Morganalee Review of Honey, We're Killing the Kids

Honey, We're Killing the Kids (2006–2007)

Shameless

[12 April 2006]

In the first episode, we have a family of five. Dad is average-sized, Mom is–did no one notice? Obese. Guess what, Mom–two of your three kids are fat. Mom, you're overworked and you don't make the time to make nutritious, balanced meals for your kids, so here's what they'll look like in thirty years–decrepit, decaying felons, who, by the way, are also obese. We "know" that junk food causes the "epidemic" of childhood obesity, but who knew that obesity causes moral degradation, poor hygiene, marginalization, and failure, not to mention bad eyesight? Thanks to this shameless program, we know now. "Cutting-edge" technology, quietly abetted by the same tricks and biases employed in the very old technology of before-and-after photographs, tells us so. And so the reality-show takeover of the family's lives begins, with the expected clearing of the refrigerator, and the institution of regimented eating and forced exercise. It's all right, I suppose, for adults to sign up for this kind of degradation, but since children have no choice, the parents' adoption of the reality-show staple Gestapo pose made me squirm. Excuse me, but in the linking of punishment to the eating of "forbidden" foods, I see a recipe for secret eating and future weight gain. And then the audience is expected to applaud as the cameras withdraw at the end of the three weeks. Are we really supposed to believe that three weeks is enough to reverse years of eating habits–and the effects of genetics? In all the reality-show tough talk, where was the mention of the likely effect, in her nurturing and in the genes she passed on to her children, of Mom's obesity? No, it's all video games and television and not knowing that green vegetables have fewer calories than Twinkies; yeah, right. As for the show's premise, linking obesity to every kind of visible decay, did no one notice that Mom, though obese, and forty or so, was also clean, neat, attractive, and definitely did not look as though she had just stepped out of a mug shot? A shameless show.