I'll join the tag team from Texas, y'all. I would imagine we'll get in trouble with PETA again though ... after all, we're planning to attack an animal.

Wooo, I agree with you and the stories you posted hit home with me. I was raised in a very strict Southern Baptist church, where everyone was much holier than your average taxpayer and no one hesitated to dispense their parental wisdom on other people's children. I remember several instances as vividly as if they were yesterday, where I was made to feel like the devil's spawn.

What goes around really does come around though. One of the worst pseudo-parents in our church was the choir director, a self-righteous bigot if ever there was one. He and his wife were unable to have children of their own (gee, maybe God was telling them something). Finally they adopted two, a boy and a girl. Last I heard the girl was pregnant and the boy was in military school.

I feel sorry for the kids, but can't help feeling like karma came around and jumped square in the middle of that guy's a$$.

If I had to eat a turd, I'd want to eat one that was 1/200th the size of the other one.

Sure we should all refrain from eating anything other than nutrition-packed, minimally processed foodstuffs. But in this, the real world, most of us have unwittingly been exposed to sugary, proccessed stuff at some point. And found it to be to our liking. Addiction to sweet things comes rapidly in my experience. And the forbidden fruit, tastes all the sweeter.

So, yes if you can possibly keep yur child from ever developing a taste for cookies, soda, and the like, you are being a good parent. Very tough to do in the world I live in. So the options left are, do you satisfy the craving artificially or with the real McCoy? In this case, by far the lesser of the two evils is the artifical sweetened carbonated beverage. In my opinion. And no, you didn't ask for it.

I feel like the basic problem with people who make these kinds of comments is that they have not yet learned to consider that people's circumstances are different and that people make decisions based on values and situations not made public. The speaker feels that there could be no better decision than the one they would make -- not considering that all the information is not available to him.

I often think they have also forgotten that people are ALLOWED to have different priorities and values. Our society sets the limits with laws, the rest is up to us within those confines. So you would be wrong if you forced the nutritionist to drink a diet soda but if you allow your 5 year old to have one that is your privilege.

She must be tired from exerting so much energy trying to run the world...

Count me in Bandito. I'm coming from Missouri!! I can't believe somebody would have the nerve to say something like that. That is one of the most ignorant things I've ever heard!!! We'll hunt her down like the moron that she is!!!

anyone who thinks banning things from their children, like ALL soda or ALL anything are....well.....lets say asking for trouble (really wanted to say something else here but trying to be good).
what do you think these kids are going to do when they get a little freedom??? come on, i cant be the only one whose parents didnt buy junk food but the moment i found some or was able to get my own, STUFFED MYSELF. I firmly believe, no i KNOW that if forbidden food and weight werent such issues when i was young, i wouldnt be as big as i am right now.

I would have had to ask her what HER mother took. The NERVE!

Yea, while you're preventing your kids from eating anything unhealthy, you'd better prevent them from BREATHING, too--because air pollution is EVERYWHERE, people! There's NO WAY you're going to get away from it! It's always a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils, isn't it?