Before I start this little rant, I want you to know that I am no Kate Moss.  I’m a UK size 16 and although I used to have terrible eating habits throughout school, I try to eat a balanced diet now.  There are days where I’ll eat a junk snack or chocolate bar, but usually, I eat my five portions a day and I balance the bad with the good.

So, I went to my local shop today to get some lunch, and this lady and her child kept walking into me.  I felt it was very rude, but hey - the aisles are small and neither of us was a size zeros so I let it go.

I started to notice more and more what she was putting in her basket, sausage rolls, bottles of coke, chocolate bars, chocolate cakes, etc and it started making me think about what that was teaching her daughter about eating.  Like I said, I am not some fit, thin, women who will eat nothing but broccoli, but I certainly don’t fill my shopping basket with junk, either.  As her daughter eats all of that rubbish the calories and fat content will not be good for her.  The sugar and E numbers in a bottle of coke is enough for me to go hyperactive, and I’m 21 years of age.

I am sure that the women is a good mother, I am not questioning her parenting skills, but maybe more thought needs to be put into educating parents on healthy eating.  I think that if the sausage roll and chocolate bar was accompanied by a bottle of pure juice, or a piece of fruit, the message that she would be putting across to her daughter would be completely different.

The government says that obesity levels in the UK are on the rise, and that by 2010 more than 1 million children will become obese.  The medical research council in the UK has sent leaflets to the government outlining the problems and risks that will take over in the population if action is not taken now.  I think the most positive and effective step would be to try and educate new parents, accompanied by the ongoing work in schools.

Children in schools today are the parents of tomorrow, so the more they learn about the importance of healthy eating, the more their children will benefit, and so on.

What do you think?  What did you have for lunch today?  Does your school promote healthy eating?

  A Little Rant

Some of you may have noticed that I am trying hard to keep this site updated and relevant. And for those of you that haven’t notice, here is a list of updates:

I have added an article to the website which I actually wrote a few months ago about my method of selecting colours.

I have added an article I wrote about web 2.0 design.

I have updated the ‘about Carly‘ page. (Complete with photo!)

I have updated, and am still working on, the resources page, with brushes, textures, WordPress and other links.

I removed the top navigation panel and edited the layout slightly.

Also, I am working on compiling an information page on fonts, complete with links and tutorials, and I am
going to also add some more paint shop pro brushes soon, I have them on my computer but need to upload them.

  Updates

As I am one for trying new and wonderful things, I decided to see what the fuss is all about with digital scrapbooking. When I first tried to find resources, explainations and tutorials some time ago, I found it quite hard work. Now the web is overflowing with them - and there are hell of a lot of great free embelishments and elements for your pages, if you know where to look.

So, I compiled this little list of the best places to get freebies, all for you. I’ve not actually made anything yet but I hope to share something with you soon!

Shabbyprincess.- personal, non-commercial use, tutorials and downloads.
Scrapbook-bytes - tutorials, gallery of layouts, forum, downloads.
Corel PSP Tutorials - paint shop pro 8 scrapbooking tutorials from Corel.
Corel PSP Tubes - scrapbooking downloads for all versions of paint shop pro.
Corel PSP Picture Frames - a variety of styles of frames for your work.

-Edit- new resources to share:
Oscraps.com and digiscrapinfo.com thank you Connie!

hummiesworld.com - more freebies , thank you!
Last but not least.. do you have any pictures, sites or tutorials to share? I’d love to see!

-Edit (07/07/07) I found this lovely site:

http://www.scrapadelic.com/shop/

  Hobbies and Crafts, Resources

  Digital Scrapbooking, Resources

Typing away at the keyboard, I thought I could sence a slight burning smell.  Scared it may be my laptop, I picked it up - inspected it, but it was fine.  Maybe it was the cooker: maybe my housemate left it turned on?  I highly doubted that, as I’d been down just moments before to make a cup of tea - and I would have noticed, right?

I carried on typing, regardless - at this point it wasn’t actually overly noticable.  Typing. Typing. BANG.  What..the?  Fireworks?  Not linking the two together - was that a firework?  A firework at easter? Then suddenly.  Panic spread through my body… I knew exactly what it was.

I jumped out of bed so quickly, ran down stairs, hesitated - my housemates asleep: but what if it was his car on fire?
Though it wasn’t his car, or the cooker.  It wasn’t my laptop, or a firework.  It was the bins agan.

For two weeks in a row, at half past midnight some lunatic has set the bin next door on fire.  Firstly, it was a big, green, biifa style bin.  After that burned, they got a big metal bin.  The next week that too was on fire, along with somebodies bin accross the road.  It went quiet for three weeks and now, the bin was again on fire.  Apparently there were instances of fires in other bins and skips accross york during the second week of fire.  My guess, some pyromaniac is starting fires accross the city.  When it’s next to your house, it feel kind of personal though.  You get creeped out thinking it could have been your bin on fire.  I was so scared it was our turn for the fire, I thought it might of been one of our cars (parked next to our bins) that had exploded.  Luckily, this time, it wasn’t.

Anybody out there had any similar, strange experiences?

  Put The Kettle On

I’ve been experimenting on myself somewhat over the last couple of weeks. I went a whole week eating 2 plums, 2 clementines, a Kiwi and an innocent smoothie a day (an expensive habbit but worth it for a total of 5 portions of fruit a day) and then a week without eating my five portions and the difference in how I feel is very noticable to me. I was more awake, more chirpy and feeling generally healthier during that week with all the fruit. I was surviving off 6/7 hours of sleep a night, not my usual need for 9/10 because I’m feeling so exhausted!

So I’m going to hit the shops, and buy some ‘superfood‘ fruits to kick start my healthy eating again!

What I was mostly excited about though, was the fact that if you eat just one kiwi, it is so full of vitamin C that it counts as 1 portion of your 5-A-Day. So easy to fit one in as a snack.

External Links:
NHS Website - What Counts as a Portion?
Fruit and Veggie - Recipes, Tips and Fun for Kids

  Twisted Barfly