In continuing with last month's rant about stupid shit said by dumb people and men, I will today discuss the issue of working mothers and their responsibility for childhood obesity. This was also one of those cases of severe mouth diarrhea at work. It was, however, not said by anyone of the male persuasion. It was actually an older woman. I was having a discussion with her about the importance of staying active as we discovered we had exercise habits in common. Now don't get me wrong, she is a nice older woman. She is friendly to pretty much everyone, and is most certainly not dumb. The comment just sort of threw me off balance when she said it. Basically she believes it is the mother's job to be at home with the children, thus making sure they get healthy food and nourishment as well as keeping them out of trouble. She informed me that women should wait to find work that they enjoy until after their children are old enough to take care of themselves. She then insisted that there would be less cases of childhood obesity, and all the negatives that come along with it like childhood diabetes, if only the mother was there to make good homemade meals for her children. Mothers today just don't have time for that because of their careers.
I was quite angry about this when she said it, but I kept my thoughts to myself. She grew up in a very different time than I did. She has already raised her children, and she is doing exactly what she believes right by working now that they are grown ( and I suspect they have children of their own now). If she were one of my grandparents, I may have argued with her, but I get that we grew up in different time periods.
Childhood obesity is an increasing problem here in the United States as well as in other Western nations around the world. A couple of facts about childhood obesity courtesy of the CDC: childhood obesity has more than tripled in the last 30 years. In 1980, 7% of children from ages six to 11 were obese. In 2008 about 20% of the children in that age range were obese. Childhood obesity can cause a number of problems like high cholesterol and blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease. It can cause diabetes. It can cause damage to children's joints and bones. Also, children who are obese tend to be obese as adults as well. The main question of this of course is why is it happening? Why are children, and grown adults for that matter, more obese now than they were before?
I think the main answer to that question would be we just eat more and are more sedentary now than we, as the human race, were in the past. Food has changed drastically now as well. Food high in sugar and fat are far more available than they were in the past. It is very easy to pop a few quarters in to a vending machine or to stop for fast food. We, as humans, also evolved in very different conditions than we live in now. Food at the time we evolved was scarce (there was little energy or calories). We had work very hard to find nourishment at that time period, so humans weren't really at risk for obesity. Now we have more food available than we know what to do with. The body evolved to store as much energy as it can in order to survive. Now we don't necessarily need our bodies to store energy like that because we have so much food available.
Now I'd like to examine whether or not working mothers are responsible for this. I do think it is true that people these days just don't have as much time to cook healthy meals as in the past. I do not agree that this is due to mothers working however. Most households need the extra income. It is very difficult these days to provide for a family with just one parent bringing in an income. It is for the most part necessary for mothers to work. However, even if a family is able to survive off of one income, should a mother still have to stay at home if she doesn't want to? Absolutely not! I don't understand why we as women should have to sacrifice our interests and careers just because the baby popped out of our uterus. Men are quite necessary for creating a baby too. They can help raise the child.
Not to mention the fact that generally speaking, if a child has obese parents, the child is most likely to be obese as well. I don't think it matters whether the mom is staying at home taking care of the children or working, if a good example of healthy living is not being provided, the child will probably grow to be an unhealthy adult as well. If a stay-at-home mom stays home and cooks, but makes unhealthy food, chances are her children are going to be unhealthy, and her staying at home won't help that at all. Not to mention ,there are many more healthy items at fast food places now than there were in the past. There are salads and grilled items you can choose instead of fried things. You can get apples too for crying out loud. So, not cooking homemade meals doesn't mean that you can't still make healthy choices when it comes to food for your family. Plus there are a lot of cookbooks now that provide fast, healthy, and easy recipes for people who have little time to cook, so you really can't blame working mothers for being the cause of childhood obesity.
I was mostly offended by this comment because both of my parents worked while raising my siblings and myself, and I feel like they did a pretty damn good job with it. A woman should not be tied to her home raising children when she wants a career and a life. I'm not bashing stay-at-home moms either because I respect that choice. I just feel that if a woman wants to work or wants a hobby or a life outside of children, she should be able to have one. And that's that!
