for mothers everywhere. For she is the worrying proof that nowadays it’s OK to be a nicotine-stained, spoilt little madam, as long as you’re stick thin and look pretty in makeup. I’d have to say she’s about neck and neck with the Pussycat Dolls, when it comes to being the best role model there is for little girls.

Having seen her act out, lash out and stomp out over the last few months on TV, I for one certainly wouldn’t buy into any brand that she was the face of, so lets hope the judges vote for the right girl to win, the one that might just prove that beauty isn’t always just skin deep…

And the result? Yeah, the right girl won. Some of the judges may have been tempted with $ signs and voted for who might make them the most cash, but thankfully the Australian public proved that poise and good manners beats trailer trash and tantrums any day of the week.

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A spot of colonic – doggy style

Now no one ever said being a dog owner was a glamorous affair, but even I didn’t envisage the day I would find myself out in the garden at night, giving Charlie a colonic.

It started with my daughter detecting a faint whiff of poo, which was quickly, and without too much investigation, traced back to Charlie. He was promptly directed through the dog flap and into the garage, to await some cleaning and de-clumping by my husband.

Said husband soon returned home, and was pointed in the direction of the dog. Wet wipes were brought out and the tail was lifted, but nothing was going to budge. After about 60 seconds of struggling to remove what obviously didn’t want to be removed, my husband declared that Charlie would have to stay outside that night. Now granted he irritates me on an hourly basis when he trips me up and empties my bin across the floor, but given how cold it’s become, I just didn’t have the heart to banish him from the fire and the fluffy rug – the dog that is, not my husband.

So back outside I went out, cornered Charlie, took him to the grass and proceeded to wipe him along behind me. A bit like you’d wipe your shoes to get the mud off.  He looked at me as if to ask ‘What the hell are you doing to me’, and my husband, who was of course watching me through the window, was shaking his head.

Of course, as any woman worth her weight in manipulation knows, the best way to get someone to help you with something they have already said they wont, is to attempt it yourself, make a complete pigs ear of it, then stand back as they can’t help themselves but to step in and show you how it’s done. Works every time.

As expected, my husband reluctantly reappeared outside to tell me that dragging Charlie backwards and forwards over the grass wasn’t going to shift anything, not even that large lump of poo that was still stuck half way up his backside, and clinging onto his tail fur for grim life.

So out came the hose. Poor Charlie, he didn’t look best pleased. Can’t say I really blame him, it was dark after all and far too nippy for an al fresco shower. I was told to hold him down while my booted and business suited husband squirted him. Every time the high pressure jet came in contact with his bottom he, understandably enough, tried to make a bolt for freedom. After 3 failed attempts and a couple of “you’ll have to hold him tighter than that”, my hubby resigned himself to my uselessness in the dog grappling department and realised he’d have to get down and dirty with the dog on the grass.

I took the hose, gave it a long hard squirt with the jet and then realised it was pointing in the wrong direction. Now that Charlie and I were both soaking wet, I had even more sympathy for him.

Poor thing, he lay there on the grass, with his back legs lifted a good foot off the ground and his tail held up high. By the 5th or 6th squirt he didn’t even flinch. I don’t know if by this stage he was enjoying the experience, or he was just numb to the cold water.

The whole event was very undignified for him, made even worse by me then whipping out a large pair of kitchen scissors to give him a Brazilian around his bottom. I’m sure it’s a memory he will want to block for a long time to come.

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Other Spoodle related posts:

What is a Spoodle – Exactly that..
Bad Fur Day - What happens when a Spoodle isn’t happy with his fur cut
Charlie turns 2 – Why Spoodles make excellent baby training pets

An email from President Obama

This morning, as I do every morning, I sat at my desk, opened my email and waited to see what tripe flowed into my inbox.

I was expecting the usual of course. A chance to buy some alarming looking apparatus to improve my love life. An invitation to view photos of some ‘designer watches’ or my future mail order bride. Perhaps a heart wrenching story that I had to pass onto 10 of my closest friends within 5 seconds, or risk being struck by a falling meteorite the moment I set foot outside my front door. Even an email from a long lost Nigerian relative, letting me know that I was but only a set of bank details away from inheriting my rightful fortune.

Any of these would have been right about the norm. But this morning threw up something a little bit unexpected.

An email from the most powerful man on the planet – President Barack Obama himself.

Yes, I did do a little bit of a double take I have to say, especially when I realised the email address was legit and he wasn’t trying to sell me little blue pills – with worldwide shipping and a discount programme.

Obviously I know the President didn’t actually sent it from his own Blackberry, as he wondered through the hallowed halls of the White House. And yes, I accept that it wasn’t written specifically to me, but hey, his name is in my inbox and that’s good enough for me.

So why did I deserve the honour? Probably something to do with the email I sent him, asking what he and his administration intended to do about the growing problem of childhood obesity. A problem which, I believe, stems in part from the many fast food companies who market their products directly at the young.

The companies who use cheap plastic toys as a lure, in order to put a colourful box full of salt, sugar and trans fats in the hands of hungry young children. The sort of companies who are, for all intents and purposes, aiding and abetting those parents who slowly murder their kids everyday with an unhealthy diet.

Hopefully such an intelligent and forward thinking man, with 2 young daughters of his own, will acknowledge the issue and give it the attention that it deserves.

And now that The President is in my address book, I will certainly be keeping an eye on any new health care reforms he passes, and hope that at some point he finds a way to put some form of media gagging order on those who profit off the greed and ignorance of the young.

I’ll give him 6 months, and if I don’t see anything happening, I guess I’ll be forced to drop him another line..

For those who might be thinking that I imagined my email, here it is.

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When BIG really isn’t beautiful

Some people might have thought that my previous post about parents murdering their kids was a little extreme. And then a story popped up on the world news that backed up everything I had said.

It’s about Leanne Salt. A 24 year old girl who is happily feeding her 8 month old triplets towards a life full of medical problems, and all but giving them a helping hand into an early grave. A girl who should be locked up for the great big helpings of child abuse that she is dishing out to her kids, along side the junk food she’s filling them up on.

Despite the fact that only a moron wouldn’t know better, this 30-stone lump sees nothing wrong with how she is bringing up her triplets. Far from it. She is actually proud of the fact that her babies became card carrying members of the Happy Meal club at just 6 months old.

Refusing to acknowledge that she is doing anything wrong, she believes that because she takes the batter off their fish and chips, she is giving them a healthy diet.

And after all,  as she says, she does feed her babies vegetables every Sunday. Perhaps she believes that an onion ring and a pickled gherkin count towards their 5 a day? Or should that be their 5 (at a push) a month.

Now 8 months old, these poor babies are being fed around 1,249 calories a day, with a diet consisting mainly of junk food, fish and chips, crisps and microwave meals.

Seriously? Is this woman for real?

It goes without saying that such an eating machine has zero respect for her own body, or her diminishing life expectancy, but how can she be so incredibly selfish when it comes to her kids?

And there in lies the problem. As well as being selfish, the girl is obviously plain stupid. Certifiably dumb actually. Devoid of brain cells and missing any sort of solid matter between her ears. After all, anyone who seriously believes that watching what you eat and consuming healthy foods leads to anorexia is one stitch short of a lobotomy.

Her line of reasoning? “I do worry my kids could get picked on if they get fat, but I’d tell them that big is beautiful.“

Yes, that will make them feel so much better when their mother is harpooned in the school car park by Greenpeace. Or when they get diagnosed with diabetes. Or when they drop down from a fatal heart attack as they turn 21.

Of course beauty is very much in eye of the beholder, and big can be beautiful. But there are always exceptions the rule, and this has to be one of them. I don’t know when Miss Salt last looked in a mirror, I suspect it’s been a while, but beautiful is not one of the words that immediately springs to mind.

And that brings me to the question that everyone who has heard about this girl is surely asking themselves. How in God’s name did she even snare anyone mad, brave or drunk enough to impregnate her in the first place? And when she did, presumably with the aid of chloroform, how did the the deed itself (I shudder as I write that) even take place.

Now I’m certainly no physicist, but aren’t there some laws regarding mass, volume, weight and proximity that would have made this nigh on impossible? It would be like trying to mate Dumbo with Mickey Mouse.

So taking the fact that some poor bugger did somehow manage to put 3 buns in her cavernous oven, and then wake up with a hangover from hell and run screaming from the house, how did she even know she was pregnant? Did she wake up one morning and think, that’s odd, my stomach looks slightly swollen today?

Let’s face it, she could have gestated an elephant without attracting any attention. Well apart from the fact by the 9th month she had gained a further 10 stone.

And now for the bit of the story that really makes you believe that the world has gone mad. Being that she was the fattest mother of triplets that medical science had ever clamped eyes on, it took a team of 68 people to deliver her babies, at a cost of £200,000 to the NHS. This included the operating table that had to be specially-built for her Caesarean section.

Well come on, you didn’t think that she was going to have a natural birth did you? All the crow bars in the world and a forklift truck wouldn’t make that a possibility.

Now that she is back at home with her brood and securely wedged into her 5 seater sofa, she is happy to live off benefits with no future plans to ever lift a 20 kg finger and do any work again. After all the poor girl is apparently already too busy to clean, tidy up or prepare proper meals for her children. The family only get dressed to leave the house once a week – so that they can collect her benefits.

And let’s not forget that if the governments latest  hair brained scheme takes off, then one day she’ll also he paid to walk (roll) her kids to school as well.

On the upside, Miss Salt is making some plans for their future. She has decided that she now deserves to be given her own council house, and is completely ready to face the world alone.“I know how to microwave a meal and make up instant mash, so I think we’d all manage.” Stand aside Jamie, the girl’s got your job in the bag.

And what is the shocking truth about this tale of chips and child abuse? This girl is not alone.

A recent survey by the Infant and Toddler Forum found that 29 per cent of children under the age of three ate a takeaway at least once a week, while 23 per cent eat crisps and 16 per cent drink fizzy drinks almost every day.

The Winning Loser

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The Australian ‘Biggest Loser’ final took place the other night, and what can I say but ‘WOW’. What an inspiration these people should be to every person sitting on their sofa-loving backsides in front of the TV.

Whilst most reality shows are all about that 15 minutes of fame, this show actually sets out to achieve a really worthwhile end goal. And that’s not just for the person who wins and pockets the much deserved prize money (well as much deserved as it is possible to be when you have won and not earned it). All the contestants who take part, come out of it better off for having been there.

For while there is money at stake, and a lot of it, for once the show isn’t all about what you get at the end, but what you learn and achieve along the way. There are no record deals or big shiny cars on offer here.  The contestants aren’t expected to battle it out on a deserted island, or pick out a new mate to marry. They don’t have to decorate a room, design an outfit or beat a poly-gram test to do well. The show doesn’t dangle a ‘jump on the celebrity bandwagon’ carrot in front of their nose, or even teach them how to peel one.

No, the ‘Biggest Loser’ gives contestants a little bit more. It allows them to take one big fat foot out of the grave and start looking forward to living a longer, healthier life. A life that they can actually start to participate in, not just observe from the side lines.

Turning someones life around like this is no mean feat. For 3 long months the contestants are made to eat, sleep, think and exercise  ‘healthy’. Life long bad habits are stripped away and their approach to their food intake, mental attitude and body image are rebuilt, from the plate upwards. At the end of every week they face a public weigh-in, and those who drop below the ‘yellow line’ are voted off the show.

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By the end of the 3 months, the proof was very much in the low-fat pudding and the results achieved were nothing short of jaw dropping. Bob Herdsman, the oldest contestant and the winner, lost more than half of his original 167.8kg (26.4 stone) weight. He dropped a massive 87.6 kg (13.8 stone) along the way and now tips the scales at just 80.2kg (12.6 stone). Tiffany, his daughter-in-law, came in at second place with a weight loss of 54.1kg (8.5 stone).

Without a surgeons knife or gastric band in sight, their weight loss was achieved purely through good diet, hard work and a dogged perseverance to be there at the finish line.

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At a time when the whole world seems to be doubling it’s waist size every time the World Health Organisation release new statistics, this TV programme is certainly trying to do it’s bit to help get the message through.

Something certainly needs to be done before the entire population slips below the ‘yellow line’ and ends up getting eliminated from the race.

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Damn that fairy

This past week has been something of a traumatic toothy experience for my daughter, and a scary glimpse into her dental future for me.

First she started off in the dentists chair, for what we thought would be a quick once over and out. It turned into several x-rays, and the photographic proof that she has more cavities than a rabbit warren has burrows. This news made my jaw drop. When the dentist turned to me and told me that I would have to improve her diet, my chin all but hit the floor.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that my child’s baby teeth were full of holes, I was being accused of pumping her full of Coke and Coco Pops for breakfast and filling her lunch box with pick ‘n mix. Marvelous, just marvelous. Everyone knows that asking a mother what sort of diet their child has is paramount to calling them hopeless, useless and completely irresponsible.

If I believed for even a millisecond that I was any of the above (and we’re only talking about diet control duties here, not mothering as a whole)  I guess I would have just hung my head down to meet my jaw and wished that the floor would open up and suck me on in. But I don’t believe that, so I decided to argue my case. Or rather defend myself, and say how incredibly healthy her diet actually is.

Chocolate is a treat in our house, sweets are a rarity (the last consumed were 2 jellybeans given by the doctor, go figure) and fizzy drinks are a no-go. She brushes and flosses twice a day, and resigns herself to 99% of the contents of any of her party bags going into the bin.

So short of sucking out all the sugar from her fruit, vegetables and wholegrain bread as well, I am at a loss of just how far I can go to improve her diet and stop the rest of her teeth dropping out as well.

I’m sure everyone claims the same, and the dentist probably just sits there thinking to himself  ‘Madam, you do protest to much’. But I was, to put it mildly, shocked, upset and riled up. Not at my daughter, or even really at myself, but at all those other countlesslittle Fruit Loop eating children out there. The ones boasting a perfect set of knashers, who are undoubtedly served up nothing but junk by a mum who doesn’t know her arse from her electric oven.

Seeing my stress levels increase, the dentist did try and pacify me somewhat, telling me that some kid’s teeth just can’t handle the same amount of contact with sugar. For the record, and for anyone else wondering what you are supposed to do in a situation like this, the dentist told her to start using a pea sized amount of adult toothpaste (not enough fluoride in the kids stuff when they are 7/8) and then not to rinse her mouth after. He also said to rinse her mouth out with some water after everything she eats, to brush her teeth after any treats and to steer clear of anything with any flavour.

OK, maybe he didn’t say the last, but he may as well have.

Her menu has now become as unappetising as a horses nose bag. The Sultana Bran (at 22.7% total sugar) is out and the Puffed Wheat (at 1.8%) is in. Not hard to see why Puffed Wheat is so low, it looks, tastes and bobs around on the milk like a handful of saw dust. The juice cartons have left her lunchbox, along with the ‘healthy’ fruit cereal bars and boxes of raisins (natures equivalent to candy floss).

Even the yogurt is being re-assessed for it’s high sugar content and then rationed. Quite frankly mealtimes are becoming a bloody nightmare. Still, what to do. Until her teeth are back on track and we can start again with a blank slate, I reckon it’s better to be safe than even sorrier.

It does seem that nothing on the shelves for kids these days comes without a cup or so of sugar thrown in for good measure, and this seems criminal. Cigarettes packets now host graphic images of the consequences, alcohol abuse is highlighted in hard hitting TV campaigns and even the danger of the sun is spelt in no uncertain terms, yet any company can target kids with their fat, salt and sugar laden foods, and no one seems to mind. Yes, the boxes are all labeled with food contents so a parent should know, but surely the kids ‘healthy breakfast cereals’ could at least veer a little more towards actually being healthy.

Little wonder that childhood obesity is taking over the way that it is, when these companies care more about profit, than doing their bit to try and prevent future generations becoming balls of doughy lard, with shorter life spans, diabetes and no teeth.

Anyway. Off my soapbox and on to the next dental disaster took place this afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon, with a referral in hand, we trotted off to the nearest Orthodontist. Several more costly x-rays later, and we were seated to be told even more news. The expensive sort of news. Is there any other? Apparently her lower jaw is too far back, her teeth are too far forward and she’ll need a plate to bring them all back together. OK then. So that will be another $1700.

On the bright side the plate comes in a wide variety of pretty colours, something which I am now using to try and sell the idea to my daughter. The idea that I steer clear of the whole issue of discomfort, increased saliva and the problems that she will have stringing two words together when it’s in.

That wasn’t actually the worse part of the days bad news . Oh no. Not at all. The news that really had me jumping up and down with glee, was the glimpse into her future and the joys that are still to come. The x-ray also showed crooked adult teeth making their way down, that would in time require a full brace to be glued onto her teeth, for a rather reasonable $6000. Once again it does come in a choice of colours. Train-track grey, or the more expensive and less effective clear plastic. Hmmmm. Decisions, decisions.

So was that the end of the bad news? Don’t be silly. Add to that a tooth that’s gone AWOL. That’s right a missing tooth. No, I can’t say I saw that one coming either.

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I  guess at some point the tooth fairy got the hump with us, possibly for not leaving enough under the pillow, and as revenge decided to swipe a tooth to make us pay. Literally. In the form of a no doubt ludicrously priced false tooth when the other one falls out. Have to say that if I ever catch that damn fairy she’ll be lucky to make it out of there with both her (or his) wings intact.

So was that the end of the bad news? I’d say. Don’t you think that’s enough to be going on with?

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