The other day I was having lunch in a shopping mall Food Court with my five-year-old son when I overheard a conversation that left me sad and seething in equal measure.
It wasn’t about the war in Syria. It wasn’t about the Auckland house prices, or a haircut that seemed like such a good idea when the stylist suggested the chop. Oh no, no, no, it was about a frozen soft drink.
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“Order a large frozen Coke,” I heard a woman call out to her partner in crime standing in the queue at a popular fast food outlet. “Get a big one so we can put some in baby’s bottle.”
WTF? Surely she’s joking, I thought as my eyes locked with the adorable doe-eyed boy about 12-months-old strapped into a stroller next to the woman.
Nope, not joking as the reality of what she had suggested played out in front of me a few minutes later.
There is no reason in the world to justify why she would be putting this type of drink in her small child’s bottle.
To quote Jamie Oliver, this woman was an a***hole.
The celebrity chef, who campaigns for better habits in our kids, has come under fire for “losing it” with his passion to push the message on a British TV show. He’s had enough, he’s not going to cut them any slack.
“I’ve spent two years being PC about parents, now is the time to say, ‘If you’re giving your young children fizzy drinks you’re an a***hole, you’re a tosser. If you give them bags of crisps you’re an idiot. If you aren’t cooking them a hot meal, sort it out.’ If they truly care they’ve got to take control,” he said.
I tend to agree. I kind of want to give Jamie a ticker tape parade.
Children, especially small children, rely on their parents to make good decisions for them. The kid in the stroller wasn’t making the decision about what went in the bottle, the adult was. It was an idiot choice to make and Kiwi parents are making them every day.
Just yesterday a study came out saying three quarters of New Zealand children could be at risk of developing long-term heart disease unless they can lose weight. It will affect their life expectancy.
In short, we’re killing our kids. If we don’t start talking about the realities of ‘fizzy in the bottle’ we’re in big trouble.
No one is perfect – on said ‘Bottle-gate’ day my own child was eating sushi with a side order of chips! He didn’t need those chips. He just wanted them and I didn’t say no. I’m an a***hole, guilty as charged!
In the storm of controversy Jamie has created with his statement I’ve seen people comment that it’s just a symptom of the real problem – the financial realities for people today, that junk-food is cheaper than the healthy alternative.
That’s a whole other argument but in the case of the baby and the bottle, water is free, so whose fault is it really?
WATCH: Jamie Oliver reveals the biggest problem with kids eating healthy food
