Heart Patients in the Making

[velvetpage]

I saw a mother, her baby (about one year old, I think) and the baby's father, presumably, on the bus today. The mother weighed at least three hundred pounds. Now, I am no featherweight, but neither will I ever look like that! I wouldn't care what she had looked like, though, because that's between her and her doctor. The problem was the contents of the baby's bottle and food tray.

Pop and French Fries, respectively.

Now, my daughter has had the occasional sip of pop. Most of the time, it was her aunts giving it to her, and I protested loudly. She has never had pop (as far as I know) in a glass, and if I ever learned she had been given that by my sisters, they would be fired as babysitters, at least for a while. The occasional French fry has come her way, too.

The problem here was that the baby was given a whole fast-food carton of fries. Not the small carton, either. A super-size one. When the mom realized that the baby had apparently finished her fries, she took the bottle and filled it with coke from her own glass.

I have trouble believing that a) there was no reasonably baby-appropriate food in the child's diaper bag; b) the mother appeared to consider these offerings baby-appropriate; c) this didn't appear to be a first or an occasional thing; there was no sign of exploration, only the same nonchalance the baby would have expressed at finding milk in the bottle; and d) that the father was doing nothing about it, either.

Parenting should be a required course in high school.

Comments

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Of course, the issue here isn't just the parenting - it's the lifestyle of the parents. Surely this woman is aware that her weight and eating habits are not healthy? Yet, not only does she continue to eat that way herself, she's not helping her daughter to acquire better habits.

I can truthfully say that even if I fall off the bandwagon regularly, I make sure my daughter eats a balanced diet nine days out of ten. I wish other people would make the same basic effort - our society would be much healthier, and my job much easier, if they did.

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

GOOD heavens.

Parenting courses should be required, and they should include more than hauling around an egg or sack of flour.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember flicking by an episode almost exactly like that on Montel a few months ago. Only, the mother thought her baby was beautiful just as she was (65 pounds at age 2 - approximately double the national average.) I shuddered, and kept going. I couldn't bear to watch.

[summerfields.livejournal.com]

Next week on Maury Povich....

Maury: Why does your 2 year old baby weigh 200 lbs?
Mom: 'cause I feed her fried waffles, hot dogs, and milkshakes for breakfast.
Maury: Why do you let her eat this:
Mom: 'Cause she cries if I don't let her eat what she wants.
Maury: Excellent, now let's have her prance around the stage in her diaper so everyone can see how she needs to stop and catch her breath after two steps.
Audience: Yayyyy!!

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Criminy. The bunny's had a few fries in her time (not amounting to an entire small packet, total, however) and no pop -- I would hope that this sort of thing would be understood, but obviously it's not. *sigh* Poor kid.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The baby appeared to be normal weight so far, so it may have been an aberration. But still - I'm glad Elizabeth likes sautéed mushrooms, and whole wheat pasta, and green pepper, and berries of all kinds. She's developing good eating habits.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Let's hope the kid grows up okay in spite of the bad start. *sigh*

Isn't it great when they'll eat all kinds of good stuff? The bunster eats way better than we do *sheepish grin*. Blueberries and grapes, for the longest time, and she's been keen on pears and apples, orange segments, bananas, and so on. Pickles are a big thing of late, though we try not to give her too many. She's into Petit Danones these days. It's neat to watch her plow through them and ask for more. No worries about appetite, there! But she's not keen on most veggies, oddly enough... What do you find works best -- steaming, sauteeing, raw, boiled?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Sweet veggies seem to work best - she'll eat the carrots or peas and leave the beans on her tray. Also, finely chopped green pepper, fresh, and just about anything sautéed in a bit of olive oil. I've been making mushrooms that way lately - olive oil, garlic, some lemon-and-herb club house seasoning, and the button mushrooms, sliced. She has yet to leave one behind. Basically, if I'm eating it, she eats it, and as long as I give her enough time, she'll do a good job of it.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Parenting should require a LICENSE.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

You need one to catch a fish, after all.

The problem is, conception is fun. :)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

*shudder*

[Bard slinks off to feed Rhys some of Rhys' favorite foods: red bell peppers, green peas, organic corn.]

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good start to me. All I have to do to keep Elizabeth happy is berries. Any kind, but especially blueberries. I'm thinking this is a good thing. And she almost never leaves veggies on her tray.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Blueberries! I forgot blueberries! Rhys loves those too, and I can keep with bright colors that way!

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Strawberries? Raspberries? Small Niagara grapes that look like berries? Elizabeth gobbles them up and asked for more. She likes other kinds of fruit, too, but the berries take the cake. I keep a jar of baby blueberries on hand for mixing with yogurt and cereal for meals in a rush - always a big hit.

When is he celebrating a birthday? If my math is right, it's sometime in October?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

He likes grapes. For some reason he's not supposed to have strawberries quite yet (1 year old), and we havent' tried raspberries.

October 13!

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

THey're supposed to ba allergenic, but Elizabeth had them in puréed form at six months and we've never looked back. Of course, there aren't a lot of food allergies in our two families, so we weren't too worried about it. And I ate them while nursing - if she were going to develop a sensitivity, it would probably have been then.

Raspberries are nice and squishy, but the seeds can pose a problem. These are best eaten half-naked, since they stain. :)

Cool. Traditional party in the works?

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

*SHUDDER*
As much as I love cola (and you know how much that is) I am aware of what is in it and what it can to towards loosening rusty bolts. I'm also in charge of regulating how much I get, and when I should switch to a different drink. As a baby can do neither and is still growing and needing all the good nutrients he/she can get, it's negligent to make it a regular part of the diet. /rant
I had my first sip of pop at age 5, from a neighbour/friend of the family. The only fries I had ever had at that point were the baked in the oven, (with the exception of a rare dinner out). It's a horrible stereotype, but it's SO often that I see overweight kids eating candy, pastry, chips etc. If they're young enough to be with their parents, the parents are usually doing the same thing. There's the rolemodels right there.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Of course, I have to be careful where I go with role modeling, because I don't always eat that healthily myself. Still - I do better than to feed my baby fast food! And when I buy stuff to take with us in her diaper bag, it's fruit cups, fruit-to-go, cheerios and raisins, even animal crackers or whole-wheat digestive crackers. As you say, it's negligence not to have items like that on hand.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I love digestives and animal crackers (arrowroot cookies in animal form, yum!) I think it's not too bad to try little bits of junk food when you're little. If you're never allowed any, it's just another thing to rebel against at puberty :D

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That's my theory, too. I let her taste crumbs of chocolatey stuff, and if there's cake at a party, she gets some. She regularly bakes stuff at Oma's house (and often brings it home to share - yum!) and she's not lacking for treats. The trick is to teach kids that junk food is okay for a treat, but it's not a food group and it can't take the place of healthy foods. That means having it available, in small quantities, and trusting them to know some limits - or setting some, if they're too young for that. I think part of the reason I like my junk food so much is that it was such a luxury when I was growing up - we just couldn't afford it. I didn't start to gain weight until my disposable income reached the point where a chocolate bar was a near-daily snack. If more had been available at home, it might not have been a problem.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

"junk food is okay .. but it is not a food group"

I hinestly think a lot of kids don't know that. Or some twist it around like "chocolate has milk in it!" or "chips are made from potatoes!" (I can recall a few times where I tried to justify my snacks that way) :D

I love this, I wish it was big enough to be my desktop: http://community.webshots.com/photo/46099036/52432968sDIdtg

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I've done stuff like that too. What's needed is better education of kids and parents. As aforementioned, a parenting class.