Wanna’ Fix Our Fatness?

We are fat. There is no getting around that, and I really don’t mind being fat. But I HAVE lost a great deal of my weight and size by eating better and moving more. I like being a big gal, but I am trying to be a healthier big gal.  One of the things I have done, at Ahmed’s insistence, is stop eating processed garbage. I haven’t cut it all out of my diet, but I try to eat things with as few additives, preservatives, and processes. If I don’t recognize the first three ingredients on a packaged item, I put it back.  If there is a long, endless, dubiously spelled list of ingredients, I put it back.  I try to make what I eat or limit what was done to it before I purchased it.

To me, the big push to outlaw 32 oz drinks, popcorn, peanutbutter, and cupcakes is ridiculous, but it DOES lead us directly to the culprit, and the biggest problem in our fathood: schools.

The regulations in place about what kids can and should eat are bloated, misguided, and wildly stupid. The result is that ketchup is a vegetable, and every kid in America is eating chicken nuggets that are nothing more that a poultry-like slurry remolded into cardboard chunks… with fries. Salt, additives, and starch are killing our kids, and the government is making it impossible to save them with outdated, stupid, and useless regulations.

SO… whomever is elected this year, listen up.  Strip all regulations away, hire Jamie Oliver (pictured above), and give him the list of resources we have. Let him redesign the menu, rewrite the regulations, and save our kids.  He’ll have them eating properly, very likely for less money.

Problem solved.

Hunger Games: Parents Need to THINK

I am sitting on my couch with the evening news on, and just heard another lead-in for a commentary on whether the new HUNGER GAMES movie is “too violent for children.”

When did we get this freaking stupid?

As some of you may know, I was a film critic for many, many years both on the web, in print, and on a nationally syndicated radio show.  I probably wrote a column about this issue every few years.  So if you’ve read or heard it before, feel free to tune me out.

THE RATINGS SYSTEM IS PRETTY SPECIFIC AND YOU ARE A TOTAL MORON TO IGNORE IT.  YOU ARE ALSO A BAD PARENT IF YOU IGNORE IT. TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY TO GET A DAMNED CLUE.

This is a young adult novel. YOUNG ADULT.  PG-13 doesn’t mean “G, really, but my kid is mature.” No parent who ignores the guidelines is raising a kid who is mature. Bad parents create problematic kids, unfortunately.

This was a wonderful series of books and the midnight showing last night was great.  But for the love of all that is good in the world, why would any idiot send a child to a movie about a dystopian society where tweens and teens are subjected to a lottery, those with their names drawn entering into a televised reality show in which only one will survive; all others to die dramatically on camera?  There is no discussion about whether or not your child belongs in that theater. Your child—I’ll say 10 years of age and under, being generous and allowing for the mythical “mature for his/her age” tween—does not belong at a movie like this. Period.

Your child does not belong at a movie adapted from any book they can’t read, cover to cover, without consulting a dictionary or responsible adult for information and vocabulary.  Your child does not belong at any movie in which children are killed.  Your tween and teen will enjoy Hunger Games. 

Quit expecting other people to think for you. The rating system told you to keep junior home if he was under 13.  “But she whined” is not an excuse for failing at the most important job you will ever do.

Grow a set.