I discovered I had a flat tire this morning.\u00a0 Since I’m taking off for Boston early tomorrow morning, I was torn between “Did this have to happen today?”\u00a0vs.\u00a0 “Thank goodness this happened today!” reactions.\u00a0 I headed (slowly) for the nearest tire center, which happened to be Les Schwab.\u00a0 Fortunately, they weren’t too busy, so they were able to get right on it.<\/p>\n
So that’s not actually what I’m ranting about.\u00a0 It was annoying, but c’est la vie.<\/p>\n
Rather, it’s about what\u00a0happened while I was waiting.\u00a0\u00a0After completing the work order, I grabbed a cup of (not-too-great-but-free) coffee and sat down at a table with a copy of the Tri-City Herald on it – figured I’d glance at the paper for a while.\u00a0 After a few minutes, I was joined by another customer: a heavy-set, 30-something woman with her toddler daughter.\u00a0 The little girl was a cutie: she had gray-blue eyes and was wearing a fuzzy pink footed sleeper…according to her mom, she was 15 months old.<\/p>\n
Mom had a can of Mountain Dew from the\u00a0vending machine\u00a0in hand, and proceeded to pop the top.\u00a0 Her little girl pointed to the can, so – after taking a swig – Mom held it to\u00a0her lips so she could drink too.\u00a0 And it wasn’t just one sip: she continued to share the soda: Mom would take a drink, then\u00a0give the baby a turn.<\/p>\n
Mentally, I did a “WTF???” double-take.\u00a0 Who, in their right mind, would be feeding soda – and caffeinated soda at that – to a toddler?<\/p>\n
Even worse…There were 3 candy dispensers adjacent to the table, filled with Reese’s Pieces, Skittles, and some oblong chocolate-covered things (almonds, maybe?).\u00a0 It was a colorful display,\u00a0which caught the little girl’s attention.\u00a0 She pointed at them, and Mom immediately chirped: “You want some candy?”\u00a0 She\u00a0immediately\u00a0set the kid down, stuck a quarter in the Reese’s Pieces dispenser and got a handful of the candy.\u00a0 While she was doing this,\u00a0her daughter\u00a0wandered over to where another mother with a little boy were sitting…she wasn’t paying\u00a0the\u00a0slightest attention to what Mom was up to, and had no apparent interest in the candy.\u00a0\u00a0This didn’t deter Mom, though…she\u00a0walked over, knelt down, and\u00a0started popping the candy into the little girl’s mouth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My jaw damn near hit the floor: the kid hadn’t even shown more than an initial\u00a0flicker of interest in the stuff, yet here was Mom – literally pushing it on her.\u00a0 It’s bad enough that kids gravitate to junk food and sweets\u00a0on their own, via advertisements, school vending machines, friends, etc.\u00a0 But I was really blown away by this gal, who was going out of her way to encourage a preference for candy and soda on\u00a0her\u00a0daughter’s part.\u00a0\u00a0The little girl\u00a0wasn’t even being fussy or demanding\u00a0(which would\u00a0have made it understandable, at least)…she was one of those calm, placid babies, who just sort of take things in, and who would have been just as happy to\u00a0toddle around\u00a0or play “Peek-a-Boo.”<\/p>\n
With all the emphasis on childhood obesity and health these days,\u00a0I have a hard time seeing how anyone could be this clueless.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Unbelievable.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I discovered I had a flat tire this morning.\u00a0 Since I’m taking off for Boston early tomorrow morning, I was torn between “Did this have to happen today?”\u00a0vs.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,28],"tags":[1848],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}