To the Woman Giving Out Fat Letters to Kids on Halloween:
How dare you.
You may think you’re doing your town a favor by handing out flyers instead of candy to children who you’ve decided are “moderately obese.” You may consider yourself a modern-day superhero, a vigilante even; taking matters into your own hands by telling parents to ration their child’s candy intake. You may think you’re a good person, caring about the health of the children in town.
But you’re not. You aren’t doing the town a favor; you’re doing it a disservice with your negative mindset. You’re murdering the saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” which, ironically, is something you’ve probably engrained in your own child’s mind. You’re making it okay to judge someone on their appearance only and spreading your close-minded behavior.
Every time a child is tormented in school because of his or her weight, you are the reason. Every time a child comes home crying, begging their mother to stay home from school the next day, you are the reason. You are the reason girls as young as eleven starve themselves, and the reason why even the most beautiful of women cry in the dressing room when a pair of size six jeans won’t button.
You have the beauty-before-brains mentality. You embody the societal belief that to be beautiful, fit and healthy, one has to be thin. You are the ignorance in America, and the perfect example of one step forward and two steps back.
“Your child is, in my opinion, moderately obese and should not be consuming sugar and treats to the extent of some children this Halloween season.”
Why should parents listen to your particular, specific opinion? Are you a certified dietician or physician? Did you examine each child and run lengthy tests, determining blood pressure and blood sugar? Unless you did, you shouldn’t be handing out your opinion on pieces of paper to children who look a little chubby.
You fail to understand that being overweight does not necessarily correlate with being unhealthy or unfit. The kids coming to your door on Halloween are still growing and changing—have you never heard of baby fat?
When you hand out those letters, you strip those kids of their innocence and force them to grow up. You push them into the real world before they’re ready, and expose them to negativity and insensitivity of the world.
You’ve unpleasantly managed to butt yourself into the lives of all your neighbors, and have caused quite an uproar—I’m sure you’re happy about that. If you truly cared about the wellbeing of children, you’d write open letters protesting McDonald’s, Pepsi or Kraft instead of sending letters home with overweight children.
Instead of pushing for a lifestyle change in children by handing out healthier alternatives on Halloween, you’ve chosen to attack parents for their parenting skills. It’s a fact that no one will take advice thrown violently in his or her face as you have chosen to do; your method of delivering your message was ineffective and has caused more harm than anything else.
Please think about whom you are affecting and how you are affecting them the next time you chose to lecture them on things you have no real knowledge about.
Sincerely,
A concerned college student pushing for the end of negative body image
