I've thought to start a thread about this topic, but it's a loaded, heated topic. I recently spent some time with family, and the diet blew my mind. After giving it considerable consideration, I can't help but see it as neglect. From the moment each kid was born, the parents have been running a restaurant. Feeding each one of them what they want, having to come up with a different meal for each of them, and with that level of control in the hands of the children, you can rightfully guess they are extremely picky eaters: only wanting to eat junk. Energy drinks. Pop. Chips. Crackers. Nothing can have color, as in be green. Nothing can be "burnt", so everything has to be perfectly undercooked. You name a food hangup, and they have it. One of them is worse than the others, and I can't even believe I'm saying that because of how awful they all are. The father called, and I answered the phone. They wanted me to write down a list of things to go buy that the most problematic would eat. "Stuff to make Smores. Doritos. Ritz crackers. Strawberry something drink." And I stopped them and said, "None of this is food. This is all junk. When are you going to tell me something they will eat for a meal?" Their response was, "That's all they'll eat. Sorry. We battle this every day." They, as in the lot of them, won't eat an actual meal. I have to admit that I quickly got frustrated with the entire situation. I even found myself angry at times. I can't imagine what their future partners will think, let alone deal with and their eating disorders. Absolutely ridiculous, from A to Z. Half of them are overweight, while the other half show some signs of an eating disorder. And I don't take using those terms lightly. If I get a phone call tomorrow telling me one of them is in the hospital, in large part due to malnutrition, I would be the least bit surprised. That's where at least one of them is headed. And these aren't low income people. These families live in nice houses with new cars etc. No one could blame this on being about class or a bad economic situation.
Then I think about the health care system and how nobody wants to truly address its ills. This is the youth of this country, and this type of diet is going to be a huge burden on the system. We're all going to be paying for this, not just the individual.