Sweet Tooth

I happened across a conversation this morning that took me back to my childhood. Back to a time before work and responsibility. A time when the most pressing thing I had to do on Sunday morning was to park myself infront of the television and watch cartoons. You know, Thundercats, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all that great stuff. Oh, and remember all the things they advertised, like the Micromachines and the Kool-Aid, and the Pop-Tarts, oh yeah, and the Fruity Pebbles! Wasn't that fantastic?! Man, I remember somethimes, after watching all that stuff, I'd run off to find my mom in whatever room of the house she was in and I'd say, "Mom! Mom! Can we get a box of those new super double chocolate fudge vanilla-dipped cookie-filled sugar-coated frosted pastries?" And my mom would look at me and smile and say, "NO."

I guess they just don't make parents like they used to. According to the afore mentioned conversation, there's an epidemic of childhood obesity in this country. But apparently, the reason so many of the little buggers have ballooned in miniature Michelin men is becasue they've been exposed to too many advertisements for sugary and fatty foods. Well, isn't that something. Watching television commercials makes children fat. Interesting.

You know, I think i might know what's really going on here. Today's kids are ginormous (it's a word, look it up) for one of the following three reasons - see if you can guess which it is. Option one. Through the miracle of modern technology and plasma screen televisons, kids are able to absorb all sugars, fats and chocolate icing displayed on the high-definition screens, through their eyes into their bloodstreams and pack it all onto their bellies and chins. Option two. Adults have become so wrapped up in their gadgets, their work and their reality TV that they no longer have time to go grocery shopping. So instead they're strapping little Timmy into the Mercedes, taping the credit card to his tiny chocolate-covered fingers and sending him off to fill the shopping cart with whatever his little advertising-imprinted heart desires. Or maybe - just maybe - it goes something like this. Kid asks parent for some a snack, and parent never hesitates to hand over the cookie jar, often in an attempt to simply get junior to shut the hell up.

If people really want to know why so many American children are fat, look no further than their parents. Advertisers could pitch their wares to kids until they are blue in the face and accomplish nothing if parents would simply pay attention and do right by their kids. Children don't have jobs. They don't have any spending power whatsoever. Everything children have is given to them by their parents - including (in most cases) their spare tires and extra chins. This isn't like smoking. There is no such thing as second-hand weight gain. Instead of blaming people for marketing their goodies and ruining tasty sugary morsels for the rest of us, American parents need to grow a backbone and re-learn a very important lesson that my parents understood very well - how to say NO.