One of the stated purposes of making this site ‘anonymous’ was so that I could air thoughts, feelings and neuroses that I may not want Google to permanently attach to my name.  I’ve always found writing to be great therapy and blogging extends the therapeutic possibilities by giving the potential for feedback in the form of comments. Problem is that I’m still reluctant to get to far outside of my everything is sunshine/check out this band/Go Dawgs! comfort zone. I’ve written more than one post that never saw the light of day because despite being ‘anonymous’, I’m not really anonymous.

All this is just a long winded preface to say that some of you aren’t going to like this post.

With the arrival of Baby Z, I’ve had a whole new set of neuroses to deal with – what’s my son going to grow into? What will he be like when he’s a teenager, a young adult? What can I do to insure that he has a chance of being a happy, healthy and well adjusted boy, teenager and man? Mostly I’m able to stifle these fears and just get on with the business of being a father – enjoying each day for what it is – but sometimes I find myself completely tangled in knots of confusion regarding some aspect of the boy’s rearing. These little bundles of obsession can keep me up nights, can be sources of heated arguments with Dr. O’C and can result in epic inconsistencies in parenting style on my part.

One of these little tenacious balls of anxiety is childhood obesity. It’s a problem that is reaching epidemic proportions in a lot of the wealthy Western societies. One of the side effects of a half century or so of unabated economic success is an excess of pretty much everything and one of the side effects of that excess is that our children are getting fatter and fatter.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 16% of American children were overweight or obese in 2007, triple the rate in 1980. In Australia, which recently surpassed the USA as the world’s fattest nation (Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!), over 20% of children are overweight or obese. Some experts have predicted that the obesity rate in children could skyrocket to 60% within 30 years.  There’s a lot of hand wringing about the causes, but for most people they’re blindingly obvious – our kids eat too much crappy “convenience” food and spend far too much time in front of the television.

I am desperately worried that Z is going to be one of that growing minority – that he’ll be a fat kid.  Now, I know that this sounds flippant and not that important in the grand scheme of things. There are far worse things that he could suffer from and, if I’m being honest, a bit of my concern is aesthetic. But, the majority of my worry not around some Hollywood/Madison Avenue dictated body image but health.  According to the Mayo Clinic, overweight children are at a significantly higher risk of Type 2 (’Adult’ onset) diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and other respiratory problems, sleep disorders, liver disease, early puberty or menarche, eating disorders, skin infections and many more health problems in childhood. In my experience, they’re also at a much higher risk of being bullied as children. At a certain age, kids stop being cute and start being scary little fascists who pick out the weakest member of a group for vicious teasing and bullying. Any deviation from the “norm” can be used as a target – glasses, red hair, funny clothes, being fat.

Now, I’ve read a fair bit about childhood obesity and I know at an academic level that Zach is an unlikely candidate. Genetics and socioeconomic class are a significant factors in whether a child is obese and Z has no family history and comes from an over-educated middle class family. The major issues, however are diet and exercise, and here’s where things get confusing for your underwhelming narrator.  I really don’t know how much the boy is meant to eat. I’m averse to reading parenting books because I think that each one will give you a different opinion leading you to confusion, frustration and a tendency to buy more parenting books to clarify things. But, I did break down and consult the one book that we have in the household. It says that a boy of Z’s age should eat three healthy meals a day topped up with formula or breast milk with a minimum of snacking throughout the day.

I don’t want to be one of those Nazi parents that doesn’t let their child touch sugar or other junk food. I’m a pragmatist, I know that the boy’s probably going to have a Happy Meal now and again. Already, things are creeping into his diet that aren’t great – sugary soda, pancakes, french fries, tea and coffee – some of which I’ve given him myself. He gets good meals and hell, a little won’t hurt him, right?

But that snacking thing, that’s a horse of a different color.  Sometimes I think that Z looks to the dog for behavioral cues as much (or more than) he looks to people. Our dog can hear food being prepared from miles away and as soon as he gets the scent of people food, he’s under foot just praying for a bit of food to fall on the floor.  Since Z’s started crawling, as soon as someone in the house gets something to eat, there’s a race between dog and boy to see who can get the prime begging position. This was cute for a while and it’s hard to deny the boy a bit of whatever it is you’re eating. A little bit won’t hurt him, right?  As with the inappropriate foods, I’m guilty here too – sometimes it’s easier to give both kid and dog a bit of what your eating.  Sometimes it’s too cute – when Z gets his little fingers working – to resist.

However, with three adults in the same house working different hours and keeping different schedules, meal times can get muddied. Z has his dinner between 5 and 5:30. Myself, his Mum and his Nana eat at varying times between 6 and 7. Z goes to bed, with a bottle around 7 or 7:30. What this means is that between his dinner and bedtime he could be snacking pretty much constantly. I really fear that we’re setting up a bad precedent and one that is going to be increasingly difficult to break. Is this how these things get started? Are there habits that get established now that are impossible to break later in life? I don’t know.

Whenever I give voice to my concerns, particularly around Z’s female relatives, I get barracked with derisive statements like, “Jesus Christ, the child’s only X months old!” But at some point, the child’s going to be 5 years old or 10 years old or 15 years old or 35 years old, at what point do you have to start thinking about these things. At what age is it no longer cute? At what age does it start becoming dangerous? If not now, when? I’ve tried to establish a regular dinner time, where everyone sits at the table at once, an idea which has been met with a notable lack of enthusiasm.

So now, I stay quiet and stew and fret. And now, blog. I don’t know if I’m being neurotic and obsessive. I don’t know if I’m being silly. But I see these kids every day, these kids that are far too young to be as fat as they are. I see their parents and I wonder, did they know what they were doing or did they say, “Oh, a little bit won’t hurt, he’s only X years old.” And did they keep saying that and keep saying that and one day Augustus Gloop came home from school in place of their little baby? I don’t know. Do you?

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Jarvis Cocker’s self-titled solo debut is available from Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis.

 
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