I rarely have the time to read the paper but being that I’m away on a mini-vacation I awoke this morning to find a copy of USA Today that had been slipped under my hotel room door.  I figured I’d take a quick glance before packing up to check out.  First thing to catch my eye, right on the front page is a headline reading: “Pediatricians Seek Choke-Proof Hot Dog”.    What?? 

To quickly paraphrase the story, the American Academy of Pediatrics wants foods like hot dogs to have a warning label, not because of nutritional concerns but due to the possibility of choking.  It goes on to say that an even better step would be to “re-design” hot dogs so there’s less chance of choking in the first place.    The article quotes Gary Smith who is the director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio  as saying “No parents can watch all of their kids 100% of the time.  The best way to protect kids is to design these risks out of existence.”

Does this mean that bananas and carrots, two other foods often served to children, should also be grown so that they are only 1-inch in length and small in girth?  How about bread?  Children under the age of 12 shouldn’t eat anything other than sliced bread?  Even then I’m pretty sure if you crammed enough in at once you could still choke.

This is just another example of how and why we live in such a litigious society.  No one seems to feel like they should be responsible for their own actions.  When I was a child my parents cut up my food so it was small enough to eat without choking.  I was taught to take appropriate sized bites as I grew older and started feeding myself.  Why do parents feel like they shouldn’t be responsible?   Maybe parenting classes should be legislated instead.

So I guess the next time you go out to a ball-game you might just find yourself enjoying a “hot dog patty” (Which, by the way, would be thick-sliced bologna).