Super-Size me? More Like Categorize Me

[caption id="attachment_275" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="We see this all the time, but should are we being focussed on the wrong problem? (Click to enlarge)"][/caption]

Yeah, so you get the point. The country is getting fatter. Yeah. Great, off to the gym we go! Oh wait, but how can we do that when the government is planning to cut back sports in schools? Hm, curious. We'll get to that another time. This time the focus is whether super-sizing children are the problem or if the name-calling and chronic categorization of young people is the problem.

Let me throw some random categorical facts at you:

• In a classroom of 30 students there are 1 to 3 children with ADHD.


• Just under one million 16 to 24 year olds were classified as Neet according to the figures, a rise of almost 100,000 on the same quarter the previous year.


• HSE 2008 report shows that around three in ten boys and girls aged 2 to 15 were classed as either overweight or obese (31% and 29% respectively)

Then you have all kinds of unofficial categorizations that put a block on the minds of young people and adults. "Benefits scroungers", while they do exist, and we see many of them n Jeremy Kyle, oh wait, the news told us that. Apparently all chavs are on benefits. I don't like to stereotype or categorize but from when I searched for the definition of 'categorize' online and saw this:

[caption id="attachment_276" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Houston, we have a problem - Click to enlarge"][/caption]

I knew we had a problem. Categorization is a part of life, actually, scrap that - it is a part of our society - there, that's better. It is the destabilising or debilitating obstacle that obstructs many of us from becoming what we can become. Battling through stereotypes and categorization is a tough job, even tougher is teaching young people not to give in to them.

Society is pretty much expert in destructive thinking, we do not build each other up, we bring each other down. Edward de Bono, one of the great thinkers in our time and creator of The Six Thinking Hats says of categorization, "it is possible to create tests to determine whether a person is type A or type B, or any similar descriptive discriminations. Psychologists do that all the time. The difficulty is that once people have been put into 'boxes' they tend to stay there."

[caption id="attachment_278" align="alignleft" width="259" caption="Categorization is destroying the future"][/caption]

This is evident in society, we tend to focus on what is rather than what can be. There was a statement made in the film X-men 2, where one mutant says to another, "people will never know beyond what they see with their own two eyes." It is a fact, we judge based on the 'first impression', we make our deductions, add a bit of exaggerations (maybe) and put them into a category we feel suits them.

What alternatives are there? In order to become a forward thinking society, a more solution orientated society, we have to put away the destructive criticism and develop constructive criticism. You would cringe at the thought of knocking an elderly person down and leaving them to struggle to get back on their feet, yet, this is what we do to each other as a society.

Think about it, is the problem really obesity, or is the problem chronic categorization? The need to put a label on something in order for it to be accepted or recognised and throwing disdain at anything that has not been classified.

Try something here, take all the most successful pioneers in the world and classify them.

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What do you call Steve Jobs, this is a man who cannot quite be classified. He constantly pushes the boundaries of what we expect from him and leaves us on our toes. He doesn't focus on what is he focuses on what can be and that which he creates based on this thinking is testament of that.

Young people have such promising minds that are being limited by the boxes they are put in. This means they are overcome by fear of branching out into new ventures, we have to stop treating young people like caged animals and start treating them more like birds and let them spread their wings and fly!

If you really want your child to be the best they can be you have to know the barriers they will face and help them to get over it. No child is born with the ability to jump over a hurdle, no bird pecks its way out of an egg and just starts flying, it is a learned skill and most young people in the UK and not being taught this skill. As a result they are worse off, that is when they are labelled "poverty-stricken" and "under-achievers".

It all starts at home, young people are only as good as their surroundings. If young people are to change the adults, the parents, the policy makers must change.

After all, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh?

I encourage all those who want to find solutions to these problems in the UK to get in touch with me and let's start thinking business, enterprise and what can be.

Sources:

The Six Thinking Hats - Edward de Bono

http://www.child-development-guide.com/add-adhd-statistics.html

http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/opad10/Statistics_on_Obesity_Physical_Activity_and_Diet_England_2010.pdf