I'm not sure how I managed to avoid killing off my three children prior to this event. I'm still steamed about it, though.

I'm standing in line at Wal Mart earlier this week. My almost-5-year-old son has been very patient with a long line of errands during the day. He asks if he can have a coke. I tell him yes, as a treat (as a rule, I don't let my kids have a lot of cokes, they bounce off the walls). He goes to the cold case and pulls out a diet coke, which is the only kind that me or any of my kids drink, none of us can even stand the taste of regular soft drinks anymore.

From behind me I hear, "OMG, you're not going to let him drink a DIET COKE, are you???"

I turn and there's a woman in line behind me with a horrified look on her face. I just raised my eyebrows at her, unsure whether she was seriously asking me this or not. She begins to lecture me at some length about the evils of nutrisweet. She says it's poisonous. I manage to interject that I believe that sugar is poisonous, and she actually makes the following statement: "Oh, sugar is a health food compared to artificial sweeteners!" She goes on to explain that she is a certified nutritionist (and may I just add that in my world, there's not much that carries with it less credibility than that particular distinction). So she KNOWS what she's talking about!

Okay, I have to admit, my diplomacy failed me here. The woman in question was, quite literally, almost as wide as she was tall. She was not a tad overweight, she was obese. Perhaps morbidly obese. So I'm standing there listening to this lecture, and I'm looking pointedly at her midsection. When she finally stopped to take a breath, without moving my eyes from her midsection, I asked her what exactly she would recommend as an effective weight control measure in place of artificial sweeteners. I may have had a sarcastic expression on my face. I can't recall.

In any case, once I explained to her that I have 3 children, this one's my youngest, and they're all still alive and well despite my nutritional shortcomings, she decamped to find another line to stand in (where, presumably, the mothers weren't so fundamentally deficient).

I'm not sure what pisses me off the most about this episode. I don't like people who offer parenting advice to strangers. If I want to permit my children to juggle flamethrowers, it's noneya. Secondly I am thoroughly aware that too much aspartame is not a good thing. Too much ANYTHING is not a good thing. But if I am going to permit my child to have a soft drink, it is darn well not going to be a sugar-stuffed cherry vanilla dr pepper. It will be diet, and there's an end to it. I don't let them drink capri suns or other sugar-stuffed "healthy for kids" drinks either.

But the number one thing that torques me off about this is probably un-pc and I apologize in advance if it offends anyone: How DARE you, as an extremely overweight person, presume to prattle to anyone about your qualifications in the nutrition field??? That's like an illiterate doing ads for hooked on phonics. You have taken none of your knowledge and actually put it into action for yourself, so IMO, you have exactly zero credibility. You obviously don't believe what you're saying to the extent that you've been able to implement it (or worse yet, you have, and look where it's gotten you), so why should I?

I am not down on the extremely obese, please do not misunderstand. I know that there are many who are in this category who HAVE educated themselves and are making progress. It's not the fact that she was that big that offends me - it's the shoving her "credentials" down my throat.

LOL, I love it! Maybe she works for the sugar industry lol. You did good!

Good for you MOM!!!!!! If you dont stand up for you and your's no one else will either.

Your nicer than I may have been.....I am a big girl....but I would have probably lost my kewl and told her she was overweight and needed to practice what she preached....

((((CLAPPING FOR U))))

LOL thanks. I wish I'd handled it in a kinder manner, but I just get so SICK of the LC bashing and self proclaimed experts who can't even help their own weight, but want to tell you how to handle yours.

I think we should start a log of the funniest excuses we've all heard for why people can't or shouldn't do Atkins or LC. My personal two favorites so far:

1. A lady I worked with informed me with a perfectly straight face that she'd tried to do Atkins twice, and both times she broke out so badly that her dermatologist ordered her to stop (this strikes me as hilarious because one of the almost universal side effects from LC is that your skin clears up).

2. An old friend of mine, whose weight has steadily increased more and more over the years, says deadpan that she is so prone to diabetes that if she starts Atkins, she has been reliably informed she will drop dead of a diabetic seizure. Before you ask, YES I have tried to give her the research and evidence of how LC can prevent and help manage diabetes. She is not one to allow truth to stand in the way of her goals in life.

::sigh::

The lady was totally wrong. Now im not saying you couldnt possibly be making a better choice in what they grabbed to drink...but at least you have thought about it and decided what and why......who the hells business is it of ours. ESPECIALLY HERS.

A forum is just that.. a forum. People post and are free to reply to the information given. REALY LIFE is totally different, and she obviously wasnt trying to give advice, she was trying to shove her mantra down your throat and calling you a bad parent at the same time because you dont "know" or "follow" it.

She had no right to interject whatsoever and I probobly would have clocked her for it. I cant stand someone trying to tell me how to parent. I have a REAL problem with that. Im a good parent and I dont need someone thinking they can raise my kids better than me or telling me what I "should" be doing.

When she told you she was a nutritionalist I would have started laughing my ass off...seriously.

I wish that I had started my son on diet drinks. He now drinks way too many cokes, and I'm afraid he's going to have the same weight issues I do. Dinahb

OMG, Katie, you're my new hero!!!

Good for you, on all accounts!

You're absolutely right. "Certified nutritionist" means almost nothing. And anyone who would condemn one single soda by itself is just a moron. Plus, what a nosey parker.

Plus, it's not even actual sugar in sodas - it's high fructose corn syrup, which is crapola and it's in a lot of prepackaged foods.

Good grief, what a maroon.

I do believe that sometimes parents can be bad parents and someone should intervene, like in cases where the child is imminently in danger. Certainly not because some uneducated schmuck got a spam email hoax about artificial sweeteners and believed it.

Three words:

"Nutritionist, heal thyself."

I experience palpitations after consuming an artificial sweetener called aspartame, everytime!

Some don't tolerate it well, others do just fine.

i consume it all the time with no problems whatsoever. i find it annoying as hell when someone feels the need to lecture. there is a far difference between sharing information and/or agreeing or disagreeing on subject matter and flat out lecturing someone. much like that biking thread. that woman took it upon herself to aggrandise her position as a nutritionist and give mike cavanaugh (sp?) an unasked for lecture on nutrition. she as much as said so. it would have been a different thread altogether had she said she didn't follow or believe in lc lifestyle choices and what those reasons were. as it was, it was a sneak attack lecture on nutrition which i would have found offensive as well. way to tell her mom!

This strikes me as hilarious. Why does she have a dermatologist in the first place if she does not already have a skin problem? If Atkins does in fact make her skin breakout, it's because of something she added to her diet that she is allergic to (nuts?). Her dermatologist would know this and, with a few questions on what foods she started eating that she did not eat before, would quickly identify the culprit (asuming he/she was competent).
Morons, both of them.

I started buying sugar free snacks for my kids lately. I'm just waiting until my mom or mother-in-law starts in on me about it.