fade out into the stars

as i was driving to work today...i just can't get the above picture of Connor and his mother out of my head...recently the issue of child obesity has been intensely debated..in England, the Local Safeguarding Children Board is empowered to conduct a hearing on taking over custody of a child when the child in their area is seen to be likely to suffer any potential harm.The hearing was held under the Children Act, which places a duty on the local authority to conduct an inquiry if it has "reasonable cause to suspect that a child ... in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm."..indeed the law comes into play as the welfare of a child is the paramount consideration under the law.

as the parents are the ones who have the physical control over the well being of their child, it seems like every one is putting the blame on the parents when their children are not eating healthy food...and again when an obese child is discovered, the parents are being accused of self-neglect of their own children's well being...i guess to some extent, it's justified to say that the parents are responsible to make sure that their children are eating right..and to some extent it is justifiable to say that it's not the parents alone bear such responsibility as the government also plays an enormously crucial role to curb this problem.

Joe Quenan writes : "The measure of human success is no longer the life well lived but the lifestyle well lived". Obesity and diabetes has been always seen as middle-age problem..but now, it's getting even worse as the number of people with obesity and diabetes keeps on increasing rapidly among children. come to think about it, it would not be fair to do the blameshifting to the parents alone when this era we are living now is flooded with the non-stop advertising of low nutrient, high calories food that keeps on appearing during commercial breaks...which is again out of the parental control to stop those children from watching the commercials...it has become a lifestyle that is so close to us than we could ever imagine..even I myself couldn't really stop myself from picking up the phone and order those unhealthy fast food every time i found this tempting pamphlet in between the pages of my morning newspaper.

i still remember watching one of my favourite jamie oliver: the naked chef where there was one segment about jamie and his campaign to promote "eat healthy food" among school children who would only eat cheese burgers, chicken nuggets made of gross animal fat, and sausages. on various occasions, frustration was all that he got as it was really hard to even convince the school board to approve his campaign to serve healthy food in schools just for one silly reason, "the kids are not eating it". and the the second reason was the processed food was cheaper and to get the budget to be reassessed to replace those processed food with the healthier one would have to deal with bureaucracy in a higher level (the school board even the ministry).

i believe that to solve this distracting scenario, the government would have to step in and be sincere enough to deal with this problem...and the government has to be honest enough to put aside any lucrative motive on any policy if the law is said to be implemented unconditionally, and to reaffirm the notion that everything that is taken into consideration is nothing but for the common good of the people. and i believe it is the right time that we live a life rather than the lifestyle that only benefits one's economic or material interest..In the end , it is in a child best interest that he lives in a safe and healthy surrounding as guaranteed by the law.