We may have reached the stage when parents must prove they can actually cook

I WAS in a restaurant the other day with some friends, far away in a foreign land, where, at the next table, two young children were kicking up a fuss, making a noise and generally ruining things for the rest of us. Who did they think they were? We were paying good money to sit in an adult environment and enjoy good adult time. It didn’t need spoiling by a couple of ill-brought up children who didn’t know any better.

But it turned out all right because the restaurant’s management picked up the phone, reported them to some government body and a couple of officials burst in and carted them away in a padded van to be re-educated. Now that’s what I call a solution. Or it would be if it had really happened because I did experience these little darlings, but nothing was, or could legally be, done about it.

But maybe it could. Because a little while ago, a spokesman for the National Obesity Forum actually put forward what seems a similar idea. Notwithstanding that it seems ludicrous that we should have such a body – the forum I mean, not an obese body – it also begs disbelief that such an idea should get media time.

The thinking behind it was that obese children should be treated the same as malnourished ones – as victims of abuse. But the logical extension of such argument is that any child not brought up to conform to the standards of such august bodies should be taken away from its parents. He suggested incarceration and stomach-stapling which, for a symptom rather than a cause, seems somewhat excessive.

It’s the cause that really needs addressing and is one issue to which the likes of Jamie Oliver is doing his damnedest to make some difference, but he’s got an uphill struggle. He may achieve an enhancement of his reputation, but can media chefs such as Jamie solve the real problem; that most people no longer understand food?

It’s a fact that, as a percentage of the UK population, fewer people cook these days than ever before. And if you don’t cook, you can’t choose which basic ingredients go into your and your children’s bodies and it’s no surprise that we end up with mothers giving their children what’s demanded rather than what’s needed and they get fat.

As if to reinforce things, I did a survey of a team of builders working near our restaurant in Durham and found that most of the blokes, because that’s what they were, seemed to live on takeaways – and thought it normal. These are ordinary family blokes (ok, not women, but we are supposed to live in enlightened equality times) but “cooking” involved opening a tin or putting a frozen pie in the oven. The idea of actually cooking a stew was alien and prompted laughter and none of them could see my point because, being builders, they tended to work off any excess.

You’ll always get some parents claiming that they are intelligent and very aware of what their children should be eating but, despite all efforts and received advice, the kids still become obese. Well of course there are always going to be some exceptions, but they are the ones that prove the rule. Common sense tells us that most overweight children are breaking one of life’s fundamentals; that if you put in more than you can use, you’re going to get fat.

I’ve watched mothers picking up their children from our local village school and, after a quick cuddle, presenting them with a chocolate bar. Do they really need to buy their affection? But it clearly demonstrates where the real problem lies, and it’s not with the child.

Of course, as I said, there are always exceptions. So if a child is being force fed like a foie gras goose then maybe it needs temporarily removing from its parents; but only for as long as is necessary to sort the parents out. That’s the crux of the issue and we should all take seriously the objective of those who are trying to make us take the subject seriously.

Instead of kidnapping children once they’ve got too fat, maybe we should force parents to prove that they can cook before being allowed to procreate. A little harsh perhaps, but it’s quite apparent we’re not terribly good at bringing up children when we don’t know what we’re doing. But it’s due to a whole generation missing out on the relevant education that’s contributed to the problems we’ve got now and no matter how long it takes, it really needs addressing.