I could not believe the recent headline that read “House Passes Fudge/Granger Resolution to Designate September as National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month.” http://fudge.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=25§iontree=6,25&itemid=395
My first thought was “What the Fudge is going on?” Are these people just blithering imbeciles?
This plan really makes sense! Let’s take an entire month out of each year and point our fingers at the fat kids! It’s not like they don’t get this anyway, but to make it totally okay by the authorities?
I have so many four-letter words that I want to use, but I’m taking a deep breath and will to try and keep this civilized.
I'm totally vexed about what our government, schools, and the media are doing to our children. I hate the entire "obesity craze" that's going on, for everyone's sakes, but our kids are going to suffer the most.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm totally for "cleaning up" the schools' nutritional program. I think we have gone way downhill by making “junk food” so accessible to kids. We all know that it's an unusual child who would choose a carrot stick over a piece of candy. So, yes, it's good that we're trying to give the kids some better nutritional choices. It would be even better, though, if the stigma of "good food" versus "bad food" was left off. Kids need to be taught that eating candy occasionally isn't a bad thing.
What irritates me beyond measure, though, is that all kids need to learn this lesson. But it's the fat kids that are being targeted.
Can't supposedly rational adults understand that to isolate a group of kids and make them the target of ridicule is just unthinkable? Can't they understand that the increased emphasis put on fat kids to "eat right" is sending the message that if a child isn't fat, then it's okay for that child to eat whatever they want to eat?
Children of all sizes should learn what good nutrition is. And school is a perfect place to learn it, since so many parents don't even know.
But what worries me the most is that in the near future we're going to see one of the most horrible, ugly outbreaks of eating disorders in our children that we've ever experienced. It will pale, in comparison, to what we already have.
There are websites where young kids—but directed mostly toward young girls—can go to practice anorexia! They refer to anorexia as "Ana." "Ana" has taken on a life of her own. In some of their minds, this eating disorder is a living person and is their “friend.”
For a long time there has been a growing fear of getting fat among our younger children. But I believe that fear will excel, under the current circumstances. I believe it will grow in children who don't even have the fat gene. And eating disorders will mushroom in children of all sizes, social backgrounds, and walks of life.
I believe we are headed for an epidemic, but it has nothing to do with obesity, as those who push this idea would have us believe. It has everything to do with starving children who live in a land of enormous plenty.
I'm begging all you parents who have children in school to pay close attention to this latest idiocy. Rise up against the National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month.
In fact, join me now in writing to our Congress and House Representatives. Let’s put a stop to this before it grows horns!
In the meantime, watch what your children are doing and saying. Listen to what comes from their school. Don't be afraid to write letters to the school leaders, or go in person and confront them.
And don’t talk “diet” in front of them. Don’t make this a household term. And don’t make “fat” a household fear.
We have to save our children.
