Earlier this evening my mom read an article to me and I haven't been able to keep my mind off of it since. A blog post seemed necessary to get my thoughts and opinions out.
According to USA Today, a woman from North Dakota plans to hand out letters to children she finds to be "moderately obese" on Halloween in place of candy. All of the other children will receive candy from her, just not the "obese" ones. [I'm quoting obese because this is solely based on her definition and idea of obese; not a universal, agreed upon definition.] The letter will be aimed at the children's parents and will impart her opinion upon them about their children consuming candy this Halloween. She will basically tell them they should limit or not allow their children to eat their Halloween candy, due to their obesity.
After hearing this, I was appalled that she would take it upon herself to point out, not only the weight of a child, but the "bad parenting" (for lack of a better term) the child's parents are practicing. This can be damaging to an innocent child that is simply trying to partake in the Halloween festivities, as well as place guilt and blame on the parents. Might I add, there are plenty of people who may appear to be overweight but are, in fact, quite healthy. There are also people who may appear to be average weight but are quite UNhealthy. We cannot make judgements solely on appearance and then act on those judgements.
Which leads me right into my main point in all of this. When issues such as this arise, I can't help but broaden my scope and look at the larger issue at hand. We are all so quick to pass judgement on others, pick out each others flaws, place our own belief systems on others, and try to fix problems that may not always need our aid to be fixed. While I understand she is concerned about the obesity problem in America, telling parents they aren't raising their children properly is an inappropriate way to go about fixing this problem. I can guarantee she is not a perfect person and would not appreciate if we picked at her flaws and told her how she should correct them.
Taking a stand against issues we find important is crucial to the progression and development of this country. We just need to be sure we take these stands in respectful and appropriate ways.
