Slow Mother Blog
March 27, 2012
Sometimes it's the little things...
Yesterday my children told me that they were the only ones who didn’t have ‘packets’ for their school lunches.
It turns out that Yani hasn’t been eating at school during lunch time because he is afraid what people will say when he eats his yoghurt, or biscuits, or left over dinner out of small plastic containers. Yesterday’s comment from a classmate was: ‘Ew, that’s digusting, get away from him’ - Yani was attempting to eat a favourite vegetable curry meal from a container. Pacha verified the story saying sheepishly, ‘ it’s true, but please let us keep going to the school…’
They may be little things – but it seems to bring up so much about the illness in our society. Maybe it was just the timing of it. The same day I had read these articles and pondered on the connections:
The ever-increasing ‘plastic soup’ of garbage that now stretches all the way between Japan and Hawaii:
The ongoing obesity epidemic in Australia – especially in children: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Australia)
The evidence that good nutrition in childhood leads to lifelong intelligence: (http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/1054895/Early-diet-may-linked-intelligence-says-study/)
The link between lower intelligence and prejudice: (http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-social-conservatism-racism.html)
The connections seem obvious to me, yet if you talk about it you run the risk of being branded as ‘radical’ or a trouble-maker. And if your innocent, bright, open-minded children bring healthy, unpackaged lunches to school they run the risk of social exclusion.
So, Yani has asked me to come to the school to explain to the kids about the rubbish floating in the Pacific Ocean. I’ve sent the article link to the school Principal and asked if there could be some reward system for those who limit their rubbish in their lunchboxes. I was trying to be ‘less involved’ in this new school…seems like that’s going to be hard…
