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| Jamie Oliver’s obesity advice? Procreate or just keep mum Jamie Oliver’s obesity advice? Procreate or just keep mum | |
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| Among my greater regrets as a parent is not learning, in time to try it, Jamie Oliver’s tip for correcting an unruly child. “I give them chillies for punishment,” said the celebrity chef, campaigner and parenting guru. He was inspired after one of his many children – the total, I understand, now stands at nine or more – was disrespectful to him. “She asked for an apple. I cut it up into several pieces and I rubbed it with Scotch Bonnet and it worked a treat. She ran up to mum and said, ‘this is peppery’. I was in the corner laughing.” | Among my greater regrets as a parent is not learning, in time to try it, Jamie Oliver’s tip for correcting an unruly child. “I give them chillies for punishment,” said the celebrity chef, campaigner and parenting guru. He was inspired after one of his many children – the total, I understand, now stands at nine or more – was disrespectful to him. “She asked for an apple. I cut it up into several pieces and I rubbed it with Scotch Bonnet and it worked a treat. She ran up to mum and said, ‘this is peppery’. I was in the corner laughing.” |
| Moral: always keep a good stock of Scotch Bonnet chillies in your parenting store cupboard. Or better, a range of chillies, to cater for different levels of insubordination, and for children whose sophisticated palates may require something stronger than the Scotch Bonnet’s 350,000 Scoville heat units to make the mouth burn with pain. Some tiger mothers speak highly of the Carolina Reaper, at least in the run-up to exams. | Moral: always keep a good stock of Scotch Bonnet chillies in your parenting store cupboard. Or better, a range of chillies, to cater for different levels of insubordination, and for children whose sophisticated palates may require something stronger than the Scotch Bonnet’s 350,000 Scoville heat units to make the mouth burn with pain. Some tiger mothers speak highly of the Carolina Reaper, at least in the run-up to exams. |
| And that, to the uninitiated, is what it is to act like a parent, a practice which Oliver, with his dietician’s hat on, has just recommended to Theresa May. In an interview in the Radio Times, promoting a series called Family Super Foods, he proposed a link between child-rearing and improved public health decisions, Mrs May having just chosen to combat epidemic child obesity with a minor sugary drinks charge. “Don’t get me wrong”, Oliver said, “I’m not slagging her off for the sake of it. I wanted her to act not like a politician, but a parent.” | And that, to the uninitiated, is what it is to act like a parent, a practice which Oliver, with his dietician’s hat on, has just recommended to Theresa May. In an interview in the Radio Times, promoting a series called Family Super Foods, he proposed a link between child-rearing and improved public health decisions, Mrs May having just chosen to combat epidemic child obesity with a minor sugary drinks charge. “Don’t get me wrong”, Oliver said, “I’m not slagging her off for the sake of it. I wanted her to act not like a politician, but a parent.” |
| That might be tricky, the interviewer informed Mr Oliver, in that Mrs May has no children. “I didn’t know that,” Oliver confessed. And to be fair, the campaigner was probably busy posting inspirational, dad-and-baby selfies when the current environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, made childless-shaming a feature of the Tory leadership contest. Speaking, she emphasised, as a mother of three, Leadsom suggested that May, like her fellow non-mum, Angela Merkel, was at a tragic disadvantage. “Genuinely, I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake.” | That might be tricky, the interviewer informed Mr Oliver, in that Mrs May has no children. “I didn’t know that,” Oliver confessed. And to be fair, the campaigner was probably busy posting inspirational, dad-and-baby selfies when the current environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, made childless-shaming a feature of the Tory leadership contest. Speaking, she emphasised, as a mother of three, Leadsom suggested that May, like her fellow non-mum, Angela Merkel, was at a tragic disadvantage. “Genuinely, I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake.” |
| The fact that Oliver must also have overlooked renewed debate about the intrusive scrutiny of intangibly-staked women celebrities and politicians, following Nicola Sturgeon’s disclosures, does not, of course, devalue his criticism of the food industry and its protection by the Tories. Further dilution, by May, of an already feeble obesity strategy is, as Oliver suggests, a shocker, being suspect-looking as well as backward and irresponsible, and thoroughly disheartening to anyone who believed her early rhetoric about the less privileged. | The fact that Oliver must also have overlooked renewed debate about the intrusive scrutiny of intangibly-staked women celebrities and politicians, following Nicola Sturgeon’s disclosures, does not, of course, devalue his criticism of the food industry and its protection by the Tories. Further dilution, by May, of an already feeble obesity strategy is, as Oliver suggests, a shocker, being suspect-looking as well as backward and irresponsible, and thoroughly disheartening to anyone who believed her early rhetoric about the less privileged. |
| Obesity, as Sir Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, wrote in the Guardian, after May made – quietly, from her holidays – her second most offensive decision after the promotion of father-of-five, Boris Johnson, “has a disproportionate impact on the poorest in our society … the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be obese.” | Obesity, as Sir Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, wrote in the Guardian, after May made – quietly, from her holidays – her second most offensive decision after the promotion of father-of-five, Boris Johnson, “has a disproportionate impact on the poorest in our society … the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be obese.” |
| What does Oliver mean by telling May to act like a parent? Should she be advocating chilli-spiked punishments, like him? | What does Oliver mean by telling May to act like a parent? Should she be advocating chilli-spiked punishments, like him? |
| Even so, there are enough overweight people around to indicate a measure of parental responsibility for this outcome. If parents were, really, the solution to poor dietary habits, then Oliver would not need politicians to act like parents. He confirmed it himself during his school dinners campaign of 2006, around the same time a group of Rotherham mothers had started a mercy junk food run, for children nauseated by healthy options. | Even so, there are enough overweight people around to indicate a measure of parental responsibility for this outcome. If parents were, really, the solution to poor dietary habits, then Oliver would not need politicians to act like parents. He confirmed it himself during his school dinners campaign of 2006, around the same time a group of Rotherham mothers had started a mercy junk food run, for children nauseated by healthy options. |
| On television, Oliver lost patience. “I’ve spent two years being PC about parents,” he said. “Now is the time to say, ‘If you’re giving your young children fizzy drinks you’re an arsehole, 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.” | On television, Oliver lost patience. “I’ve spent two years being PC about parents,” he said. “Now is the time to say, ‘If you’re giving your young children fizzy drinks you’re an arsehole, 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.” |
| That this was possibly not ideal marketing, as the Oliver brand expanded from cookery books and programmes into the current £240m empire of necessarily arsehole-and-tosser-friendly goods and restaurants, with a continuing sideline in free public health advice, may partly account for his current conviction that parents enjoy a moral edge over politicians, and not only Mrs May. For although his comments about the prime minister were ignorant and poorly timed, it should be said in his defence that he is happy – with a line that promises to replace the old “pukka” as his catchphrase – to insult childless politicians of both sexes. | That this was possibly not ideal marketing, as the Oliver brand expanded from cookery books and programmes into the current £240m empire of necessarily arsehole-and-tosser-friendly goods and restaurants, with a continuing sideline in free public health advice, may partly account for his current conviction that parents enjoy a moral edge over politicians, and not only Mrs May. For although his comments about the prime minister were ignorant and poorly timed, it should be said in his defence that he is happy – with a line that promises to replace the old “pukka” as his catchphrase – to insult childless politicians of both sexes. |
| Where reducing sugar is concerned, he has argued, the state should “frankly, act like a parent”. And of David Cameron’s public health responsibilities, “I’m not really as interested in him as a politician [so much] as a father.” | Where reducing sugar is concerned, he has argued, the state should “frankly, act like a parent”. And of David Cameron’s public health responsibilities, “I’m not really as interested in him as a politician [so much] as a father.” |
| The comment could hardly have been more pleasing to a politician who, from the start, adopted the young-family line of political self-promotion that has emerged since child-rearing was elevated, as Nora Ephron once put it, “to a sacrament”. Moments after the death of John Smith, for instance, Cherie Blair identified her children as electoral attractions with which the then single Gordon Brown could not possibly compete. “What could be more grounding than bringing up a young family?” Mrs Blair asks readers of her autobiography. Oh, I don’t know. Property speculation with her style adviser’s conman boyfriend? It perplexed Cherie that Brown hadn’t married, even for appearances: “If he had, in my view, he would inevitably have been a more rounded person, with another dimension to his life.” | The comment could hardly have been more pleasing to a politician who, from the start, adopted the young-family line of political self-promotion that has emerged since child-rearing was elevated, as Nora Ephron once put it, “to a sacrament”. Moments after the death of John Smith, for instance, Cherie Blair identified her children as electoral attractions with which the then single Gordon Brown could not possibly compete. “What could be more grounding than bringing up a young family?” Mrs Blair asks readers of her autobiography. Oh, I don’t know. Property speculation with her style adviser’s conman boyfriend? It perplexed Cherie that Brown hadn’t married, even for appearances: “If he had, in my view, he would inevitably have been a more rounded person, with another dimension to his life.” |
| That the public benefits of the Blairs’ parenting experience (including the addition of yet another dimension after Cherie neglected her “equipment”), are still not clear – least of all to the parents whose children were sent, by Blair, to their deaths – has yet to diminish respect for similar, imagined assets. Conversely, Nicola Sturgeon has felt compelled to explain having no children. | That the public benefits of the Blairs’ parenting experience (including the addition of yet another dimension after Cherie neglected her “equipment”), are still not clear – least of all to the parents whose children were sent, by Blair, to their deaths – has yet to diminish respect for similar, imagined assets. Conversely, Nicola Sturgeon has felt compelled to explain having no children. |
| As for Leadsom, she was just exceptionally stupid in throwing down her fertility challenge, as opposed to reciting “mum”, and “school run”, and alluding, repeatedly, to her child total. | As for Leadsom, she was just exceptionally stupid in throwing down her fertility challenge, as opposed to reciting “mum”, and “school run”, and alluding, repeatedly, to her child total. |
| She might have learned, for example, from the 2015 general election, which doubled as a parent-off between Cameron, with his rueful, Nancy anecdotes, and Miliband’s “as the dad of two young boys”. But older is good too, for anyone in the one career – assuming we exclude midwifery, fostering and the aristocracy – where reproductive fitness constitutes a qualification. In the US, Trump lines up his various dependants as if determined to prove that prolific parenting is entirely compatible with viciousness and folly. | She might have learned, for example, from the 2015 general election, which doubled as a parent-off between Cameron, with his rueful, Nancy anecdotes, and Miliband’s “as the dad of two young boys”. But older is good too, for anyone in the one career – assuming we exclude midwifery, fostering and the aristocracy – where reproductive fitness constitutes a qualification. In the US, Trump lines up his various dependants as if determined to prove that prolific parenting is entirely compatible with viciousness and folly. |
| Even with school-run credentials, I’m not sure what Oliver means by telling May to act like a parent. Should she be advocating chilli-spiked punishments, like him? Or Blair’s “loving smack”? Or does he have in mind that fathomless altruism whose absence Leadsom diagnosed in the less blessed? That tangible stake she shares with fellow parents, Gove and Johnson, Hilton and Farage? Because if so, it’s surely time Oliver said to that sort of parent, if you’re gambling children’s futures, you’re an arsehole, you’re a tosser, if you’re holding unnecessary referendums, you’re an idiot – try acting like a politician. | Even with school-run credentials, I’m not sure what Oliver means by telling May to act like a parent. Should she be advocating chilli-spiked punishments, like him? Or Blair’s “loving smack”? Or does he have in mind that fathomless altruism whose absence Leadsom diagnosed in the less blessed? That tangible stake she shares with fellow parents, Gove and Johnson, Hilton and Farage? Because if so, it’s surely time Oliver said to that sort of parent, if you’re gambling children’s futures, you’re an arsehole, you’re a tosser, if you’re holding unnecessary referendums, you’re an idiot – try acting like a politician. |