The Very Unnecessarily Obese Schoolchildren

This week some politician or other (I forget; I don't pay that much attention) has come under fire for a comment that implies that deprived families spawn the most obese children. Or words to that effect. I don't think that any child should be clinically obese when what they ought to be doing is swinging from monkey bars and scraping their shins climbing up trees. So, I have sought to come up with a way to ease the strain on the chubby children's patellas.

Jamie Oliver was obviously a source of inspiration, changing the eating habits (eventually) of  many a schoolchild from within the educational system. Pat on the back. But let us go further, and instil in children from a very young age what is good, healthy food and what is not. My idea is actually so simple, I don't know why it hasn't already been done. David Cameron, get ready to add this to your next manifesto: we petition for The Very Hungry Caterpillar to be a mandatory piece of literature on the curriculum.

No, really. The Very Hungry Caterpillar might have an insatiable appetite but he generally eats the right stuff: an apple on Monday; two pears on Tuesday; three plums on Wednesday; four strawberries on Thursday; and five oranges on Friday. (This is actually beginning to sound like a Craig David song. Just without sex.) He goes off the rails a bit on Saturday, but we'll get to that. By the end, then, he turns into a beautiful, sparkling specimen of a butterfly - a great nutritional lesson for kids. I suppose the only way they'll manage to become as colourful as the butterfly is if the juices of various fruits squirt all over their little faces, but that's a given. Even as an adult I can never munch on a plum without getting the juice all over my hands.

The fruit may also want to be tempered with vegetables of some description or what's liable to happen are incidents of a pants-filling nature. Then again, if a child is wolfing down five oranges in one go, I think that constitutes as rather abnormal behaviour.

And the Very Hungry Caterpillar does indulge in a fair few fattening items which aren't really part of a typical caterpillar's diet (for example, one sausage, one lollipop, and one piece of chocolate cake), but there's that wonderful word 'editing'. Just omit the part about the cupcake and ice-cream, and we're away. Bring out a special edition for cutting down on child obesity. Or blame the fact that the Very Hungry Caterpillar felt so awful with his poorly tummy after eating all that food on the rubbishy food he gobbled. Well, he wasn't ill after eating those five oranges, was he?

So that is my plan. Because an added benefit is that a child isn't as statistically likely to be mugged by the school bully for sticks of carrot. Plus, they'll be much more able to run away.