How many weetabix should a baby eat?

Well, apparently Arthur likes to eat 3 for breakfast! Yes, 3! I almost fell over.  He had one at home before going to nursery where he then promptly tucked into another 2......Oh my! Surely that it not normal.  Are we creating a blimp baby? Do we have an obesity crisis in development???

Three weetabix.  That's more than me!

So, it made me think about a few things:

(a) obesity levels in children - apparently by 11, 33% of children are obese in the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7777108.stm.  That's quite frightening.  Obviously there are many reasons for this and there are lots of commentators who look at issues such as lack of activity, over-eating, eating the wrong things, poverty levels etc.  It makes me think of the story regarding the health visitor who commented to a friend of a friend that she had people 'blending macdonalds meals' to give to their babies when they were weaning them.  Now some might argue that 'in poor areas, there isn't the access to fresh fruit and vegetables and that for some, Macdonalds might be the nearest place to get affordable food to eat'.  Others might say that it was to do with education.  But whatever the reason, it's clearly a sad state of affairs as what you eat whilst pregnant and then what the child eats in the first 2 years of life is so important for it's future development.

I went to an interesting talk the other week by a lady working in Zimbabwe who was looking at issues of malnutrition and stunting and trying to work out what the interactions were in the environment which were impacting on children.  She talked about the first 1000 days of life - http://www.thousanddays.org/about/ - and the work they are doing to monitor pregnant women and children up to 18 months/2 years.  The statistics on child stunting, malnutrition and longer term brain, bone etc development were quite stark. 

(b) Being outside - there are all those statistics being shared at the moment about how children aren't playing outside as much. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/8623152/Children-no-longer-enjoy-playing-outdoors.html

The other weekend we spent most of the time inside (it was raining and raining and raining) but we still managed to go bowling - Arthur wanted to rush off down the lane to get to the skittles!

This weekend the sun was shining as a result we spent the whole weekend outside and there were families everywhere - running around, playing football, flying kites and generally enjoying themselves.So, the National Trust has started this 50 Things to do by the time you're 11 and 3/4! I was reading this in some magazine last week and it made me smile - I want to try some of these!   the link is below - it makes me laugh as they have to have the 'Health and Safety' comments added too - don't climb a tree on a wet day, don't roll down a really steep slope and so on...

https://www.50things.org.uk/parents-area.aspx

Which ones would I have a go at in my slightly older age?  Here we go:

- bury someone in the sand (I buried my dad and brother when I was young - but think this needs to be done with a certain husband now!)
- hunt for treasure on a beach - preferably find some real treasure with real sparkly gold!
- get behind a waterfall (apart from the fake one at Wisley in the greenhouse)
- go on a nature trail at night
- go wild swimming (do Hampstead Heath ponds count...? probably not)
- find a geocache - what on earth is this? technology enabled treasure hunting. 

And on that note, I'm hungry and need to eat something.  It's cold and wet outside (well it is May!) so I'm off to find a cinammon bun from the freezer, one we made earlier: