Does a Working Family Equal an Unhealthy Family?

Does a Working Family Equal an Unhealthy Family?

 I am about to confess to a guilty TV watching pleasure. While I’ve never been hot about television, I do occasionally find shows that I love to watch so much that I might actually tape (or shall we say TIVO?) them if I can’t sit down and watch them when they are on. I won’t go through my list of really ridiculous shows (let’s just say that yes, Millionare Matchmaker is one of them!), but I have to fess up to this one: The View. I simply cannot get enough of the ladies on this show, and the way that they discuss politics and the latest hot topics. I really enjoy the diversity and the conversations that go on particularly in the first twenty minutes of each show.

Today I was watching my taped View and the conversation turned into one about obesity in America and one of the ladies said that this could be the first generation to live less long than their parents thanks to the large obesity problem that we have right now with children. Obviously obesity leads to health problems like high blood pressure and heart issues.

Then Barbara Walters made a statement that really curled my feathers. She said she wonders if the problem with obesity in children is caused by the fact that we have so many working mothers in our society now. Working mothers are busy, she said, and maybe they go through the drive through a bit more than a mother who doesn’t work.

For a while I was furious. I work from home, so I”m on the fence between staying at home and working. I know this, and I always feel a little ‘out of it’ when it comes to certain discussions, since I have the luxury of being at home when I need to be (ie: to get dinner on the table) though I do still work and have to deal with issues related to a job as well.

However, I do consider myself a working mother. I own a company and each day I work on that company, even though I am doing so out of a home office rather than an office downtown. I have schedule issues as well, yet I still find enough time to cook dinner most nights of the week. In fact, I am what some (including my husband) consider a health nut. We don’t keep junk in our home. We don’t allow our older daughter to eat a bowl of ice cream everyday and we only put on one hour of TV for her a day, if that.

So Barbara’s comment really bothered me. I don’t believe that being a working mother means that you are going to run through the drive through every night on the way home because you don’t have enough time to cook dinner. I believe that running through the drive through really has nothing to do with your occupation or your time frame. If I were working out side of the home every day I still wouldn’t run through the drive through on the way home because I know that isn’t healthy and I don’t want to serve it to my kids every night-or any night. In fact, my oldest has only had fast food hamburgers one time in her life and she has no idea what McDonald’s is!  

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