I honestly thought my first post about Thai food would be one of those standard essays about lovely, fresh, Thai food and how it is full of flavour and cheap. I didn’t think I’d be writing about this so soon but it’s been there since we arrived, nagging away at the back of my mind so I’m letting it out now. JUNK FOOD!!
I C.A.N.T B.E.L.I.E.V.E how much junk food people eat here. Especially KIDS!! It might just be my family or the people we hang out with but I have a suspicion that it’s not.
I only notice it because I have a child here – during our first trip here before we were even married I was impressed that I didn’t eat chocolate for a month here as I didn’t see it around so much. Not any more. Where do I start? In England, our son B was brought up pretty normally – eating 3 meals a day, mostly freshly cooked, healthy stuff. He’d have the odd treat – chocolate, ice cream, crisps but at most a few times a week. And that was often down to T – I’m not a big snack or junk food eater so when I was with B it was even less. I had a hint of it when B was younger and T’s eldest aunt in London fed him crisps and coke – how strange, I thought, I’ve never seen anyone give a one-year-old crisps and coke. That’s just them, I thought, they and their kids eat quite a bit of junk food.
But now we’re living here in Isaan, it’s hit me – it feels like junk food is attacking B and I from all sides and I spend half my life fighting it off. It just hits you from out of nowhere, sometimes when you’re least expecting it. B is a great eater – he eats his meals up, he eats pretty much everything, he eats his rice and pasta and meat and fruit and vegetables. Like all kids he likes snacks and junk food as well. But here they’re just everywhere. Let’s look at the diet of his cousin C – she’s about the same age. From chocolate milk in the morning to a packet of crisps before lunch to coke with lunch to an ice cream in the afternoon to some sweets in the evening to more chocolate milk later. And not just on a special day – a birthday, a party, or even a Saturday. EVERY DAY. She doesn’t eat much breakfast, then she eats snacks, then she doesn’t eat much lunch, then she snacks, then she doesn’t eat much in the evening, then she snacks. See the pattern? Her mum brushes her teeth in the evening but she always eats or drinks something sweet afterwards anyway. Two of her teeth are black. Her MILK TEETH! I’ve never seen a kid in the UK with bad milk teeth – of course they exist but that’s amongst another world of uneducated and poor people….not anyone I know.
I understand that people are different here – most people are grazers and snackers and don’t necessarily eat three large meals a day. Kids are the same. That was great until recently when they food they were grazing and snacking was fresh from the street stalls or made at home. But in all the convenience stores and supermarkets, crisps and snacks and chocolate and ice cream have slowly crept in until they have become a normal part of everyday food. The reason? Because the parents don’t say ‘no’. They actually CAN’T say no – I’ve seen them try and they physically can’t. It’s just not part of their psyche – it is ingrained in them to not say ‘no’ to anyone so this applies to kids as well. Even if by not saying no they are harming them. And the shops are so near – there’s always a corner shop that even a 5-year-old can reach or see – not like in the UK where we were a 10-minute walk away from the nearest newsagent.
Some examples of fighting off the junk. We were out shopping with B, cousin C and her mum P. Cousin C went up to a donut stall and say “I want one!” Her mum said “No, you can’t have one”. Cousin C said “I want one” again and without even hesitating, her mum said “Which one do you want”. She just rolled over without a fight – easy. This is the cousin with the bad teeth. So then of course B had to have one and he ended up eating all of his whereas C nibbled half of hers then left the rest for her mum to hoover up. Another time we all went to the market to eat dinner, again with cousin C and her mum P. We ordered water to drink. Cousin C ran up to the fridge and picked up a can of fizzy drink. B was hanging around so P gave a can to him as well. This time I had to intervene – I ran up and pretty much snatched the can out of his hand and put it back, saying to P “No, he doesn’t want it”. She looked at me as if I was a child-beater and flashed a look of pity at B. I tried to sweeten the blow by saying “He hasn’t eaten yet, he won’t eat properly if he has a fizzy drink now. I’ll get him one after he’s eaten”. She looked sadly at the can of fizzy drink again then back at B before reluctantly nodding her head in agreement. Of course, he ate his dinner then completely forgot about the fizzy drink, happy with his water.
I understand why people here don’t like to say ‘no’. But I just don’t get it when it actually causes harm. When it results in your child eating lots of unhealthy snacks and junk food. When it results in them drinking lots of sweet or fizzy drinks. When it results in the painfully skinny, malnourished kids you see here who probably don’t even eat one decent meal a day yet are eating crisps and drinking coke. Or the fat ones who they say look so cute – but it won’t be funny when they can’t run and they get fatter and unhealthier and get sick. When it results in kids with milk teeth so bad that they hurt all day and they can’t chew on that side of their mouth and the dentist can’t put fillings in milk teeth and they can’t take it out because the child is too young for an anaesthetic – so she just has to like with the pain until it falls out naturally. These are not poor kids – they’re comfortably off working class kids. Their parents have new cars and iphones and nice clothes.
What’s the answer? I hardly ever give him treats myself – which is a shame as it’s nice to share a treat moment with your child. I’m constantly hissing to B “no more snacks until you’ve had dinner” or to T “he hasn’t eaten yet” as a reason for not giving him crisps like that nagging mum/wife that I never wanted to be. And I don’t let him hang out with other people when I’m not there as often as I would. When I say “no”, the family look at me as if I’m the devil incarnate. I’ve heard them gossiping “She doesn’t let him eat snacks”, “He’s not allowed ice cream”. I don’t care. He’ll thank me for it one day.
girlinisaan 