20 Jul 2006
Eugenie Jenkins
Sir: Are you a parent? I ask because, until my child entered school for the first time at age 14, I would have agreed with you. My daughter was very fit, ate well and exercised. She had very limited access to junk food because she was home schooled. And because she was home schooled she had a more balanced life, with more time to read and exercise (play outside). She gained 25 pounds in her first year of regular school. Albeit, she also grew two inches, but she is no longer a slim child. At her age i weighed twenty pounds less and we are the same height. She still is no yett fat and she does play team sports, but she is no longer slim, nor particularly fit. My point is that parents cannot control what a child eats outside the home when the parent is not with the child. it becomes impossible when the child enters the teens years and needs a modicum of freedom and decision making. How else to prepare a child for life in the US? We don't live in a traditional society where there is very little individual choice and decision making among teens, or women for that matter. I now feel that I might have provided too much guidance and control over what my child ate. I thought at the time, that I should give her choices, but ones between several healthy kinds of foods. It turns out that by not having soda, chips and candy in the house occassionally, i appear to have created a craving for it. My child refuses to eat whole grains of any sort now. We still do not keep junk food in the house, but my child seldom eats what we serve anymore (and I am considered by outside sources to be a good cook). She wants only fats and starch. She gets it at school, friends' homes, movie theatres, summer camps, etc. She buys it with money she earns baby and dog sitting. How is it that I and my husband are to control that exactly? We try to reason with her, she reads every article i can find on healthy choices and good nutrition and her doctor reiterates all of it. She does not have an eating disorder, by the way. Of course, she doesn't hesitiate to tell me she will have one if I don't stop bothering her about the food she eats. I don't ask this facetiosly. If you have an answer for me, I'd love to hear it. Thanks for thinking about this. Eugenie

7 Oct 2006
joe michaels
ultimately we are resposible for our own physical fitness, not the state. good article! joe member/supporter independent womens forum

11 Nov 2006
Cassandra
This is actually a comment on part VI of the travel diaries, but the link has brought me here instead. "As I drive through the city in a taxi, its prosperity, its wealth, staggers me. I can’t believe that it is real or lasting; in fact, I don’t think it is real or lasting. But it would take too long to explain why. The seven fat years will be followed by the seven lean." Well, that would be an interesting topic for a separate article. I have my own reasons for thinking that our present prosperity is transient; I would be interested in reading Theodore Dalrymple's.

16 Jan 2007
Mick sherman
Part 1of his travel diary has sent me here, so I'll write here. I live in Geneva. Dalrymple is repeating cliches, not responding to what he has actually seen. While cleaner than the UK, Geneva isn't 'spotlessly' clean. People don't stare angrily at jaywalkers. There are plenty of lifts in car parks that aren't encrusted with marble. My opinion of Dalrymple has gone down from reading those things.

6 Feb 2007
manuel blanco
As a result of so much traveling, reading and observing Dr. Dalrymple´s points of view are always suggestive and didactical.Being a spanish myself-though I actually live in Peru- I share with him a pessimistic approach on the future of european countries.The main problem, as I see it, is that europeans are loosing an important ingredient of life that has to do with personal satisfaction: the sense of adventure. Too much pprotectionism on the part of the government leads to boredom for the individual. To my surprise Dr. Dalrymple has not included Spain in his traveling through European countries. Is it because Spain is no longer considered a European country or because of lack of funding?. In this case I am willing to collaborate with a collect to raise money so that he can continue with his interesting traveling to the rest of european countries.

20 Feb 2007
denise carter

 "It is always safer, from the point of view of gaining the esteem of the intelligentsia and of avoiding their censure, to blame those in authority or large corporations rather than ‘ordinary’ people, who are by definition blameless victims. "

There is no better illustration of this truth than an article published today regarding crime in New Orleans.  A mother gave her son a gun with which to avenge an earlier scrape with another young man.  The son murdered the man.  When the authorities came to arrest Mom they found cocaine as well as a prominently displayed photograph of her son with money in one hand and a gun in the other hand.   

The conclusion: 

"For us to correct this, we have to look at the root of the problem. The root of the problem is our education system," Police Superintendent Warren Riley said in an interview.

 The root of this problem is this home and only a wilful idiot could refuse to see this.  But in keeping with Dr. Dalrymple's observation, blame is shifted from this amoral mother to the "system."  This young man was in trouble for at least five years before he got to the educational system.

Keep writing Dr. D.  Your insights are like a breath of fresh air.

3 Jun 2007
M.J.Milne

I enjoy reading your web articles. Very enjoyable.

L2L,

M. J. Milne, author 'Universal Tides: Barbed Wire Blues:

www.UniversalTides.com

5 Jun 2007
M. Boucherie

The way you write - whatever the topic - gives me joy and strength. Thank you. M. Boucherie