Barbara Walters Says Paula Deen Makes Kids Fat
When cookbook author Paula Deen appeared on "The View" on ABC Tuesday, host Barbara Walters lashed out at her for pushing fattening food for children. Deen, a zaftig, Georgia restaurant owner, was on the program to plug her book, "Paula Deen's Cookbook for the Lunchbox Set."
"This is a cookbook for kids. Obesity is the No. 1 problem for kids today. Everything you have here is enormously fattening," scolded Walters as she sat by the famous chef. "You tell kids to have cheesecake for breakfast. You tell them to have chocolate cake and meatloaf for lunch. And french fries. Doesn't it bother you that you're adding to this?"
All things in moderation, counseled Deen. "No, I'm not saying they should eat like this every day," she said.
Walters snapped that Deen's book is hardly a lesson in moderation. "Not when you're giving them this!"
We have two words for this. Awk. Ward.
And speaking of childhood obesity, our chubby brethren on the other side of the Atlantic are tipping the scales as well.
A Scottish couple reportedly lost custody of their two youngest children this month because authorities considered the kids to be too fat.
A family has been torn apart because the children are overweight. Credit: STV News
The couple, of Dundee, Scotland, has six children ranging in age from 3 to 13. WorldNetDaily reported that Scottish social workers told the parents last year the children needed to slim down or they would be taken into state custody for their own protection. At the time, the youngest girl reportedly weighed 56 pounds. The oldest boy, according to the online news service, now weighs more than 220 pounds.
The couple's 3- and 4-year-old children are now in foster care. Meanwhile, the mother is pregnant with the couple's seventh child.
"This whole case has been dreadful," Kathleen Price, the couple's attorney, told Scotland's television station STV. "Neither of these parents take drink or drugs. They have a big, happy, noisy family, which is prone to being overweight."
Social workers ordered the parents to enroll their children in dance and soccer classes last year while paid monitors watched the family's progress, WorldNet reported.
"They keep making an issue about the kids' weight," the mother told reporters last year. "I didn't even own a deep-fat fryer. All my food is home cooked and my kids are not fed junk food."
In Scotland, child welfare decisions are often made at the city council level. Tam Fry, a member of the National Obesity Forum, told STV that "more councils are now viewing obesity as an abuse issue."
Last January, Fry spoke out in the British newspaper The Sun in support of a decision by the city council in Leeds to deny a couple from adopting a child because the husband was overweight. Overweight parents are poor role models for children, he told the the newspaper.
Have we gone a little nuts in our concern about child obesity? Or are we setting our kids up for cream-filled doom?
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks