I didn’t really do anything today. It wasn’t my intent to be at home all day. Originally I had planned to visit with a friend who is recouping from surgery. She wasn’t feeling well and canceled on me and before I could contemplate whether or not to go into work (why when I know my hours are covered for what I have going on the rest of the week?) the phone rang and it was our Home Warranty scheduling our service call for the water heater. “He’ll be there between 1pm -4pm.” Really? Normally I’d be perturbed that I was forced to cancel whatever was going on for the day to wait around for a service call, but today it was like God was saying, “Take a chill pill!”
Before I could chill I had to be productive or else I couldn’t ‘chill’. Isn’t that sick? Trust me, I’m not bragging! I wish I could just enjoy having more than an hour to sit. Last night a revelation came to me in regards to the new novel I’m writing so this morning I was given the time to start over. I’m scrapping everything I’d written so far (yes 5 chapters!!!) and going at it from a completely different perspective. It is exciting and fun again which is what tells me that I’m on the right track. 🙂
After writing for a little over an hour I decided I deserved to sit and watch a movie. “Up in the Air” was the only ‘non-kid’ movie available. The movie managed to hold my attention (but I also did 3 loads of laundry!).
That is the surface of my day. What lay underneath as I folded clothes and watched a movie was the reoccurring thought that couldn’t switch off since I’d heard a snippet of an interview with First Lady Obama. (No worries, I won’t get political.) She was discussing her platform of child obesity. It wasn’t anything she said except that she is wanting to spread the awareness of child obesity. What hit me was that most of the underlying cause of child obesity is some form of abuse. Most people when they hear the word ‘abuse’ they think ‘sexual’ or ‘physical’…noooo…abuse can be verbal (and non- verbal, the act of abandonment or ignoring the child all together) which leads to mental and emotional issues that results in low self-esteem and that is the cause of most obese (and anorexic/bolemic) issues (with the exception of the few medical issues).
At any rate, what frustrated me was to have a public figure that has a world-wide platform and can really bring light to an issue and yet they are not addressing the true cause of the issue. Nutrition and what goes into the child’s mouth is surface. Fix the underlying problem. Cure the esteem and then see a world that can really change.
I witness this in my own son. He is a bit bigger than most of the kids in his class but by all means no where near obesity, yet when a kid calls him ‘fat’ I can see the light in his eyes dim. I think about the last few years when he’s slowly become a bit heavier in the middle and ironically it came about when Neal and I were having a few issues like most marriages do. God fixed that for us ( 🙂 ) but I imagined I failed to see how it might have affected my son’s ‘esteem’. Mix that with his genetics (doctor says he’s healthy and no need to worry) and I can see how food can become a comfort rather than a fuel.
So I’m not trying to point fingers at anyone and start proclaiming that all these parents of obese children are abusers! You never know what a child is hearing at school, from friends, or what it is they are needing but don’t know how to ask for from their parents. It is complicated but if it were addressed as a reality then we could all be more aware.
I don’t have an answer on how to fix it. But I do feel awareness can help all of us to be more conscience of our own behaviors which will throw a kink in the cycle. That’s all I’m saying. At least on that aspect of ‘abuse’.
I’m done. 🙂 Maybe I really do need to take a chill pill!
Blessings
Shannon