Chubby Child Express
© 04.13.07 By Rory Peterson

The other day I was browsing through the local newspaper when I ran across an article about a group of do-gooder pediatricians. These kind hearted folk are attempting to convince Congress that they should pass legislation limiting commercial air time for companies selling food that's bad for you - especially if it's food that kids enjoy. This may include fattening or sugary foods (which pretty much defines the typical American diet), and soft drinks as well as non food products such as beer, alcohol and tobacco. In an effort to inform myself more fully I hopped online. My goal was to discover wether the problem warranted such a crusade; my worst fears were realized.

Yes, that's right. America's children are in fact fat. And it's completely the food companies' fault. To think that a multi billion dollar corporation would have the audacity to try and get little Johnny to ask his parents to buy, well, something fattening!

I realize that it is a little embarrassing on the global level to have fat kids. I mean, when America is already having difficulty turning out kids who can read, write, and perform arithmetic on par with most other developed nations, the last thing we need is an uneducated child with a beer gut.

According to the latest statistics, children between the ages of two and four years of age watch around two hours of television a day. During the grade school years on up through early adolescence, viewing time climbs to around three and one half hours a day. (This is quite impressive considering most youths spend six to nine hours a day at school or school related activities.) Children view between twenty thousand and forty thousand commercials a year most of which promote the variety of cuisine kids enjoy. In other words, the type of food which is known to be poor fodder for any human seeking a healthy existence.

Hence, we have fat, unhealthy kids who are prone to a number of diseases and conditions one wouldn't expect to see until the declining years of life.

Yet, does anyone really care? When was the last time you lost sleep over the neighbor kid's extra twenty pounds of body mass? The above-mentioned pediatricians claim to be concerned by this, but if the child's health and well being is really the issue it seems to me that one of the humanitarian docs might mention the millions of infants murdered in clinics around the country every day.

Perhaps a better question is should anybody care. This is still one of the freer nations in the world; if people want to, they can let their kids eat whatever they want. It's none of my business, and none of yours. And it's certainly not the business of the federal government.

That's why the most disturbing thing is that someone would come up with the ridiculous notion that Congress should have anything to do with something like this. But then, I'm a little old fashioned. It seems that the governmental modus operandi akin to that of the long gone Coolidge administrations is, well, long gone. Calvin said something to the effect that "my greatest accomplishment [while in office] was minding my own business."

But it is nice to live in a country where the federal government is available for any little problem that happens to come up. Baseball players using steroids threatened to destroy the long term reputation of the most important American sporting tradition in existence. Luckily, the feds came to the rescue. Now we have obese children. Horrors.

Actually, the last time I checked our constitution I didn't notice any clause or amendment giving congress the right or duty to worry about fat kids. Darn those absent-minded founders anyway. Yet, I'm sure that if they had foreseen the appalling situation we are faced with today, they would have given us eleven amendments rather than just ten.

The bigger question is where are the parents? I realize most children spend comparatively little time at home with their parents, and so perhaps the adults forget how to raise their kids during the remaining few hours and simply give them up to the mind numbing antics of the tube. Yet it takes a stretch of the imagination to believe that the average parent is incapable of denying their child their every whim - at least once in a while.

Frankly, if you are a parent you ought to be insulted. This is an affront of your ability to raise your own children. Apparently you and a lot of other parents are doing a lousy job in countering vicious advertising, so it's time to pass a law to pick up after your inadequate efforts.

True, the constant pressures of adverting do tend to wear one down. Nevertheless, children need to learn self control. That seems to be left up, once again, to parents. Last time I checked, the average state-funded school was making rather poor marks in that arena. Here's something even more ground breaking: TURN OFF THE STUPID TV!

But after all, what can you expect? We live in a culture that preaches the doctrine of self actualization. Hey, if it's what you want then go for it.

Besides, there is now research suggesting that being slightly overweight has some health benefits. So what's to worry about anyway?