August 1: Veggie Tales

You shouldn't be surprised to know that while growing up, my family ate every possible meal together. During the week, my mom had to get ready for work so it was just my dad, sister, and me eating a bowl of cereal. But every night, Mom would cook dinner and the four of us would sit down together and talk about our days. On the weekends, we did the same, but with breakfast thrown into the mix.

Without the distraction of cell phones, books, or hand-held video games, we would always sit in the same seats at the table. Dad would be at the head with Mom to his left, Lindsay across from him, and me to his right. There would be meals filled with tear-causing laughter and meals of bad-mood silence. There would be times where I would orchestrate ridiculous games of nonsense such as Mom and me leaning into the table and Dad and Lindsay leaning away and then vice versa. Each game would end with uncontrollable laughter which inevitably turned into us laughing at Dad's high-pitched laughs.

I treasure those memories. Not only were these family times responsible for molding my personality and views on life, but I'm starting to believe that the meals we were eating were just as important. There was at least one serving of fruit or vegetables with every meal. We ate most of our meals at home and rarely ordered take-out.

As I witness parents feeding gobs of queso and grease to their kids on a daily basis, I often find myself wondering what these kids will look like when they move away from Mom and Dad and begin deciding what to eat on their own. I strongly believe that if it weren't for the years of healthy and steady diet while growing up, I would be a pudgy mess. Because I ate my fruits and veggies during my crucial years of development, I feel like my metabolism fully established itself which in turn has allowed me to eat as poorly as I currently do.

Although I don't eat like I used to, I'm still extremely cautious with what I eat which is more than I can say about the future of these young fatties. Queso and grease is just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure. A parent that allows that kind of diet is a parent that brings home a bucket of KFC for a Friday night in front of the tube. A parent like that doesn't pay attention to the hours and hours a child will spend playing video games or surfing the net instead of playing little league or riding bikes around the neighborhood.

There have been documentaries upon documentaries of how America is becoming increasingly obese and lethargic, but I see it in person every day. These kids aren't eating right. Their ideas of exercise is playing Wii fit; a video game. What's wrong with being outside? What's wrong with ringing the neighbors' doorbell and asking if Jimmy can come out and play? Why do I care?