Passing judgement...from my couch
It finally happened. I have been proven...wait for it...wrong.
I am not sure my view of the world will ever recover 
.
You see, ladies and gents, the other day I witnessed something I had believed I would never see.
A Gillian McKeith Family.
Now, I am not sure if dear Dr Gillian has made it across the Atlantic.
If not...hmm...how should I describe her?
Well, in the most diplomatic terms, I shall say she is a diminutive yet surprisingly scary Scottish nutritionist who searches out Britain's unhealthiest families, proceeds to put the fear of God into them about what their habits are doing to them, and then sees them back to health (or eight weeks of it, anyway) with a strict macrobiotic diet. All on national telly.
'You Are What You Eat', the show is called. And it drives me mad.
I will leave aside my concerns about the merits/sustainability/cost implications of Dr Gillian's remedies, at least for the time being.
My main issue with her show has always been those families.
I used to watch in disbelief as Gillian made her latest unsuspecting victims keep a food diary, then piled up on a table exactly what they had eaten in the last week.
'Noooo,' I would scream at the television (classic telly-screaming fodder, is 'You Are What You Eat'). 'Dammit, no, no, no', I would insist as the camera panned slowly across acres of chips, cakes, chocolate, crisps, cheese, curry, Chinese (we all know most of the unhealthy foods begin with 'c'). Not to mention full-sugar Coke, economy white bread with lashings of lard and brown sauce, 40 pints of cider, a few pasties, half a dozen cheeseburgers (extra mayo, lettuce removed), and a couple of deep-fried pizzas.
With nary a fruit or veg portion to be seen.
I hated it. Because THOSE.FAMILIES.JUST.DO.NOT.EXIST. No-one, and I repeat no-one, eats that badly.
And I was very confident in my opinions. Because I weighed 15 stone. And I ate badly. And my habits had never, ever approached that.
I admit, I did eat all that junk. But I (note the smug tone here) ate it in addition to my regular meals. And so I was getting my nutrients 
.
My husband disagreed with me. I didn't understand why. He must know by now I am always right. But he would always say, 'You are giving people too much credit. You have seen the entire aisle of frozen chips in Asda. You know people buy that stuff.'
'Well then, how come I've never seen them?' I would counter triumphantly, brandishing my well-worn trump card with pride.
And so we continued, pretty much every Tuesday night during each series run. Yes, I lead an exciting existence.
And then it actually happened. This Sunday, at Asda, I finally came face to face (or rather, trolley to trolley) with a real, bona fide Gillian McKeith Family.
I am not talking about people with your averagely unhealthy trolley. That is me too, from time to time. No, I am talking about an entire weekly shop consisting of literally nothing but complete rubbish.
I didn't actually mind being proven wrong. Because I was so excited. I felt like a naturalist who, after years of fruitless toil, finally stumbles upon the only existing specimen of some...interesting beetly thing everyone thought had been extinct for a hundred years.
I mean, a real Gillian McKeith family! Right behind me in the checkout queue! Where I could stare at them for ten full minutes while the cashier attempted to find a barcode on my chicken! I could barely resist the urge to point at them and shout 'There! There!', but managed to settle instead for whispering and gesticulating frantically to my hubby.
This will show you, straight off, that I wasn't regarding this family with the sort of attitude of human brotherhood that would do me credit. I have to admit it. I was acting like a snobby cow. Because I was just too fascinated. Plus, I had just spent an hour in Asda on a wet Bank Holiday Sunday. I was pissed off.
Anyway...behind me in the queue were a mother and two daughters, aged about 15 and 10. They were all significantly overweight. In their trolley were white bread, sausages, two meat feast pizzas, four ready meal curries, streaky bacon, a bag of frozen chips, chocolate ice cream, strawberry ice cream, a family pack of chocolate cookies, a large bar of Dairy Milk chocolate, a bottle of full-sugar Coke and the chocolate bars the daughters had selected from beside the checkout. There was not one single piece of fruit or veg, fresh or otherwise, on that conveyor belt.
So apart from the fact that I have a memory which would make me a prime contestant for the Generation Game (if not the ability to build a working bridge out of spaghetti and old socks), what have we learned from this?
You might well say to me, 'What's your problem? They are entitled to eat what they like.'
And you would be right. But what did it for me was the single tub of Weight Watchers ice cream balanced precariously on top of the whole greasy, pre-packaged heap. Because what that meant to me was that at least one member of this family was unhappy with their health. And addressing it in precisely the way guaranteed to make sure nothing changed.
And then I just got furious. I looked at those daughters. They were such pretty girls (see, I told you I was being judgemental and non-PC and all that. It isn't going to end anytime soon).
These girls just looked so bad. They had obviously taken care with their appearance, but they were busting out of their fashionable clothes. They couldn't manage to wait in line without leaning on the checkout, let alone run around with their friends. Their skin had such an unhealthy pallor you could have been forgiven for thinking they were actually ill.
And I just looked at their mom and thought, 'I can understand you doing this to yourself. But it is almost criminal that you are doing this to those poor children.'
In this day and age, no-one can claim not to know growing kids need some fruit and veg. Could she not even have bought a carton of fruit juice?
I know unhealthy food is usually cheaper in the UK. But she was buying the more expensive brands. Those girls didn't even ask their mum if they could have the chocolate from the counter. They just picked it up - implying either that it is a regular 'treat', or they knew she just wasn't going to say anything.
I ended up driving home feeling really sad. I couldn't stop thinking about it.
I am well aware I have the wrong attitude. I could have the wrong end of the stick. I don't know that family from Adam. I have no clue as to their situation, their motivations, their desires. I have no right to pass judgement.
Especially when I have so many things I need to work on in my own life.
The private lives of others are really none of my business. And yet, the whole experience just made me really upset. And judgemental 
.
And that is that, really! Yep, no profound insights. No interesting things I can take from this and apply to my own life. Just a good, old-fashioned, comfortable conviction of personal superiority. Which, after all, is what these kinds of diet shows are all about, right?
So I'll just grab my Pringles and settle down for the next episode...
Love Rach xxx 
ha-ha)
Especially the part where you said that "your husband must know by now that you're always right!!!" ( Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!! LOL 
MissyBelle