Environment

The other day I was struck with reality in a battle of weight vs. survival...as always, I lost.

The other day, while volunteering at a summer camp, we decided to have a "cooking day".  The idea was fabulous; we would make salads, and pita bread snacks together with the children, and feast on it all together.

 I was working with a group of children going into second grade, so it is obvious that these kids are pretty young.  In the beginning of the day, one of the girls came up to me and informed me that she would not be eating the pita as it is fattening.  I was a bit taken aback and asked her why she cared whether the pita was fattening or not.  She told me that she was fat and she needed to go on a diet.  I was pretty bothered by this, and asked her if she thought I was fat to which she immediately answered yes (this ruined my argument to her that I eat everything I want and am still skinny due to the fact that I walk).  I didn't know what else to say to her, as obviously she was being raised in a way where she is way too self conscious about her body and society's opinion of body image.  By the way, the kid is not fat, or even on her way to getting overweight.

Anyways, to make a long story short, at the end of the day the child asked me what I do with my water bottles when I finish with them.  I told her that I re-use it until I am done with the bottle then I recycle it.  Recycle?  What's that?

I tried to give the ten second explanation of recycling and why we do it to a six year old, but by the end of three seconds she was bored and probably day dreaming about pita bread.

I must admit, I find it very perturbing to know that some children are taught from an extremely young age to not be comfortable with their bodies and must diet, diet, diet?when the parents have not even begun to teach their child of the importance of social consciousness within our world.  A six year old has never heard of recycling, but diets because she thinks she's fat?and that is becoming the norm, am I the only person who sees a problem with this?