No Halloween Candy For Overweight Kids

[Bocefish]

I can only imagine the types of nasty tricks kids are conjuring up for this woman.

A North Dakota woman won't be handing out candy to every trick-or-treater who shows up to her house this Halloween. Instead, she'll hand out letters on childhood obesity to overweight children.

According to a report from KOKH-TV in Oklahoma City, the woman said she hopes the note sends a message to parents that it's irresponsible of them to send their obese children out looking for candy. In the note she'll hand out Thursday night, the woman explains that curing obesity is the responsibility of the entire community.

Listen to what the village idiot has to say here:

http://www.valleynewslive.com/story/238 ... ween-candy

 

[Alex_Birch_BBW]

That woman is being very irresponsible. Yea..ostracizing obese children is a wonderful way to help them overcome their weight problem. Because children who trick-or-treat in groups can be trusted to not make fun of each other.

 

[KaterinaPryde]

That is just cruel....Just choose to not hand out candy at all...and give EVERYONE a brochure on healthy eating and activity. You will still be the most unpopular house on the block, but you wont make children feel awful on Halloween.... I remember the "dentists"house on my street - every year they gave out a tooth brush and a pamphlet on clean teeth.... but they didnt pick out only select kids that had bad looking teeth

 

[PepperoniPiz]

I can't wait to read the story on Friday morning, about a woman's house in North Dakota being peppered with 18 dozen eggs.

"It's just saddening the times we live in."

 

[RoseCavilla]

Her heart's in the right place but she's going about it like a twat. Yes, obesity is problematic and is increasing in the states, but it's the parents' and individual's responsibility to right it.

I really hope that the reporter tweaked/misunderstood this woman's words in order to write a more compelling story. It's fucking common sense that ostracising a child like this will not solve anything.

 

[Bocefish]

Her heart's in the right place but she's going about it like a twat. Yes, obesity is problematic and is increasing in the states, but it's the parents' and individual's responsibility to right it.

I really hope that the reporter tweaked/misunderstood this woman's words in order to write a more compelling story. It's fucking common sense that ostracising a child like this will not solve anything.

You can hear the village idiot here: http://www.valleynewslive.com/story/238 ... ween-candy

 

[LilyEvans]

If she really cared about the kids she'd be handing out plastic footballs or something instead of giving candy to some and bullying others.

 

[RoseCavilla]

But it's just a lady who called in to a radio station and emailed a picture of a letter.

Have you ever heard about that radio station caller who said that deer crossing signs should be moved because allowing the deer to cross in a specified area made roads unsafe? I highly doubt she actually believed that deer only cross the road where there are signs telling them to.

It's not unusual for news channels and especially radio stations to fabricate stories to increase their audience. Just because it's on the news doesn't make it true. This story just sounds too far fetched.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

But it's just a lady who called in to a radio station and emailed a picture of a letter.

Have you ever heard about that radio station caller who said that deer crossing signs should be moved because allowing the deer to cross in a specified area made roads unsafe? I highly doubt she actually believed that deer only cross the road where there are signs telling them to.

It's not unusual for news channels and especially radio stations to fabricate stories to increase their audience. Just because it's on the news doesn't make it true. This story just sounds too far fetched.

No, the deer lady actually did believe it. She even got embarrassed about it when it was pointed out to her later. She did a second radio call as well. Both can be heard here toward the bottom of the page. The top half is about a guy who did the same thing in a letter to the editor of a newspaper. People really are this stupid.

And the funny thing is both these nutzoid lady's are from the same town.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/deercrossing.asp

 

[missmeowmixx]

People really are this stupid.

Sadly, people are not only this stupid, but far stupider. So fucking stupid...... It makes me sad sometimes.

 

[RoseCavilla]

What I'm saying is I wouldn't put it past the station to pay someone £20 to call in and go on a crazy rant. If Donna the deer lady truly felt stupid, why agree to a second interview? She has the anomynity of the radio station behind her. Why not just let everyone forget about it so she can move on from the embarrassment.

That's what I believe is going on here with this crazy Halloween lady. Some news intern probably wanted to discover a controversial story so called in and started a rant about obesity and after e-mailed a fake letter to make it seem legit. Why? Now they have something to add to their resume.

 

[JickyJuly]

If someone handed that note to my child, I would injure them. Violence may not be the answer, but someone who wants to play high and mighty with the feelings of children during a holiday festivity has some bruises coming.

 

[Ann_Sulu]

Her heart's in the right place but she's going about it like a twat. Yes, obesity is problematic and is increasing in the states, but it's the parents' and individual's responsibility to right it.

I really hope that the reporter tweaked/misunderstood this woman's words in order to write a more compelling story. It's fucking common sense that ostracising a child like this will not solve anything.

You can hear the village idiot here: http://www.valleynewslive.com/story/238 ... ween-candy

I'm normally not a Grammar Nazi, unless I feel like being trolling someone for being a bitch. In this woman's case I would have totally made a paper looking exactly like hers, but changed everything to do with grammar, and explained how terrible it was that she wrote "You child is" instead of "Your child is". That would definitely be in her mailbox the next morning.

People really are this stupid.

Sadly, people are not only this stupid, but far stupider. So fucking stupid...... It makes me sad sometimes.

I think one of the the worst enlightenments I ever experienced was the realization that all the people I thought that seemed retarded...were actually *shudder* of average intelligence.

 

[Red7227]

I think one of the the worst enlightenments I ever experienced was the realization that all the people I thought that seemed retarded...were actually *shudder* of average intelligence.

Ah yes, bell curves...

 

[JerryBoBerry]

What I'm saying is I wouldn't put it past the station to pay someone £20 to call in and go on a crazy rant. If Donna the deer lady truly felt stupid, why agree to a second interview? She has the anomynity of the radio station behind her. Why not just let everyone forget about it so she can move on from the embarrassment.

That's what I believe is going on here with this crazy Halloween lady. Some news intern probably wanted to discover a controversial story so called in and started a rant about obesity and after e-mailed a fake letter to make it seem legit. Why? Now they have something to add to their resume.

:lol: You didn't listen to the the two calls? Small enough town. After she called in the first time. She was known by people. It made facebook, went viral on youtube fast. People were calling her at her home after the first interview. There was no anonymity.

Here's the first one. Press play. You'll enjoy it.


And here's the follow up call. Where she's understood her error. She wasn't faking it.

 

[Ann_Sulu]

What I'm saying is I wouldn't put it past the station to pay someone £20 to call in and go on a crazy rant. If Donna the deer lady truly felt stupid, why agree to a second interview? She has the anomynity of the radio station behind her. Why not just let everyone forget about it so she can move on from the embarrassment.

That's what I believe is going on here with this crazy Halloween lady. Some news intern probably wanted to discover a controversial story so called in and started a rant about obesity and after e-mailed a fake letter to make it seem legit. Why? Now they have something to add to their resume.

:lol: You didn't listen to the the two calls? Small enough town. After she called in the first time. She was known by people. It made facebook, went viral on youtube fast. People were calling her at her home after the first interview. There was no anonymity.

Here's the first one. Press play. You'll enjoy it.


And here's the follow up call. Where she's understood her error. She wasn't faking it.

I love how you can tell she's from the Midwest...the part at the end where she thanks them for the deer lady t-shirt. Even if she was meaning it sarcastically, only a person from that part of the world can first ask people to stop making fun of her about being so stupid, then thank someone for making fun of her for being stupid. :lol:

 

[IsabellaSnow]

What's so ridiculous about this is that obesity doesn't come from consuming too much sugar on holiday occasions. It comes from either some sort of genetic disorder, or more likely, eating too much unhealthy processed foods and sugar on a daily basis. You might as well go to a school and give a letter to every overweight child to give to their parents telling them to change their children's eating patterns and learn to say no.

Singling out those children and making them feel different is only going to feed lifelong insecurities that even if they do one day lose the weight, they may never get over. Eating disorders go two ways, and treating children like this could cause either of those things, eating too much or too little.

I do think it's not good when parents allow their children to become overweight when they're in a controlled environment. Although sometimes it can be tricky getting children to eat healthy foods, children also rely on their parents for food, meaning they either eat, or they go hungry, if you don't make unhealthy foods available to them except for special occasions then children will accept that they're not going to get treats. As a child my mother baked lots of cakes, but besides that we rarely had any form of treats in the house, fizzy drinks were only for eating out and special occasions and every meal we had was home cooked. Once a week me and my brother would get 50p pocket money and would buy sweets and consume them in what seemed like large volumes (as much as 50p would get you back in the day). Growing up I was a rake, still had a lot of muscle on my legs, but virtually zero fat. When I moved to the city I was able to walk 2 minutes to a shop, a shop full of chocolate and other delicious things I'd never had available to me. At around that time I started puberty, so a mixture of the local shop and my genetics changing my body were the reason I gained weight, though I've never been fat and really didn't gain very much, it was a shock from before. It was eating unhealthy food more regularly that was what made me gain weight.

I must say, if I went trick or treating and anyone had mentioned my weight and refused to give me sweets.... It would be a moment that'd still haunt me to this day. I'm not even over the healthy weight range and I still feel paranoid eating in public. I do think that parents should be in control of what they feed their children, but I don't think children should be subjected to that kind of treatment, I don't think anyone should be! I mean imagine if a food store stopped selling unhealthy foods to people who looked over a certain weight... As much as it sucks seeing people hut themselves, it's not our place to dictate what other people do.

 

[Bocefish]

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if it is an evil prank for publicity, but I'm leaning towards it being legit. Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the former.

The entire conversation:

 

[IsabellaSnow]

It always bothers me the whole "trick" misinterpretation... The whole point of "trick or treat", isn't a threat, like "give me sweets or I'll egg your house!" as it seems to be nowadays.... it's either tell a scary story- i.e. the trick, or give out sweets, which is the treat. I swear, kids today.... no bloody wonder society seems to be going downhill when children are taught to threaten neighbours if they don't give them what they want... it's essentially mugging.

I like the idea of giving out toys to children instead. Maybe toys to all children and an envelope to parents containing a load of nutrition advice for what children should eat on a proper pamphlet that someone other than she has written... Rather than singling out fat children... I mean if she's planning on doing that, why just on halloween? Should a child not get to indulge on halloween/holidays just because they're chubby? Like I said in the previous post, it's not something that happens over night, it happens over a long period of time.

 

[Bocefish]

It always bothers me the whole "trick" misinterpretation... The whole point of "trick or treat", isn't a threat, like "give me sweets or I'll egg your house!" as it seems to be nowadays.... it's either tell a scary story- i.e. the trick, or give out sweets, which is the treat. I swear, kids today.... no bloody wonder society seems to be going downhill when children are taught to threaten neighbours if they don't give them what they want... it's essentially mugging.

The only time we ever did anything trick related was in highschool. Had nothing to do with trick-or-treating. We'd TP teachers' houses, move their vehicles and occasionally TP a few hot classmates' houses for the fun of it.

However, in this case, if her house doesn't get egged or a flaming pile of shit doesn't get left on her doorstep... I'd be surpised.

 

[LadyLuna]

If I were really trying to help them get healthy, I'd put the note in an envelope that says "to the parents", and still give them their treat, but only one and make it small.

 

[Bocefish]

If I were really trying to help them get healthy, I'd put the note in an envelope that says "to the parents", and still give them their treat, but only one and make it small.

100% disagree on this.

Since when did trick-or-treating authorize complete strangers to offer unsolicited parenting advice?

Do you also go around to parks and grocery stores handing out envelopes to parents of overweight kids?

Do you really think the parent or the child is ignorant to any weight issues?

Unless you're the child's pediatrician, doctor, dietician, or school nurse... minding your own business is a way better idea.

:twocents-02cents:

 

[Gen]

If I were really trying to help them get healthy, I'd put the note in an envelope that says "to the parents", and still give them their treat, but only one and make it small.

100% disagree on this.

Since when did trick-or-treating authorize complete strangers to offer unsolicited parenting advice?

Do you also go around to parks and grocery stores handing out envelopes to parents of overweight kids?

Do you really think the parent or the child is ignorant to any weight issues?

Unless you're the child's pediatrician, doctor, dietician, or school nurse... minding your own business is a way better idea.

:twocents-02cents:

I agree 100% on this.

 

[LadyLuna]

If I were really trying to help them get healthy, I'd put the note in an envelope that says "to the parents", and still give them their treat, but only one and make it small.

100% disagree on this.

Since when did trick-or-treating authorize complete strangers to offer unsolicited parenting advice?

Do you also go around to parks and grocery stores handing out envelopes to parents of overweight kids?

Do you really think the parent or the child is ignorant to any weight issues?

Unless you're the child's pediatrician, doctor, dietician, or school nurse... minding your own business is a way better idea.

:twocents-02cents:

If I were

Those three words are the essence of a hypothetical. What I was saying is, if I was of the same sort of mindset as this woman, thinking that I know better than the parents of the children what that child is going through at this time in their life, this is how I would do it to avoid embarrassing the kid, and keep it from being a bullying gesture.

However, I totally agree with you. It's not my place to try to tell parents how to raise their children. It's not my place to try to worry about the health of the kids in the neighborhood. It's my place to, if I choose to participate in a holiday, participate in the expected manner. (My communities invariably do the trick-or-treating on a day I wasn't expecting, and the few times I've gotten advanced notice about what day it was, I was unable to participate. Like this year, the community I moved to did it on Monday, when I was busy trying to move everything in three days.)

In real life, I will probably have a mix of various chocolates in one bowl (3-musketeers, recees peanut butter cups, recees pieces, twix, snickers, hershy's bars, malted milk balls, m&m's, and junior mints), and non-chocolates in another (pixie sticks, lollipops, gum, jolly ranchers, jelly bellies, now-and-laters, twizzlers, sour patch kids, nerds...), and give the kids a choice "chocolates or sweets?" With an extra bowl of the chocolates, because I know most of the kids will want the chocolates. And another bowl inside the house for visitors and personal consumption.

I remember when I was little, Halloween candy took me till Easter to eat, and Easter candy took me till Halloween to eat.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

Do you really think the parent or the child is ignorant to any weight issues?

Unless you're the child's pediatrician, doctor, dietician, or school nurse... minding your own business is a way better idea.

Actually yes, I do think many parents are ignorant to children's weight issues. Many people are severely overweight and spend their lives justifying it. They often are like that from when they're children, meaning that when their children become overweight they just see it as normal.

In fact, some parents are so oblivious to how important it is to feed your children healthy food that in the UK when Jamie Oliver did his whole thing about School dinners, parents started going and feeding children unhealthy snacks through the school fences at lunch. Some people even brought chip/burger vans to stand outside the schools and sneak food to the students. I remember watching a program on it when the parents were adamantly standing up saying that it was unfair to not give the children the food they want, and that children should be allowed to eat as many chips, crisps and sweets as they want.

So yes, some people are just so ridiculously uneducated that they don't understand the problem with feeding their children junk food. They often don't realise that children's portion sizes shouldn't be the same as an adults and many feel they cannot say no when children ask for sweets and snacks.

 

[JickyJuly]

Do you really think the parent or the child is ignorant to any weight issues?

Unless you're the child's pediatrician, doctor, dietician, or school nurse... minding your own business is a way better idea.

Actually yes, I do think many parents are ignorant to children's weight issues. Many people are severely overweight and spend their lives justifying it. They often are like that from when they're children, meaning that when their children become overweight they just see it as normal.

In fact, some parents are so oblivious to how important it is to feed your children healthy food that in the UK when Jamie Oliver did his whole thing about School dinners, parents started going and feeding children unhealthy snacks through the school fences at lunch. Some people even brought chip/burger vans to stand outside the schools and sneak food to the students. I remember watching a program on it when the parents were adamantly standing up saying that it was unfair to not give the children the food they want, and that children should be allowed to eat as many chips, crisps and sweets as they want.

So yes, some people are just so ridiculously uneducated that they don't understand the problem with feeding their children junk food. They often don't realise that children's portion sizes shouldn't be the same as an adults and many feel they cannot say no when children ask for sweets and snacks.

I don't think it's possible not to know your child is overweight. Taking your child to the pediatrician means discussing where they are on the growth charts EVERY time. They see your kid every other month, and they do weight, height and head measurements. (After which she gives my kid a lollipop). Parents who want to give their child what the kid wants instead of what is best for him are not oblivious to the problem, they are lazy. It's easier to give a kid everything they want than say no and lead by good example. Kids with shitty, lazy parents don't need strangers ruining their holidays. Holidays aren't for that kind of nonsense.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

It always bothers me the whole "trick" misinterpretation... The whole point of "trick or treat", isn't a threat, like "give me sweets or I'll egg your house!" as it seems to be nowadays.... it's either tell a scary story- i.e. the trick, or give out sweets, which is the treat. I swear, kids today.... no bloody wonder society seems to be going downhill when children are taught to threaten neighbours if they don't give them what they want... it's essentially mugging.

Here in the U.S. it actually did start out as threats. Egging a house was tame.

By the 1920s, however, pranks had become the Halloween activity of choice for rowdy young people, sometimes amounting to more than $100,000 in damages each year in major metropolitan areas.

The Great Depression exacerbated the problem, with Halloween mischief often devolving into vandalism, physical assaults and sporadic acts of violence. One theory holds that it was the excessive pranks on Halloween that led to the widespread adoption of an organized, community-based trick-or-treating tradition in the 1930s. This trend was abruptly curtailed, however, with the outbreak of World War II, when children had to refrain from trick-or-treating because of sugar rationing.

At the height of the postwar baby boom, trick-or-treating reclaimed its place among other Halloween customs, quickly becoming standard practice for millions of children in America’s cities and newly built suburbs. No longer constrained by sugar rationing, candy companies capitalized on the lucrative ritual, launching national advertising campaigns specifically aimed at Halloween.

http://www.history.com/topics/history-of-trick-or-treating

 

[Bocefish]

Do you really think the parent or the child is ignorant to any weight issues?

Unless you're the child's pediatrician, doctor, dietician, or school nurse... minding your own business is a way better idea.

Actually yes, I do think many parents are ignorant to children's weight issues. Many people are severely overweight and spend their lives justifying it. They often are like that from when they're children, meaning that when their children become overweight they just see it as normal.

In fact, some parents are so oblivious to how important it is to feed your children healthy food that in the UK when Jamie Oliver did his whole thing about School dinners, parents started going and feeding children unhealthy snacks through the school fences at lunch. Some people even brought chip/burger vans to stand outside the schools and sneak food to the students. I remember watching a program on it when the parents were adamantly standing up saying that it was unfair to not give the children the food they want, and that children should be allowed to eat as many chips, crisps and sweets as they want.

So yes, some people are just so ridiculously uneducated that they don't understand the problem with feeding their children junk food. They often don't realise that children's portion sizes shouldn't be the same as an adults and many feel they cannot say no when children ask for sweets and snacks.

I don't think it's possible not to know your child is overweight. Taking your child to the pediatrician means discussing where they are on the growth charts EVERY time. They see your kid every other month, and they do weight, height and head measurements. (After which she gives my kid a lollipop). Parents who want to give their child what the kid wants instead of what is best for him are not oblivious to the problem, they are lazy. It's easier to give a kid everything they want than say no and lead by good example. Kids with shitty, lazy parents don't need strangers ruining their holidays. Holidays aren't for that kind of nonsense.

I'd also like to add that there is a huge difference between ignorance and willfully ignoring. Take Honey Boo Boo's mother for lack of a better well known example. She knows their diet of fast food crap is unhealthy. A letter from some busy body wannabe do gooder isn't going to change how they stuff their pie holes.

 

[Brad]

Shaming a child helps nobody and too often it harms the child. Plus the crap that kids say can be very cruel and can stick for a very long time. As an example I was adopted and certain family members liked to tell (or remind) me that I wasn't "real". And to be honest that really fucked me up.

 

[Bocefish]

Just an update on whether or not it was a radio station prank.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/living/pa ... t-letters/

"Rat," WDAY-FM's morning co-host, told CNN it was definitely not a radio station stunt. "The woman Cheryl did call into our show," he said. "We have been unable to get her back on the phone."

Haven't heard or read anything about her actually going through with it, so far.

It still could be a prank, but apparently the station isn't responsible for it, or so they say.