I'm in downtown. I don't have a plan. Night advances. I hear my stomach growl.
Mission One: Find Food and Eat It.
I deliberate for a couple of seconds. I soon remember my friend, Winston Lee, is to return home today from U of Waterloo for a family dinner. The Lee family is always glad to have me over (that will change when they read this post), so I walk over to their house and join them for dinner.
George, the youngest of the three sons, greets me at the door. I enter and George closes the door behind me. We make our way to the dining room with George limping behind me.
I ask, "Why are you limping? Did you sprain your ankle?"
"No. I don't know what happened. I woke up a few days ago and noticed my foot aching and swollen. It's been like this ever since." George replies.
"Did you see a doctor?"
"Yes. He says I have gout."
"Oh no, Winston has gout too! I read about it on wikipedia once. It's a type of arthritis caused by high levels of uric acid in the blood. They say that the people at highest risk are usually overweight, frequently consume protein-rich foods, and frequently drink alcohol. You don't drink alcohol, but you sure like eating meats and you're not exactly fit."
George whimpers, "I know."
George is 16 years old, stands 5'9", weighs 190 lbs and lives a sedentary life. He never exercises. He indulges in eating "delicious" foods and playing video games. You can find George sleeping 10 to 12 hours per day during the summer and on weekends. Now, at the age of 16, he has an ailment that takes most men 40 years to acquire - an ailment that comes after many years of indulging in fatty foods, red meats and alcohol.
George isn't the only member in the family with health complications. Every Lee copes with several conditions. Mr. Lee and Mrs. Lee have diabetes, high blood pressure and many other things I've never heard of. Winston, the oldest son, has gout, high blood pressure and some type of kidney problem. Gordon , the second oldest son, has low blood pressure and some type of kidney problem. And now, George has gout.
The health complications that each member of the Lee family experiences are, in my untrained medical opinion, caused by poor diet. At the House of Lee, every home-cooked meal is so exceptionally tasty that you know it's been prepared with plentiful amounts of monosodium glutamate, salt, pepper and saturated fats. They pack the shelves with canned foods and overstock the closet with cases of green tea. (Part of the reason I like visiting their house is because it is a silo of tasty treats).
In such an environment, how can one NOT acquire health complications?
I ask myself, where are the responsible parents when you need them? How can parents be so negligent in feeding their family? Don't all parents know you can't feed your kids deep fried foods every other day?
It is true that nutritional science is a vast discipline and you can't expect every parent to be well versed in it. But that is no excuse for feeding your kids preservative-rich meals every day. The media frequently reminds us that junk food, excessive salt and overindulgence of any food is unhealthy. If a parent is unaware of this, or worse yet, encourages gluttony in children, then s/he should not be a parent!
I reflect on George's situation and conclude that there was no way for him to avoid health complications, especially when his parents also exhibit poor eating habits. How can children learn to eat properly when their parents fail to eat properly?
From my experience growing up in a restaurant and from my experience conversing with the customers, I'd say 20% of parents do not know how to properly feed their families. Often times, customers would ask my mom for advice on how to manage their child's illness. My mom, after listening to recurring stories of poor nutritional practices, advises the customer:
"Ice tea is not a substitute for water",
"It doesn't matter how much your son loves shrimp; if your son is allergic to shrimp, then you can't feed him shrimp, no matter how severe a tantrum he throws",
"Of course eating four whole lobsters by yourself will put you in the hospital",
"Don't let your kids pick out all the peas, carrots and onions; they need to eat their veggies".
It's surprising how these common sense solutions escape 20% of parents in Toronto.
The more I think about kids like George, the more I wish someone would discipline the parents.
***I just read The Trouble with Stem Cell written by Kai, another DF writer. Consider a rich capitalist in the fast food industry investing billions into a form of stem cell research that will eliminate heart disease. Kids will be able to live off of soda and fries. That's a lot of riches for the capitalist. If irresponsible parents feed their kids junk everyday, imagine what will happen when the capitalist has his way.
Yeah man the government can't legislate how to raise the kids, but they can provide subsidies that make healthy food affordable and just as accessible as McDumpy's. Imagine if you could get a truly healthy meal just as cheap and quickly as a Happy Meal, and if you didn't have to drive 10 miles to get it. Trust me, people would be thinner..
sometimes I just want to open up a temple, take everyone's kids, and raise them myself. The world will thank me when we're one cohesive kung fu kicking machine.
i didn't touch on the fast food lifestyle as much...but definitely that's a big problem too. For now, I just wished the families that do cook show a little more responsibility when preparing meals....msg and deep fried butter shouldn't be a staple
I think that the quality of food definitely plays a factor, but I'm a firm believer that our sedentary lifestyle is the real problem. Even if you don't have the greatest diet, if you exercise and do a lot of physical activities, it tends to compensate any potential weight gain that a poor choice of food would cause. However, these days, we're becoming more and more like those people in WALL-E...we drive to work in our cars, sit at our desks all day, occasionally grabbing that vending machine snack, then go home, have dinner, and sit in front of the t.v., with the cycle repeating itself the next day. 100 years ago, putting lack of medical knowledge and resources aside, people were more physically fit because they tended to work more on the land and do more physical labour in general.
If you were to go back in time, and attempt to fight a Roman, for e.g., he would literally destroy you to pieces.
it's never one or the other, it's both which is why in health promo we now use the twin-track approach where we go out and educate on the canada's food guide to healthy living now publicized in a larger leaflet that includes canada's physical activity guide. we even receive language training and aren't allowed to use the terms "diet" and "exercise". instead we use "healthy food choices" and "physical activity", so these details are being looked at and applied at the grassroots. also the social determinants of health are now being looked at holistically rather than just diet/ + exercise. food security is now a major aspect of public health and involves even more disciplines than ever including urban planning, mixed housing neighbourhoods, real estate, resident engagement, grassroots + policy development. so although there are small developments being done to address the issue, there's still a need for more funding for prevention and self management rather than primary care which is where most ministry funding is being channeled.
Interesting take on the subject. It's crazy how many health problems you can avoid by keeping the weight off. I understand your frustration with parents who overfeed their children. A part of me does wish there was some way of making these parents stop feeding their kids to death but at the same time, you don't want the government interfering in the way people raise their kids.