Your Opinion: Thoughts about child obesity

Dear Editor:

Let’s put obesity in the proper perspective and quit placing all the blame on fast-food establishments but certainly where it belongs. These eating places should not bear the brunt of this fast-growing and out-of-control problem but we should look to the real culprits — the fat person him/herself and the mothers.

When an overly fat girl sits down at a counter or table and wolfs down not one but two cheeseburgers with French fries or potato tots and one or two cokes for whatever, she is looking at a weight gain of undisclosed portions. It is not so much what she eats but the portions she consumes at one sitting.

Approximately three or four years ago I watched a program on television showing mothers with their quite young children who were addressing why they allowed their overweight child to consume so much as they did. Most of the kids on the stage resembled oversized butterballs.

When accosted with the question the mothers all echoed each other with the alarming statement that if eating made her child happy why shouldn’t he be allowed to eat what and how much he wanted. And the different mothers further remarked it was their business what their child ate it certainly should not be the concern of others. With an attitude like these parents, mostly mothers, it is no wonder that girls especially have fast become gluttons for their eating habits.

And I have seen numerous mothers hand out money at the mall or elsewhere for their child to go get something to eat. And you know what they end up eating instead of a supposedly nourishing lunch at home.

And now I assume the taxpayers will be picking up the tab for the additional food at the school lunch programs being served by the so-called food experts replacing some of the junk food.

Many girls today lack self-control and appear just plain lazy. There are few who really have glandular problems but I would say they certainly lack common sense.