A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. ~Maya Angelou

Tonight, while sitting on a middle-school bleacher, listening/watching middle-schoolers (one of which is my sister-in-law) perform their self-conscious, voice-cracking little hearts out, I felt what seemed to me to be a crippled older person coming down from behind me. It was an uneven "thump-dmp... thump-dmp" that shook my seat. I turned concerned that this person may need help.

It was a 6 or 7 year old girl that was, and I'm sorry if by mentioning her size I offend someone, huge. She must've weighed 100-120 lbs. She was so fat that she couldn't bend her knees. She let one leg catch her as she foot-extend-then-foot-togethered her way down the bleachers. As she passed me, she hitched up her size 10-12 jeans with embroidered butterflies and flowers. She tugged down her light purple "Butterfly Kisses" t-shirt and waddled (-WADDLED!!!) heavily, stiff-legged across the gym floor.

She sat at the entrance table where all the programs lay and played with them in that 6-year-old way: First stack them in a pile. Then lay them out in a fan pattern. Then restack them in several piles. She sneezed, wiped her nose with her hand and continued to shuffle and sort the programs. So unself-consciously. So innocently.

It was during the Solo & Ensambles singing when she came shuffling back, her barefeet barely leaving the ground. Her cuffed jeans exposing her very plump and delicate ankles.

I finally saw her face. It was round and sweet. Her beautiful brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail. Her lips were pink, her cheeks flushed. Her tiny eyes, rimmed with dark lashes, dwarfed, miniaturized by her size looked up at her mother as she goose-stepped her way up the bleachers.

Throughout the evening I tried not to look at her any differently than I would any other person. I know that people (especially children) are very aware of their surrounding. That by staring I could cause long-term damage.

It was then I became angry. I was angry at the mother who I had seen walking her other (also large 4-5 year old) daughter to the bathroom. How could she let her own daughters enter into school where other children don't need the excuse of size to pick on others? How could she allow her daughters get so big?

Disgusted and furious at the world who will mock her, ridicule her for her size when it was obviously not her fault that she's big.

How come there is an overabundance of food for Americans and not enough for the rest of the world? How could we let it come to this? How come we eat food not for nurishment but instead to pass time, for pleasure alone or to satify a deeper need?

Now, to curtail an obvious question: How do I know she doesn't have a medical disorder? Truthfully I don't. The biggest, most disturbing fact was that her mother, the sister I mentioned before and the other sister I saw performing were all very big.

I'm commenting mostly upon the 2 younger children, the 4-5 and 6-7 year old's sizes. At those ages, I feel, and reasonably too, that activity of children and their age somewhat protect them from learned behavior. I think that over time, they would be more likely to be the size they were based solely by observing and thereby most likely sharing their mother's habits. (We've all heard the statistic that children with obese parents are more likely to become obese themselves.)

Now cats and people are two completely seperate subjects, and I warily approach this comparison: My cat is fucking huge. I will post a picture of her for those who do not believe. For a medium build cat the 20 lbs will hurt her long before age will. I have her on a diet. I am encouraging exercise. Toys that make her move. Calling her name, and prodding her to run more. Cats in some ways are harder and easier to get into a new routine.

However, like my cat, the girl I saw tonight will have higher risk of Diabetes (TYPE 2, PEOPLE!!), arthritis, heart disease, and many other "older people" concerns long before she should IF she isn't helped now.