She’s 8. At 8 years old I had gap teeth and bad hair and neither
knew nor cared about it. At 8 years old I had just about managed to figure out
that licking a lampost in winter was a bad idea. At 8 years old I spent my days
thinking about all sorts of ridiculous things but I certainly never once
thought about whether the Curly Whirly I was stuffing down my throat had a few
too many calories.
Where does she get it from? Well, OK. In this case it’s probably
me. I confess. My bad. I’ve been relatively unhappy about my own girth for a
while; I’m not huge, but I am just slightly short for my weight, and I’ve
reached the point where baggy t-shirts don’t quite hide it anymore. Too much
beer, too great a fondness for cheese, an excessive liking for food generally. A
working life spent sat on my (increasingly large) arse staring at a computer
screen. As a result I have a wardrobe full of clothes I like but can no longer
fit into and an increasing aversion to stairs. So I’ve been cutting down,
eating less cake, enjoying (?) more salads, walking a bit more… and idiotically
talking about calories and carbs in front of La Child who, being La Child,
clearly picks this stuff up.
It’s no bad thing to teach a child the notion of healthy
eating. And as parents we all do it, don’t we? Eat your greens; no you can’t
have a pack of fizzy cola bottles for breakfast; you’ve been sat in front of
that telly for hours, go outside and climb a tree. And it’s not a terribly
onerous task, is it? If you have a choice between a Big Mac and fries or some
pasta, you know, sometimes, try the pasta. Run around a bit. Think of chocolate
eclairs as a treat rather than one of your five a day. But at what point does
sense stop and Bulimia start? Is it a slippery slope to talk about this stuff
in front of children? Start with the introduction of salads and the next thing
you know it’s diet, Anorexia, front page of the Daily Mail.
I exaggerate, of course. I don’t really think La Child will
have issues. Thankfully she’s relatively sensible and can (occasionally) be
reasoned with. Yes, she tends to soak nonsense up with everything else, and
being surrounded by other 8 year old girls at school doesn’t help, but she does
eventually filter it out.
Makes you wonder, though.
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