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.

To me it is the equivalent of putting pop/soda in a baby's bottle. Get off your arse and cook a meal.

The woman originally objected to did it because she thought they were cheaper and to her they perhaps are depending on how she cooks 'from scratch'. It would have been more helpful if jack had therefore posted how she manages to cook from scratch instead of judging her.

Artemisia
There are often so many other factors involved than "not being arsed". Can you really not see that?
I am an educated, affluent woman. I cook from scratch and make nice stuff pretty frugally. But I am disabled, I have limited energy and DH picks up a lot of the slack. If by some disaster I ended up being a single parent, then I suspect my energy levels wouldn't go much further than ordering take away.

sorry but as a parent you have the responsibility to look at the ingredients on what you feed your child. Anything containing the fat, sugar and e numbers that a ready meal contains is out. The internet is freely available for research in libraries etc and there is no excuse for sitting on a tv show blaming your children's obesity on other people. If my child became obese I would be looking at every cause and trying my best to find out what I was doing wrong, not sitting making entitled excuses.

x post with moomin presumably then you would not be sitting on a tv show saying your children were obese because ready meals were cheaper though.

If she had said "I am disabled and I cannot prepare any other food" then, fair enough. But she hasn't done the research or made the effort to find out what is best for her children during their slide into obesity. Obesity does not happen overnight - she had time to realise what she was feeding them did not work and fix it.

I was already to agree then I actually read the blog. I thought it was good. It reminds me of how I used to eatand cook before I got so busy and when I had less money. To be honest it was better in many ways. She's right in my opinion. When I was a kid my family were really hard up and we were never fed rubbish.

Can you really not conceive of that fact that there are people who don't know about ingredients, don't understand cooking from scratch beyond making a lasagne using jars and don't have access to the Internet or the level of ingenuity required for that kind of thing?

And that judgy smugging about how they are wrong/stupid/irresponsible actually just doesn't help...

I'd have been bored stiff learning "tools for life" at school. Get an education, learn to think for yourself and you can figure out the "tools for life" any time.

I can conceive of it, yes, but I am not sure that we should be giving them a slot on TV to say how hard they have it. How can people not have access to the internet now? As I said, libraries have it for free. It is lack of effort and interest - if I had a normally sized baby who started getting obese I would immediately think "oh something is wrong - what can I do".. google is the ultimate democracy - anyone can search "healthy food for children" and make an effort.

But it is easier to buy frozen shit from Iceland and sit on TV whinging, isn't it?

Look there is always the odd idler. Most people are not idlers though - they lack the skills or the energy.

Ok, no I don't think the tv should have paraded the misguided sap around to be humiliated by her obviously incorrect views but this is about the blog response and I think, although I can understand the defensiveness of it, I disagree with the content and manner of it as a response.

Why doesn't she run a cooking/budgeting school. That's the kind of thing the new CCG's would consider funding I think if she could demonstrate how it works in practice.

But moomin, you'd still be educated if you had a disaster.

So presumably you'd still know that takeaways would drill your energy levels through the floor, not to mention the detrimental effect on your mental health of all that nutritionally bankrupt crap.

Education has got to be the key, either by the state or passed down through the generations.

There are informal cooking classes among the mums at school, stretch a chicken, make a crumble type stuff. Those of us lucky enough to know are delighted to share. But there are plenty offend who stubbornly insist they are delivering an acceptable and cost-effective level of nutrition through ready meals.

About 16% of adults in the UK are functionally illiterate. It's not as easy as looking a recipe up on the Internet.

I reckon the post was a bit OTT, but, at the same time, I think that we are far too prone as a society to being too polite and British to call people out on things.
Childhood obesity is such a serious problem and it should not be brushed under the carpet because everyone is too scared to call a spade a spade.
I also struggle with the idea that every last thing is the state's responsibility.

If people are old enough and "responsible" enough to be adults who are producing children then they should take responsibility for that. I am NOT saying the state should not step in where needed in cases of abuse, but rather that people's first response should be to ask "why aren't the parents doing this" as opposed to "oh, it's lack of education/they didn't know" etc.

But it is not a question of what this blogger did OR ready meals. I have never ever bought a ready meal in my life, but I still couldn't live on ten pounds a week. And i am lucky -i come from a large family that was poor but had parents who could cook - lentils a go go ( think working class hippies with too many kids) i know how to do this. I still sometimes need to eat beef or chocolate to keep from killing someone. So it's more about the day in day out grind of poverty, and overwork that means that living on chick peas EVERY DAY is unrealistic.

Yes, mainly because they feel they are being judged Marion, that's why this post is objectionable to me. She's just slammed the door to any mums in the position of the complained about one who might have learned anything from her that could have improved their children's health. It's divisive and she is clearly resourceful and could be a great help if she chose.

Imademarion
Well yes I'd know I was giving my kids crap, but I still might not have many other options.

Yes and 25% of girls and 33% of boys are obese, not all their parents are illiterate....

I wrote you a really long post Artemis and my stupid computer ate it.

marian's first post was this:

^Education is a longterm solution and the benefits will only be felt years down the line and ONE of them is the parents

Absolutely. I went to school in a very poor country. We had three hours of home economics a week and everyone's mother had already taught them the basics of cooking and baking (stews, scones).

We learnt how to budget and stretch our money using fresh food from the market. There was no such thing as convenience food. Hardly anyone had a freezer and not that many had a fridge. Ovens were also scarce but most houses had an electric ring.

It wasn't seen as smug or interfering. No navel gazing or class warfare. Just sensible acceptance that a cheap healthy diet keeps you and your family alive.^

I have to also confess that, despite the fact that I would rather walk over hot coals than eat a ready meal, it's the only savoury food that DS will eat. He's got SN and until I discovered he would eat fish fingers, chicken nuggets and chips, I thought he was destined for a life of haribo and biscuits (wet food is too squishy). So obviously I can't afford to be snobby about them because without them, he can't go to other people's houses for playdates.

Except yours.

Also, let's face it - ready meals would be WAAAAY more than £10 a week, so there is a middle ground that does not involve being illiterate or buying ready meals

Artemis I understand that the state was responsible for ditching cooking/home ec in the first place though? I wasn't educated here so happy to stand corrected.

ooh imade not sure - I was taught it at state secondary in early 90's.

also ready to be corrected on ditching of cooking in schools.

*1996- onwards...