l The concern on the medical doctor’s face was clearly visible. In effect he said, ‘There are really not many families with young children listening to my advice on an austere life-style -- so that the kids learn not to overspend on non-essential things, eat at home, not waste time with their mobile phones, go to bed early and rise early around sunrise time. And because they take my advice lightly, I keep getting young patients with complaints of obesity and almost-totally spoilt gut health. If this is not checked, we may have a generation of unhealthy children in their teens and twenties in next some years.’ THE lament -- and the word of serious concern and caution -- of the medical doctor (Glory be to him !) cannot be taken lightly. Not just one but almost every medical doctor with his or her conscience still alive feels a similar concern -- and carries a sense of despair about how the children and young adults in our society are conducting themselves. But the greater concern is about how the parents -- and the families -- fail to recognise the distinction between liberty to children and liberties the younger generation extracts for itself. Another part of the concern is a sense of helplessness families feel about how their youngsters show the temerity to flout family norms and live a life with scant regard to personal discipline and personal hygiene and health. The loud-thinker has a special bond with innumerable young people in schools and colleges. He enjoys having story-telling sessions with them and they also share with him their thoughts and dreams.

 

He realises that the youngsters -- young adults, so to say -- are nice people with their heads and hearts in right places. Yet, a good number of them also demonstrate an ugly tendency to throw to winds any word of caution by family elders and parents -- in senseless defiance of wisdom of age. Of course, in many families, even elders appear to throw to the winds all norms and qualms and conduct themselves in a wayward manner and allow their youngsters to behave similarly. Only Gods can help such families. But the discourse here is about what can be described as ‘normal’ families in which youngsters tend to take the law into their hands and let themselves off the leash. The trouble with most such families is that the youngsters -- people in their teens and twenties -- show a near-total surrender to the addiction to mobile phones and the various platforms available on the gadget. They always have their heads dipped into their mobile phones, running the risk of spoiling their posture and developing a permanent bend in the neck bones and muscles -- in addition to sagging shoulders. Their physical activity, too, is low key, and therefore they develop what may be medically termed as obesity.

 

Add to this a few other habits of these youngsters to have a completely ugly picture -- habitual consumption of aerated drinks of different kinds, pizzas, burgers, breads with lots and lots of fatty and starchy adjuncts to pep up the taste. Add to this menu ice-creams and shakes and coffee of different varieties, and the picture assumes still darker and dangerous shades. A medical doctor beyond middle-age told the loud-thinker some time back that such young people throng doctors’ clinics for various ailments. “These people become easy victims of cough and cold every now and then and have a low immunity against any infection. Many of them also have weak eye-sight and require spects. Yes, some of them are born with oxygen deficiency, and may need spects in adolescent years. But those cases are not many in number. What is bothersome is the high number of youngsters who require spects because their addiction to cell-phones has damaged their eyes almost forever,”she said. A fitness trainer (working in a famous gym) whom the loud-thinker knows personally said, “Look, Sir, the safest and shortest path to good health is a control on eating -- not just quantity but also quality. Junk food is the worst enemy of youngsters, but they refuse to realise it. Unfortunately, parents and family-elders, too, appear to have no control on this dependence of youngsters on junk food.” Nobody can deny the substance in these observations. And that is the most serious concern of today -- as regards youngsters, at least in urban centres where exposure to junk food and many other wrong habits is far greater than it is in non-urban centres.

 

And then, there is the problem of youngsters being allowed to handle a lot of money unchecked by the family elders. The loud-thinker always feels aghast at the way youngsters spend money in restaurants etc on junk food. Just a few days ago, uneasy with the profligate manner of spending by a group of youngsters in a restaurant, the loud-thinker approached them with a few genuine questions. Recognising him as a senior journalist, the kids behaved with him with due respect, but did not have proper answers to questions about the money they were spending on their junk food dishes -- about Rs. 2,500, if the guess was not wrong. “Where did you get all this money?”, the loud-thinker asked them. Nobody had an answer. That said it all. But here comes the most natural question: Who allows the youngsters such liberties ? And don’t the families realise the distinction between liberty and liberties ? For now, the issue can rest at this.