No Weight Loss Needed

            I monitor what the boys watch. Part of the job description. Anyway, I keep it pretty safe with all of them but the little boys especially. That being said I was rather taken aback one day when Adam came to me in the kitchen and gave a little sigh and said “I need to lose some weight.” Say again? He informed me that he was too heavy and needed help losing weight because being too big makes people unhealthy. Now this is not something that I thought I’d ever have to deal with because I have sons and not a daughter in sight to look at models and television and think she needs to look that impossibly perfect. We have a talk right there. I tell him that he is the perfect weight and that he is in no danger of needing to lose weight and that losing weight is not something that need ever cross his mind again. That child don’t diet and that I don’t know where he got such an idea. I know that with all of my positive comments and reinforcement of the facts that he is going to put this out of his mind. That’s when he told me that he needed to lose weight because the television told him so. Now I am confused and tell him that I need him to explain a little more and I am trying to think of what show I had on for him as to why such a theme would be addressed. A commercial was playing and it was for, of course, weight loss products. Since he was the only one in the room it, the commercial, was speaking directly to him. The voice on the commercial kept saying “you” need to lose weight and since he was the only one in the room it was telling him that he needed some help to trim down. I told him that the commercial was only for people who need help losing weight and that it is completely up to the person to decide for themselves and that he is not in either category. Seven years-old and 52 pounds go together perfectly. Captain Literal rides again.