It was ironic I was interviewed by Dzulfitri Yusop from Astro Awani today on the topic: Fat Kids – Obesity & Healthy Lifestyle Starts At Home. Ironic, because I actually was a fat kid. And that was some 30-40 years ago when fat kids were rare, unlike today. So you can imagine how lonely and fat I felt back then when other kids sang me the Pak Gemok Dang Dang song. Yes, the one that goes:
Pak gemok dang dang
pak gemok jual udang
tak laku sekupang
balik rumah kena tendang
I was hurt. Very very hurt.
So I promised myself in the later years – when I started to lose some kilos and started to have the itch about boys and marriage – that I shall never have fat kids. With all the information I now have on Food Pyramid, Healthy Diet, Different Blood Type and Different Diet…I have no excuse. I have to make sure my kids eat healthily, have the awareness of what junk food does to the different parts of their body and follow certain eating rules. I am not my parents who, in the 60’s and 70’s, had no information at their fingertips. I had to eat what they ate, and be thankful.
So now, with my own kids in the later and supposedly better millenium…other than making certain that the fridge is stuffed with more white meat than red, more wholemeal this-n-that than white, more vegies that are red, orange and green than in the tins, my rules now are simple.
I decide:
-
what they eat
-
when they eat
My kids decide:
- how much they eat
Plus some treats:
Friday is the POPCORN day.
Sunday is the ICE CREAM day.
My husband, however, has made some modification to it. Now Friday is also the MILK SHAKE day, alternately (with POPCORN).
No, Kitreena and Edrick are far from perfect or ideal kids. They still pout, frown, whine, complain, kick, scream and go on strike when they are made to down their vegetables. And yes, they can survive on popcorn and ice-cream alone seven days a week, three hundred sixty five days a year if I let them. But they are in MY house, so they can starve themselves if they don’t want to eat my spinach or kailan or pucuk labu (pumpkin/squash vine). Fine with me. See if I care.
Though not the ’roundest’ in their class, Kitreena and Edrick still get teased at school (Kitreena, for having curly hair, Edrick for his chubby cheeks). I can’t stop other kids from being kids. For all I know, my kids tease other kids too. Kitreena and Edrick were not born angels (nor geniuses). But at least I know what my kids are. They are what they eat.
The only trick to my rules is, I try to feed these kids healthy food only. And my definition of healthy is: as little deep-fried food as possible, no overcooked vegetables, as much milk as their bones and teeth desire, one glass of juice per day, water water water, no pops. And definitely, the ‘size-of-their-fist’ rule applies. I observe this as much as I can at home. I try not to eat out as much. Kitreena tapau lunch from home. I scared her with…”You never know where the canteen ladies’ index fingers have been.”
Footnote:
- Yes. I did say this is my definition of healthy eating habits.
- No. Water-it-down syrup or cordial is NOT juice.
- Of course I don’t only eat spinach, kailan and pucuk labu. I eat pucuk paku oso.
- The popcorn, milk shake and ice cream is only their afternoon snack once a week, so as not to deprive them of what other kids get. It’s not the whole-day-meal deal.
- And ‘size-of-MY-fist’ is the portion you get on your face if you are reading this only to roll your eyes at my konon-bagus effort to feed my kids. Go feed your own ego.
- If you were not a fat kid, you might not understand the fuss.
By now my tears would be rolling down my cheeks heaved with this rindu for a man as charming and as gentle as my Abang Ramlee. Forget about talent, a man does not have to be talented to be charming and gentle. He just has to have a loving heart. Talent is like my Abang Ramlee’s moustache. He had had it shaven clean, but it never wiped his irresistable smiles off of his face. And now thinking of my Abang Ramlee’s smiles at 3 o’clock in the morning, I wish he could be singing to me the part of the Pukul Tiga Pagi song that goes… ‘Besok petang kanda pulang, kita sembang panjang-panjang, dinda jangan bimbang…’
Questa è Enida 
