
When I was a little kid my parents were in charge of all the food that went down my little gullet. As all parents are. But judging from galloping obesity rates in the USA (we are now officially THE fattest country in the market-economy world), too many parents are snoozing at the wheel when it comes to feeding their children food that won’t turn them into little hippos. Hippo isn’t a pretty word to describe a child, but Thursday I had errands near a large medical center on 14th street and I swear it was like I had barged into some crazy neighborhood conference of grossly obese woman. Rumbling along like torpid hippos, one after another passed me, accompanied by children well on their way to hippo-dom.
So to my Mom and Dad, I say a big thank you for all those years serving my sisters and I meals without desserts. Showing up only rarely, maybe once a month, our occasional desserts were mostly small helpings of pudding, Jell-O or melon and I’m glad to say I carried this non-dessert habit with me into adulthood.
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