We keep reading how our society is so much more obese these days than when I grew up. They often wonder why and blame it on video games.

I’ll go a step further and blame it on fast food. Today I saw a commercial for a chain pizza restaurant touting some sort of double cheese special. Not only does the pizza have more cheese than it should, you get free bread sticks or free mozzarella sticks if you buy a few pizzas. Jeez, why not a free angioplasty for dessert, too?

Let’s see, high carbohydrate pizza with extra cheese, making it extremely high in fat, especially if you get it with meat on it. Then they offer “free” bread sticks which are nothing more than pieces of fried dough, which is nothing more than fatty carbohydrates. Or, you can have mozzarella sticks, which are fried cheese. Yes, fried fat.

The commercials are marketed toward kids, of course.

How about vending machines in schools? I heard about those and was shocked. What the heck are those needed for? Either you eat the lunch the school provides or bring your own. Why are they offering potato chips, candy bars, high sugar sodas, etc.?

I ate school lunch a few times but it was so disgusting I stopped. I’d bring my own lunch, but my mom always made embarassing lunches. Egg salad in a hot dog bun. Fish cakes. We had a choice of milk. Regular milk, that was it. No skim milk but no chocolate milk either, as they offer today.

And, when we came home from school, we went outside to play. Oh sure, sometimes I’d watch TV after school, though I was never a soap opera watcher. I’d watch Mike Douglas or Merv Griffin. I still remember seeing the Village People in 1977! After supper we’d go out and play for a bit, maybe play kickball, walk around, etc. We didn’t sit on our butts and play video games. And, we had no computers either.

There were also very few fast food restaurants around back then. I remember a place called Howdy Beef Burgers, which was a generic equivalent of McDonald’s or Burger King I guess. I remember going there a few times, a cheeseburger was 25 cents and fries were a dime! A family of 3 could literally eat for a couple of dollars.

We didn’t have pizza restaurants like they do now. I remember the first Domino’s Pizza that came into this in the early 90’s. Mom and I ordered a pizza for delivery. It wasn’t there in 30 minutes so it was $3 off the price! It was the first pizza place in the area. Nowadays they’re on every block, right? I only had that pizza one time and we didn’t like it.

Ever walk through the supermarket and look how products are marketed toward kids? All the sugary cereals are at eye level for kids. Reading the ingredients in those cereals makes me ill. SO many carbs, so much sugar, so much garbage. When we were kids they had what, 12 cereals at the most? Now there must be 100 or more and all have some sort of gimmick of sugary this or that and, of course, that free prize, making it a must have for every kid