Tuesday 7 April 2015

What a difference the weather makes.

I think we have all had quite enough of the Winter this year, whichever side of the Atlantic we live on, so the fine, warm weather at last makes us all feel so much better.   It needed to because I never got round to ordering my groceries on line this week because of a house full of friends and family.   This meant that this afternoon I had to go to our Supermarket and shop.   Various people said that it would be nice for me to look round and see a few different things.   Well let me tell you one and all - it was not nice to look round, I didn't see anything I particularly wanted to buy and I hastened round and got back home as soon as possible.   And I have no desire to repeat the experience - henceforth it will be on line ordering for me.

In the fields the farmer is whizzing up and down on his new fertiliser spreader.   Field after field is being done and he is hoping to get it all done today, then he can tick another job off his very long list.   Meanwhile he reports to me that the marsh marigolds are out on the beck and that the fields are full of those little miniature suns - the celandine - brought out by two or three days of sunshine.
Hopefully I shall get down to the beck tomorrow to photograph them - they are two of my favourite flowers.

In the Supermarket I met one or two very, very large young women - I would say they were clinically obese.   They each had small children with them and they were all finding it difficult to move around because of their size.   Their trolleys appeared to be full of the most unsuitable foods and I felt saddened that this kind of thing becomes a self-perpetuating life style for some young people.   They were so obese that I felt sure they could not be happy with their size - all were I would guess under thirty.   Am I making snap judgements here?   Have I any right at all to judge?  Who am I to dictate what anyone should or shouldn't eat?  I really would be interested to know how you view people you meet who fall into this category.

17 comments:

Heather said...

I have been enjoying these past few glorious days in case they don't stay for long. We have loads of celandine in the garden - such a pretty weed which obligingly disappears completely after flowering. We also have kingcups or marsh marigold type flowers in the pond looking lovely in the sunshine.
Like you I feel concerned by the weight some young people carry and wonder if it is because they have never been taught about nutrition or how to cook a meal, so they rely on snacks and ready meals.

donna baker said...

The beck? I do love the words used in other countries, especially yours. As for weight, from your picture I assume you've always been naturally thin. For others, it is a life long struggle filled with shame and many other terrible feelings. Early trauma, mental disorders? It is not because of willpower. Then again, I guess we all choose our poison don't we.

Joanne Noragon said...

Pat, my youngest daughter was morbidly obese. Several years ago she undertook a diet and exercise regime that left her still very obese. She ate her way to this state to obliterate the consequences of continued bad decisions. When I took custody of three of the children, all were overweight and one was obese. As a result of daily activity and real food, my grandson left here a slim and good looking young man. Back in his parents' care, he has become obese in under a year. His older sister is obese. Of the two I still have, the youngest is appropriate for her size and the older stabilized but still overweight. They know good eating habits, realize when they visit their mother all the bad choices are the only choices, but cannot say no to sugar and monstrous helpings. I wonder what will happen to them in future. They know they are responsible for their choices, as are their mother and their siblings. We'll see.
Well, I have used a great deal of your territory here on my personal experience with obesity. I learned how to make good personal choices when I was 22, picked up my chart in the doctor's office after the birth of my oldest daughter and read "condition of stomach: obese." At the time I was sixty pounds over weight. Never again.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Joanne - such an interesting read and I think you have touched upon one of the reasons for this = it is habit and a habit one tends to pick up when little or no alternative food is on offer. Then a craving for fatty food or chocolate or other sweet food kicks in and the cycle repeats itself. So sad. Thank you for your contribution.

angryparsnip said...

I am over weight.
I despise it. I eat healthy food, don't really like chocolate or even sweets that much.
I eat a lot of fresh veggie, protein and try to cut out the carbs.
But I have had arthritis since I was 17, Valley Fever and fibromyaigia (I have the markers for Lupus) I have had one knee operation then fell on the other one. so walking is very hard for me,
That is why I can't wait till I can turn on my pool heater so I can walk in my pool everyday.
I know people look at me like why don't you just lose weight ?
Every pound I lose is a battle.

But to feed yourself and your children with fatty foods plus snack foods is just awful.
I do believe some people are just thin. I have a friend who eats everything and has not gained a pound in the 25 years I have known her. I can only look and eat my salad.

cheers, parsnip

Anna of Mutton Style and Years said...

We have little white anemones out in the woods. Blubells will be next. As for food, well I have the opposite problem with my girls. One had an inflamed intestine a few weeks ago and the hospital starved her to fix it. She's down to 6 stone but trying to get her weight up. The other one is busy and hard up so I fill my fridge so she can pop over and rummage for food.

the veg artist said...

People making poor choices about anything saddens me, but the issues around food seem to be so complicated. Addiction to fatty and sugary foods starts somewhere, but who to blame if a family has nowhere to buy fresh fruit and veg? Or no basic starter kit to cook with?
Yes, some supermarkets are cheap, but I wouldn't want to juggle a few small kids, a buggy, and several bags of shopping home on the bus, in the rain, only to have to climb up the stairs because the lift has broken.
Being able to cook is another issue, but so is having some good basic kit. When I was first married I built up an excellent selection of pots and pans, each with their own purpose, and I still use many of them now.
Do young people still do this?

Times have changed, many skills being lost along the way.

Simon Douglas Thompson said...

Also think that this country is very unhappy, hence drinking too much and comfort binge eating

JoAnn ( Scene Through My Eyes) said...

I agree with Parsnip - the treatment of overweight people that I have observed is horrible - and I'm sure that they are judged as being lazy and eating badly - and many of them are not either one. Some people have the metabolism to eat anything they want and others can have 600 calories a day and not lose weight - sad that we often think badly of a person for the way they look - either their size or what their face looks like. It is what is inside a person that should be important.

Gwil W said...

There was a documentary film called Supersize Me about the house of the big yellow M and the dangers of eating the wrong foods to excess. After 3 or 4 weeks the guy who was the guinea pig was ordered to stop eating in the big M by a team of doctors. Even people with not much money can buy healthy foods like beans, tomatoes, bananas, apples, pasta, porridge, etc. so there's no need to fill the supermarket trolley with crisps, cola, processed foods, white bread etc. (it why they make them bigger these days!!!). The government should do more to promote healthy eating.

thelma said...

Maybe the super markets are at fault, just check the pizza aisles for a start. Prepared food all with added fat, sugar and salt trains the palate to want more.
Fascinating TV programme on at the moment about foods we ate from the 1950s onwards, there was just a small choice and you had to cook to eat. In Iceland in the 1970's you had to shovel the frozen foods into bags, can you imagine it now?

thelma said...

That is 'Iceland' the shop not the country by the way!

The Weaver of Grass said...

Thanks everyone. It seems we are all agreed to a large extent.

Mac n' Janet said...

I hate grocery shopping, if I could do it online I would. There seems to be an epidemic of obesity here in this country and I'm afraid I do judge people's appearance. And I always look at what other people are buying.

Terry and Linda said...

I am very excited to see the photographs of your two very favorite flowers.

Terry is fertilizing now also...what a push and shove this time of year is.

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
https://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/sherlock-boomer

thousandflower said...

Isn't it time we just let people be who there are, fat, thin, tall, short, dumb, smart. We come in all sizes and shapes and we're all people. Overweight people aren't hurting me in any way. If I think I am too heavy I'll so something about it, or not. It's true there are a lot more overweight people around than may 20 years ago but that is at least in part due to the fact that we have an abundance of food. A good famine would solve the problem really fast. As farmers we know that if animals are on lush pasture they get fat, if the pasture is poor they get thin. And, of course, some animals are "easy keepers" and need less feed to get fat. We once raised Highland ponies and you couldn't let them graze on lush pasture for even a day without them foundering. The sort of pasture that thoroughbreds need to just keep fit. I really don't know why we are so obsessed with fat. It isn't an economic problem because insurance records show that the people who really cost the medical system the most money are healthy old people that live a long time and need maintenance for years at the end because they are too healthy to just drop dead. My family tends to fit into that category usually so I guess we'll help make someone rich at the end. And think of the economic disaster if we all stopped buying junk, after all. That's a BIG industry.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Thousand flower, I would agree with you to some extent, but I am not talking about just fat people - the women I saw were fat to the extent that they could hardly walk - surely that would place an enormous strain on heart and lungs and on all joints. I am only a slight amount overweight but have been advised to lose it for the sake of my knees which are showing signs of wear and tear. Lovely to hear from you by the way - I often think of our nice evening together.