Sunday 13 May 2007

Fat Kids

I've just been watching the BBC news and a report said that 27% of children are now obese!!! Thank goodness that Dan is among the other 73%. We were talking about this and I worked out that in the good old days when I was at school, my Mum never, ever took us to school in the car. We Walked three quarters of a mile to the bus stop, and then walked back at night time. In rain, snow, wind, hail, and hot sun. We all had big coats (duffel!) and scarves, and gloves on elastic, and I worked out that over the 11 years of school I walked a total of 644 miles. When I got home from school I would quickly get changed and then rush out to 'call for' my friends Susan and Susan, and then we would play outside until my Mum shouted me in for my tea. Skipping, playing with tennis balls (anyone remember sevens?), leg hoops, and of course our bikes. I regularly used to cycle to Bakewell, Grindleford and Castleton. I never ever sat down and watched TV (apart from 8pm Mondays, BBC2 - Monty Python - YEAH!).

Our diet wasn't particularly healthy - Sausage and Chips - Bread and dripping (ugh) - Bubble and squeak - bacon and eggs - the frying pan and chip pan were always in use - but we were all skinny little things, you could see our ribs, and we were covered in scars, bruises, scrapes, and there was at least one child on every street who could claim to have been impaled on rusty railings at some time or other. Every mother had a bottle of TCP (ouch) and good old pink Germolene cream!!! No suing for damages in those days. Each September when we returned to school there were a handful of kids with pots on broken arms, or stitches, or some outward sign of 'serious injury' that had occurred during the holidays.

A fat child was a very rare thing indeed. I can't remember one from my school.

Other things I remember... jelly shoes, hand-me down clothes, black plimsolls (nobody at our school had Dunlop Green Flash for ages), Dirty muddy potatoes!, Blue Peter, Magpie, Clackers (subsequently banned after children were blinded) short trousers until you were eleven, Marbles, Conkers, Sherbert fountains, Langley Farm yoghurts in three flavours only, Birds Eye frozen Mousses, my Dad getting a new Cortina, Luncheon meat sandwiches (yumm), roller skates (no elbow pads and helmets), scooters, chopper bikes, french elastics, skipping ropes with ball bearings in the handles, comic annuals bought for Christmas, Sindy dolls, being allowed a small 'Snowball' made with advocaat at Christmas - then pretending to be drunk!, swaps, 45 records ('Can the Can' by Suzy Quatro was my 1st ever purchase, followed by 'Silver Lady' by David Soul), puncture repair kits in little tins,(your Dad showed you how the first time, and then you were on your own with a puncture!!!!), and finally - attempting to successfully tape the "top 20" on a Sunday night, without the talking - just the music!!!! Very difficult thing to achieve - nay, almost impossible!!!

Anyway - to get back to my original point (thank goodness) if you have a fat child, feed them less, get them to do more....it's not rocket science.

2 comments:

  1. I agree with you.

    Did you hear about the scummy parents in Rotherham passing fish and chips through the school railings at lunchtime because the school tried to make the dinners healthier?

    There really is no helping some people.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with you.

    Did you hear about the scummy parents in Rotherham passing fish and chips through the school railings at lunchtime because the school tried to make the dinners healthier?

    There really is no helping some people.

    ReplyDelete

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