Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Show The Baby The Buffet!

A poll this summer showed that 50% of parents who have overweight children aren’t aware that their kids are too fat. Can I get a big collective Scooby Doo “huunh?” What exactly DO they think when they can only see PART of their child in the mirror. Or when Tubbers keeps his homework in the folds of his stomach? Love is blind, for sure, but really?

Maybe I should start a sideline career as a “fat spotter.” I could just walk up to those clueless parents in the mall or in line at the Popeye’s Fried Chicken and say something sensitive, like, “My, he’s a jumbo lad, isn’t he?” Or, “that’s quite a large ass for an eight year old.”

Then I’d ask for a dollar.

With 25 million kids in the US considered overweight or obese, I’d have my work cut out for me. But with stupid people making more fat babies every day, I smell a cottage industry. If “fat” and “cottage” aren’t oxymoronic. (me? I’m pan-moronic). Or maybe that smell is something else.

Or MAYBE I could be a child walker. People pay buttloads of money in New York to have others walk their dogs, why not walk fat children for a little folding money. The really good dog walkers use rollerblades and handle, like, eight dogs at a time. I wonder how many fat children I could wrangle at once? Maybe if I hooked them to the front of a red wagon and made them pull me around. I could dangle a Pop Tart on a string in front of them to keep them moving—I’d never need my car . . .You know, I think I’m onto something. I could solve childhood obesity and global warming with one solution. No cars, just fat kids pulling wagons. Except what do I do when they get skinny?

1 comment:

hokgardner said...

I just want to slap parents of these kids when they say things like, "He's just big boned!" or "She'll only eat doritos and cookies." First, there is no medical condition known as "big bones." It's not your bones that make you fat. It's the fat on the bones. Second, how is your six-year-old, who doesn't have a driver's license or spending money, getting her hands on only doritos and cookies, hmmm? Perhaps she'll stop eating them if you stop buying them. And as for "only" eating those things, bull. Kids are smarter than people give them credit for. They'll eat whatever you put in front of them when they get hungry enough. Trust me.

Lily refused to eat her dinner the other night. It was quiche, which two weeks ago she loved. But that night she decided she didn't like it any more. So I sent her to bed without dinner. About five minutes later she emerged from her room, announcing that she remembered she liked quiche after all.