For Father's Day, my mother and I took my dad out to eat at a local restaurant. While there, I observed a girl that could have been no older than 10 years old sitting at a table next to us. This poor girl had to weigh close to 200 lbs. There she was with her obese mother, both chowing down on a gigantic plate of buffalo wings.
I'm not writing this post to insult the poor little girl. You can't blame a 10 year old for being obese. The blame solely falls on the parents for facilitating the child to eat that way. Now I realize that not everyone is naturally skinny. I realie that some people are just genetically bigger than others. However, this girl's case went beyond genetics. No child her age is naturally 200 pounds. She got that way through a very poor diet, and since a 10 year old is not generally responsible for feeding themselves, once again, I blame her parents.
I think it's almost criminal for parents to allow their small child to gain so much weight. If you think about it, it's like the child is being slowly poisoned with food. Beyond the physical problems associated with childhood obesity, it has to wreak mental havoc on a child. No one wants to be the fat kid in class because other kids can be brutally insulting. Moreover, habits picked up in childhood tend to follow a person into adulthood. There's very little chance that this girl will grow up suddenly realize the importance of eating balanced meals and proper portions. Thirty or Forty years from now, she'll most likely be on a ton of medication to treat her health problems (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, possibly diabetes). It's sad because these problems could most likely have been avoided if her parents taught her better eating habits.
People who become obese after they've become adults have no one to blame but themselves for their weight. After all, and adult has reasoning power to understand that eating 10 Big Macs per day is going to make them fat. I don't feel the least bit sorry for these people. It's the kids that bother me because they don't know any better. Their parents allow them to become obese, and they're the ones who suffer from it.
4 comments:
Or not even the parents; everything else that they teach you in k-12 besides writing and basic math to algebra should be gotten rid of and supplanted with actual useful stuff like the stuff we learn in pharmacy school like being cognizant of your blood glucose levels throughout the day, or how different foods affect your mood or heart rate etc
It really is a shame how big some of the kids are getting these days. I blame the parents totally. There's no excuse for allowing the children to get this big.
For example, two years ago my oldest son (then 10) was playing a Little League baseball game. The temperature was in the low to mid 80s.
When my son's team was batting, the opposing team called timeout after each batter so they could take water out to the catcher. The kid was 5'2" and weighed 240 pounds. And he's in my son's grade.
Here's a point to ponder..... what responsiblity falls on the child's physician? They are required to report child abuse. Does allowing you child to get this large constitute child abuse?
I agree with the last comment-does this constitute child abuse? I read somewhere, or maybe I imagined it, but somewhere in the southern hemisphere, maybe Australia, parents can get in trouble if their children are found out in the sun unprotected-proper clothes, sunscreen, etc... I am certain the day will come when parents will be cited for neglect when children are found morbidly obese. All of this comes from feeding kids fast food day in and day out, mixing in soft drinks and junk food snacks, plus 5 hours a day of video games, cells phones and such. Things are truly out of control.
Australia ... $100 fine if your kid is out without a hat and long sleeved shirt during the summer months. Some laws are written to protect stupid people (or their children) from themsevles. I totally agree, we need to get hardcore with the obesity epidemic, or we're going to end up like those fat slobs on Wall-e. I have a heavy set tech who's husband is well to do, and he pays for her $1000/week personal trainer to lose weight. Then she comes to work and polishes off a bottle of chocolate milk, a box of ding-dings, and a jumbo bag of M&M's during each shift. And she wonders why she's not losing weight (she "gained it during pregnancy"). She honestly beleives there's nothing wrong with her diet. I know I've answered her diet questions, and I'm sure her peronal trainer has. I'm always amazed at people's resistance to comprehension when the answer is right in front of them.
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