To have found this blog about childhood obesity intensely smug and annoying?

[MalenkyRusskyDrakonchik]

agirlcalledjack.com/2013/06/13/dont-blame-poverty-for-your-childs-obesity/

Is it just me ... what kind of la la land does she live in, where everyone who is struggling for money lives in a nice house with a cooker and has plenty of time from not working two jobs to bake bread?

What she is describing is the sort of sensible cost-cutting I would expect most people who're struggling for money but not absolutely on the bones of their arses could do. I get what she's saying, I do, but the smug tone coupled with the failure to realize that quite a lot of very poor people don't actually have good enough cooking facilities to do what she describes is getting me down.

Am I being mean?

Plus the 'chicken to feed a family for a week' makes me slightly suspect her of embroidered truth.

It may well get back to her - only takes one quick tweet.

You seem ever so defensive of it all bacon !

I suspect her dogmatic and ill-judged opinions on this particular post, won't do her any favours, but nonetheless I wish her well.

I'm with bacon, some of the nay Sayers on here are making spiteful and inaccurate comments e.g. Ridiculous value judgements that certain perfectly normal dishes are disgusting or claims that value bread is just as good as home baked etc.
Tbh it just makes people look like they are trying to defend their obese children or poor food choices

Double life is spot on. Also the comments are vile, just lots of sneering at human beings as if they are a lower species. Fuck that attitude as being anything to aspire to.

She's lying about being able to feed 2 people for £10.

A single chicken, enough flour and yeast for a couple of loaves, 7 pints of milk, tea, coffee, vegetables, stock cubes, cooking oil, herbs and spices, butter/spread, pulses or pasta - this is a very basic shopping list for a week and would come to considerably more than a lb.

A medium chicken is around £4 on its own.

£10 per week! What are they eating? Soil?

I just bought some chicken thighs, some vegetables, a carton of cream and a baguette and it was £8!!!!

A quite good takedown of a BBC article inspired by that blog is here: blobolobolob.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/why-you-cant-eat-healthily-on-1-day.html

My children are not obese, and I didn't say that value bread was as good as home made. I said home made is not cheaper than or lower in calories than value bread.

That said, if we are talking about white bread, then I would also say there is no nutritional difference either.

Bake bread for fun if you like it, but you won't save money or lose weight.

Bollocks! The blog isn't smug AT ALL - the blogger is talking sense!

The reason people don't eat properly is IGNORANCE and utter utter laziness.

Sure there may be people who don't have access to a cooker, but tell me, how do they heat their ready meals?

I lived in Halls of Residence with my boyfriend for three years with only microwaves in the communal kitchens and we cooked hot meals most days! It was amazing what my boyfriend could cook just using a microwave!

We then lived in a flat with only a hob, no oven, for six years, and cooked just about everything.

It is an absolute scandal how ignorant and indifferent people are about cooking/nutrition in Britain.

And the blogger is absolutely right: it is MUCH cheaper to make your own food than buy ready.

Time and again posters here cry "Smug!" when someone dares to question their eating habits or reliance on ready meals. I think the nation as a whole needs some serious re-education about food.

Whenever the school packed lunch threads start I am SHOCKED at what people think is a healthy lunch!

Home made bread is delicious but it won't save you any money.

She may well live on £10 a week (unlikely) but who the hell would want to?

but not going to the shop to buy bread and coming out with other items you didn't mean to buy does save you money.

I love how writing something in block capitals automatically makes it true.

There have been so many studies into poverty and malnutrition (yes, you can be obese and malnourished), yet it would seem that looking over those isn't as much fun as having a good finger wag.

Firstly it is a myth that poor kids are the fattest. They are not. The fattest are middle class kids. Its all those organic cereal bars and smoothies. (true actually)
Secondly, I saw this woman on telly, along with a nutritionist who said that on a tenner a week no way were she and her child getting enough protein or calories.
lastly, whether this is relevant or not, the woman doesn't actually like food. Yeah, I could survive on a bag of rice and a couple of tins of beans, but I would be so depressed! This woman underestimates the positive mental effects of yummy, plentiful food. Because she is one of those wierdos who doesn't really like food much. In my opinion.

Firstly it is a myth that poor kids are the fattest. They are not. The fattest are middle class kids. Its all those organic cereal bars and smoothies.

no - the poorest children are slightly more likely to be overweight.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21166509

She's getting a slating from some people because she adopted a tone which read like 'I can do this but you can't/don't/won't because you are poor and stupid' (and it turned out to be untrue anyway that she was properly nourishing herself and her child, by the looks of things).

I used to work as a manager in a budget end supermarket and people buy frozen meals/pizza because they know they will have a meal each day that isn't going to go off. It is what alot of poor people have always done, though it was jars and tins previously, now we are more onto frozen

'I can do this but you can't/don't/won't because you are poor and stupid'

she is blogging on how she coped so other people can do the same as her..... which clearly in some people's mind makes her SMUG.........

'I'd rather see some actual help being given (early education? bursaries? planning laws changed so there's more than a petrol station shop in a huge built-up area) than people writing, once again, 'oh ffs poor people, if I can do it then it stands to reason that you don't because you are lazy and possibly stupid as well' '

Realistically, it's going to have to be something that is not provided by the state because those days, under this government or any other, are over. This idea that the government is going to teach all basic skills in life to every single person and then take the blame when obesity, literacy, etc. rates sore is one long past its sell by date. No government is going to be able to increase funding.

And yet some in the community who've offered cooking courses talk of poor enrolment. What gives?

I didn't see her blog or posts as smug at all, tbh. I don't think for one minute she and her son ate on a tenner a week, though, I think that's a crock.

It is possible to eat well with no cooker. But slagging people off who have done it and share it and doling out excuses why childhood obesity rates are soaring because benefits aren't high enough is easier, I guess.

DH helped to organise a cookery course in a deprived part of Edinburgh - the take up was ok, not great, but ok. His big impression was the women were all very keen to learn how to cook better but their self esteem was unbelievably poor. Clearly no one had ever said "well done" or "never mind, you tried your best" to them in their entire life. They did come away from the course with improved cookery skips and seemed happier in themselves too.

I mean, you have people on about those with no cookers, and then if they have a cooker they can't afford to run it, a bunch of hang-wringing and excuses about how it's impossible for people in poverty to eat well. Jack tried to show you how it's possible, and others, there are plenty of online blogs on this and another lady who is a lone parent and got a book deal here but it's easier to label them smug and point out all the negatives and enumerate obstacle after obstacle and dole out blame as to why childhood obesity rates are growing so much.

This problem is a function of many factors and ONE of them is the parents.

One of the factors is the parents. But if they are used to having chips with brown sauce for their dinner every night I can't really see them suddenly rustling up a chick pea curry.

If you're going to slag the poor woman off at least read enough of her blog and story to know what you're talking about.

this is a good post.

She has moved/is moving into a bedroom in a shared house with her son so she can afford the childcare to go back to work full time. Her benefits have been suspended because like some on this thread the council had assumed she had received payment for her publishing deal and media work and were investigating her... this isn't the first time.

What I think she is really good at is showing another side to those single mothers on benefits instead of the stereotypes we are always fed and who struggle because of many cock ups in the benefits system.

When I first read it I thought it was smug. But the more I thought about it the more I agreed with her. Admittedly many people couldn't survive on the size of the meals she makes and she eats small portions, but she started doing this out of necessity when she only had £6 I think she said in this interview

I personally think if she was a fraud someone would've exposed her by now.

Sorry, expat, who has said that benefits need to be higher?

Yes to everything expat has said