False advertising

Coming home from my volunteer gig at the prison last night, I heard a commercial on the radio that I promised myself I wouldn't forget about because I wanted to write about it this morning. Perhaps my mental faculties are suffering; I prefer to think it's the ad agency at fault, because I can't remember the advertiser.

[First, an aside: Last week when I was off getting married and unable to attend my Tuesday night AA meeting at the prison, the other volunteers passed a card around the meeting for the women to sign. They gave it to me last night and of course I got a little verklempt when I read it. They're all so happy for Mr. Shrinking Knitter and me.]

Okay, back to "bidness."

I do remember the premise of the commercial. A young girl is describing how she used to hate seeing photos of herself because she was so big, bigger than all the other kids. Thanks to whatever the advertiser was pushing, she looks great in her latest team picture.

What struck me is that when I was a fat child, it never occurred to me to wail about how bad I looked in photos. That seems to be more of an adult concern.

I started gaining weight when I was 10 or 11, and our family moved to a house across the street from a little grocery store. I spent all my allowance on candy, and I was bigger than all my friends. I developed an insatiable sweet tooth, fed by my friend Gretchen's mother's after-school brownies, my own mother's cake-mix creations and whatever confections I could buy with my very own money.

I hated that I couldn't keep up in gym class. I hated that we had to buy clothes from the "chubby" department. I hated being teased and I hated being ignored by boys. [Except the ones who wanted to know if my best friend liked them.]

So the radio ad hit me the wrong way. And it was on a sports talk station; I doubt their target audience is going to care about or act on the dilemma presented in the commercial. But maybe that was the only market the advertiser could afford.

The "childhood obesity epidemic" is certainly a big news story, and it's interesting that commercials are now aiming at the problem. A Scottish newspaper headline offers this sage advice:

EAT LESS, EXERCISE MORE TO CUT CHILD OBESITY

Hmmm. Where have we heard that before?

Anyway, my point is that the commercial felt off-kilter to me. Did you hate looking at photos of yourself as a child? Or did you start hiding in the back row or avoiding the camera altogether only as you got older?

Another news story [not specifically about childhood obesity], this one from the United Kingdom, claims that overweight people now outnumber hungry people. The author uses the term "undernutrition" – "The reality is that far more obesity than undernutrition exists …" – and I wonder if that term is replacing malnutrition. I don't believe that every obese person is properly nourished. Particularly if their idea of a vegetable is a large order of fries or a bag of potato chips. Is 'undernutrition' a new politically correct term?

Two words for DJ Steveboy: I surrender. The workout I chose, at 180 beats per minute, was far more than I could handle. I'm so glad he offers, as Lynette recommended in the comments, some less-intense options, and I'll be downloading one or two of those tonight. Sheesh! Talk about biting off more than you can chew! What was I thinking?

And to Kate, who suggested perhaps walking and knitting could be done at the same time, I have done that in the past. One particular treadmill session comes to mind. I can highly recommend the old Paton's Kroy sock yarn as sturdy, durable and able to withstand the internal roller bars of the machine. I can't say as much for the 12-inch Addi Turbo needle, but I'm sure it wasn't meant to be tortured in treadmill innards.

When I knit and walk outside, I tend to do both more slowly than I do when I concentrate on one or the other. And since I'm trying to run more than I walk, I think I'll leave the knitting on the couch. I've gotten more than six inches of the back done since I cast on Monday morning, so it's coming along much faster than I thought it would.

Maybe because it's not as wide as it would have been a year ago?