Corporate greed feeds personal greed

Children in Cyprus have one of the highest obesity rates in Europe, Poly Pantelides reports in the CM today.  Why does this not surprise me? 

The number of kids I see stuffing their faces on burgers and chips and ice cream on Larnaca seafront every weekend while their parents look on blithely is surpassed only by the number of designer handbags their mummies carry. 

The mums are usually stick thin and self-consciously elegant.  One wonders then why they encourage their kids to turn into diabetic roly-polies with eating disorders and low self-esteem. 

Is it an attempt to keep the kids quiet and subdued? That’s not working – most Cypriot kids are loud and unruly with non-existent table manners.  It can’t be ignorance about a proper diet since the mums know how apply it to themselves.  Or is it ignorance or lack of choice about what to do at the weekends other than go to a cafe? 

Truth be told, I like seeing whole families hang out together in Cyprus – it’s one of the great strengths of Cypriot society.  Unlike other parts of Europe where many families are fragmented and warped:  single mums, divorced "weekend dads", gay "parents" or no parents - teenagers in state care homes or living on the streets. 

But whole families don’t always mean healthy families. 

A common sight in cafes here is dad watching football on an overhead screen, not talking to bored wife who is on her mobile phone facebooking or texting her friends/lover, in between admonishing but not really paying attention to bored kid(s) stuffing face. 

Most Cypriot mums are working mums these days:  they need to in order to keep up with the Joneses (the Ioannous) and get those designer handbags.  Cypriot kids are routinely put into after school clubs, private tutorial lessons, or looked after by grandma until mum and dad come home.  Then they eat.  Most Cypriot men would rather be seen dead than cook (unless it’s a “manly” barbecue).  Tired women make bad cooks.  It’s easier and quicker to buy a bumper pack of ready-made reconstituted chicken brains and bones. 

Food is the focal point of most social gatherings in Cyprus.  Not always a bad thing: it requires generosity, hospitality and social skills.  But the proliferation of fast food chains, takeaway pizzas and junk food on the island has changed the way people behave and look. 

Perhaps if the average Cypriot family was less concerned with acquiring the latest Range Rover the next generation will not be such a huge drain on the public health system, which all taxpayers in Cyprus and the rest of the EU will have to pay for.

O Jesus, who chose a life of poverty and obscurity, grant me the grace to keep my heart detached from the transitory things of this world.  Let it be that henceforth, You are my only treasure, for You are infinitely more precious than all other possessions.  My heart is too solicitous for the vain and fleeting things of earth.  Make me always mindful of Your warning words:  “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul?”  Grant me the grace to keep Your holy example always before my eyes, that I may despise the nothingness of this world and make You the object of all my desires and affection.  Amen.