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to their events and presentations by offering food. Weddings must be followed by receptions with large amounts of food - why? Are you afraid no one will attend the wedding if you do not feed them? Attending a movie requires popcorn with extra butter, oversize beverages, candy, etc. or does it?

We need to recognize and start breaking these cultural traditions by serving less food and healthier foods and beverages. We need to start by teaching our children that they do not need to eat large helpings of everything and by having fewer special occasions being celebrated with food. Movies can be enjoyed eating popcorn without butter and a regular sized beverage (bottled water, even). Children will learn what we teach them about these cultural events and it just takes our recognizing these fattening traditions and transforming them into something better and healthier. How about playing football before eating Thanksgiving dinner instead of eating dinner and laying around watching others play on the TV?

3) Environmental - Actually this is a big problem for many people of all ages. How are we to feed our children healthy foods in adequate sized portions, when there is so much junk food around and it is so inexpensive? Dollar menu items abound and few are healthy choices. Many schools and other locations have vending machines - and the choices are rarely healthy. Some poor neighborhoods do not even have grocery stores close by with fresh produce; all they have are "convenience stores" and the foods in them are rarely healthy.

Advertising is almost always for foods that we do not need to maintain a healthy weight. You won't see commercials about buying and eating carrots or skinless chicken breasts. Many of the advertising gimmicks are are very misleading and sometimes just plain false. I saw a candy bar the other day that said "70% less fat". 70% less fat than what? It didn't say what it is being compared to; and, it didn't warn you about the sugar, lack of fiber or vitamins, or any added chemicals. But, it did try to make you believe it was "healthy" because it has "70% less fat" than some other unknown item. Terms like "natural" and "low" or "less" are thrown around all over the place and we don't question them. We need to educate ourselves so that we can educate our children to avoid foods that will make us fatter.

Some foods actually have ingredients which are designed to make people want more of that ingredient. To get it you must eat more which make the company selling

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