Overweight is a disadvantage our kids don;t need.

Kudos to the writers of this article on the psychological effects of overweight and obesity in children!

"While some responded to (Michelle Obama during an interview) the First Lady's divulging of her kids' weight problems as insensitive, psychologists say pretending the issue isn't there doesn't help anyone involved."

I agree 100%!  I have said before that the first step in battling obesity is to stop acting as if it is some random act of happenstance. Overweight does not need to be embraced. Nor do the overweight need to be treated as victims.  Like smokers and drinkers, drug addicts and gamblers, they chose this condition and embraced it.  They need help shaking it, not pity.

Childhood obesity in particular.  Unlike overweight adults, our kids don't choose to be fat. Our small children aren't picking up cigs or getting into the liquor cabinet, they aren't into crack or casinos. But our wee children - even in infancy - are being indoctrinated into the Way OF The Fat.  And who is doing it? Us.  Mommy and dada. Would you give your toddler a snort of cocaine?  Then why do you let her drink soda?

To feed your child crap foods, and too much of them, deny that he's overweight, then turn around and tell him that his excess flab is "just who he is" or that it "runs in the family" and send him to school to be picked on and bullied is obscene.

""Overweight kids are more likely to have depression and low self-esteem, to be teased or bullied, and to bully other children," said Catherine Davis, associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia. "These can be serious problems for these children." "

Are we setting our own kids up for not only physical illness and infirmity but mental strife as well?  Are we authoring their future misery just because it's sooooo much easier to stop for fast food, let them get the school lunch, or cave in and buy the cold cereal and the soda?

I say, shamefully; yes.