we are the land of gluttony, after all

Probably one of the saddest sights I've ever seen was the one I saw tonight as I was leaving work.

I work at a restaurant and table of grossly overweight children caught my eye. I don't mean that these kids were slightly heavier-set than others in their age range. I mean to say that their faces were so pudgy that their eyes almost completely hid behind their cheeks; their arms didn't necessarily fall down to their sides like they normally should; and every single child (maybe 6 of them?) was wearing sweatpants-- I'm guessing because clothes aren't usually made that big to accomodate children that small.

I don't want to be misunderstood, here. To me, this is not a weight issue. This is an issue of neglectful parenting and borderline child abuse. For such small children, they may have weighed more than I do, and they weren't a day above 7 or 8. The parents, too, were large but again, this is not my issue. I just don't understand HOW or WHY a parent could let their child get to that point. Obesity before age 10. Really??