Origin of the Cookie Monster

Changing topics - The Cookie Monster will no longer sing "C is for Cookie" but instead sing "Cookies are a sometimes food." This is in response to the increasing number of morbidly obese children.

The temptation is great to come up with easy answers as to why more and more children are obese. The stupidest and most offensive of the common explanations are contentions along the lines of:

1. Children are lazy. With respect to motivation, children like adults have a range of motivation. Some are lazy, some are extremely motivated. Human nature hasn't really changed much over the last few decades so the conceit that children are lazier now than in the past is a combination or arrogance and nostalgia. As in "Kids these days are bad! When I was a kid, I was full of VIRTUE! What kids needs are a good BEATING because THAT'S WHAT I GOT." "I thought you said you were full of virtue, why did you need a beating?" "BEATINGS BUILD CHARACTER!" (Note to self: When building a straw man, make sure that said straw man is as comical as possible)
2. Children are spoiled. If only the wealthy were getting morbidly obese that might be true, but its not
3. Children don't like to eat nutritious food. Children will eat whatever their parents eat.

The stupid answers out of the way, Sesame Street seems to be honing in on something which I think is correct: Helping children to adopt healthier eating habits and giving children more opportunities to develop exercise habits is a societal problem.


In fact, everything that I've said so far is a digression from why I posted this. What I meant to say was "If they are going to mess with Cookie Monster, couldn't they teach him proper grammar?"

My LARC exam is in 5 hours. Back to the flash cards!