The Pot bellied Gannu…..continues

The other day I bumped into a “building friend” from my childhood.  Talk veered to what we were doing these days and as soon as I mentioned my  revived career, pat was the request to help her curb her weight after the failure of her last diet. Standing there I experienced a flashback, a la hindi movies with the spinning colours and the thought bubble taking me back 30 yrs.This friend of mine was always the podgy one but also the pretty one in the eyes of all the old aunties of the colony who appreciated the chubby cheeks and the “flesh on the bones” as compared to the thin ones who were called “sukhleli bombill” i.e. dried bombay duck which you find drying on rods in the fisherman colonies. Coming back to the present I realised nothing had changed. As a teenager she was always on one fad diet after another in an attempt to lose the childhood deposited flab and 30 yrs later it was the same story. It saddened  me to see her plight but in the next second I was equally maddened. From behind her emerged her daughter, a miniature version of my friend – facepalm.

The kindergarten section of the school my children go to had a wonderful rule. Fridays were Junk-food days. Monday to Thursday no child was allowed to carry a snack which was remotely non-nutritious. The wise headmistress, seasoned to parents trying to bribe their children with their favourite snacks, enforced this rule with an iron hand. This rule brought about a number of advantages. First, 5 and 6 year olds learnt what was healthy for them and what was not. Second they learnt that junk food was not an option on a daily basis. Third, they learnt that patience brings sweet and sometimes savoury results and most importantly they learnt to cherish the junk food treat which came after 4 days, akin to a mini lifetime for that age group! A hat-tip to that system.

As parents if we apply the above system to our kids’ everyday lives where just one meal in a week on a pre-designated day is a junk meal , it can be a win-win situation for both parties. It addresses the children’s want for junk food along with the parents want for the kids to eat healthy. Consider it.