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In the mid-90s, summer holidays for me were not quite like they are nowadays. True, the 8-12 age group isn't raving at Kazantip these days either, but the opportunities for immersion are incomparably greater now than they were back then. At 10 years old, my summer holidays were limited to wandering between my two grandparents. In my case, this meant that my grandparents either tried to raise me into a proper human being at our plot in Gödöllő, or I spent my days in the housing estate on Fehérvári Road. Needless to say, the housing estate was not exactly Miami Beach, nor even a Pioneer camp in Csillebérc, and since I only spent a few weeks there, I didn't really have the opportunity to form strong friendships. Sometimes, of course, my grandfather would take me to the playground to play in the sand, but that's not exactly the kind of activity that makes for life-defining stories on drunken evenings. We're talking about the 90s. Back then, the internet wasn't even on the horizon, mobile phones existed in the form of classic Matáv landlines, and the cable TV channel selection wasn't what it is today, when they even create separate thematic channels for the self-gratification habits of orangutans. Under such circumstances, and to avoid going completely crazy, I had to develop my daily routines. This led to fantastic activities for me, such as watching my grandfather shave every morning before he went to work. Barbon, Old Spice, and Wilkinson blade. That's how I remember the ingredients, which is quite sad looking back, but at the time, these were significant events for me. Days passed, and one day I realized I was stealing my grandfather's shaving cream and shaving with a butter knife from the kitchen, just as I had seen my grandfather do. I respected the old man; I always looked up to him, so whatever he did, I copied without thinking. But it wasn't just with him. My father played football, so I played football too. My whole family was right-wing, so I became right-wing too. Everything I saw was absorbed into me and determined my present, my thoughts, my behavior, and my actions. The shaving cream incident is just a very insignificant part of this, but it very accurately demonstrates how a child follows and copies patterns. They copy a way of life, a system, behavioral norms, and reactions, thereby orienting themselves in this very messy, often opaque, intricate irregularity. Many people think that upbringing is limited to verbal communication, feeding the child, providing adequate basics like clothing, schooling, and teaching ethical and moral norms, but unfortunately, this is very little and the least determining factor. What matters is what we see, what we see from those closest to us. What matters are those we love, those we look up to, and not least, those we accept as our leaders, because after all, a parent-child relationship is about that. Parents and their lives, and the eyes of children watching it all. We are copies, copies of our parents. We live, we fear, we cling to what we saw from our parents, how they lived before us when we were most impressionable. And we copied everything. If we saw our father come home late every night, we thought that was normal. If our parents lived in a loveless, crappy marriage, we will never believe in the power of a relationship. If the daily menu at home consisted of the worst food, then there's a good chance we'll eat slop too, and in the meantime, we'll think it's normal food, everything else is just starving and empty calories. These are the deepest ingrained fixations that, as we become independent, we re-evaluate as flawed, but we can only change them with great difficulty, or not at all. The responsibility of parents and their primary method of upbringing is to live a life that, if copied by the child, has a good chance of turning them into a capital 'H' Human Being. We raise children most effectively through our everyday lifestyle, and this doesn't require slaps; it can't be learned from ridiculous "how to raise a child" books. It simply means living as a role model and allowing the child to copy that. Of course, this isn't so simple, because we also come from somewhere, but the opportunity is open to everyone to become a person worth copying by the time we get there, and to frame the copied paper, rather than crumpling it up and throwing it in the wastebasket. At this point, it's not a bad idea to honestly confront ourselves and examine whether we ourselves are living a life, looking the way we do, and if our lifestyle in its current form is truly worthy of being copied. We can deceive ourselves, but we can't deceive a child, because a child will see; there's no arguing with them. I am sure that the majority have already convinced themselves that they are happy even when overweight, or if that was difficult, they found those people who successfully convinced them. But none of that matters now. You can do what you want with your own life; that is truly your decision. But when you are already determining the life and future of a new human being, it would be wise to put down the fairytale book you've been reading to yourself for years, because in the end, you might see a copy of your own life in your child, and that will truly be a mirror of life that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Obesity is not just a visual problem. Obesity is the consequence of a rule-less, characterless lifestyle. A lifestyle where people don't move, their daily diet is unhealthy, deeply irregular, and demands no human qualities whatsoever. Now, would this be a model to follow? Do you really want your child to follow such a pattern? Because your child will copy this, they will follow this system. They will follow the irregularity itself, which directly leads to obesity and the development of health problems at an age that defines their entire life. Our duty is not to make our own lives better, more beautiful, healthier. We don't study, build an existence, or absorb the myriad manifestations of culture for ourselves, but we prepare a new life, and pass on our highest quality life experiences acquired up to that point. Not with words, but with actions, by living our lives, by our ever-present appearance. Our lifestyle change is primarily necessary not for ourselves, but so that when the time comes, our way of life will serve as a model worth following, thus advancing the progress of our development and raising a healthy society upon which we can build.

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