There’s one subject I’ve pretty much avoided discussing here in my column; children’s fitness.

I realize how important a matter it is. All the reports you read show how kids’ obesity levels are rising, and how many health problems it’s causing. Having been an overweight kid (or at least, not so skinny that playground bullies could have called me Beanpole and gotten away with it) I know how badly growing up heavy can play havoc with your self esteem. It’s a big problem. And I’ve mostly kept silent on it because I don’t really feel qualified to discuss it.

Despite having no hesitation about bashing Sex and the City sight unseen (oh, and it’s the number one movie in America, why don’t you people LISTEN to me) I don’t feel quite right applying the same standard to heavy children. I’m not a parent, and I suspect if I were, my kid rocking the husky sizes would be the least of its problems. And I don’t think, if I were a public health official, I would have the least idea what to recommend, suggest, or blame when confronted with the kind of statistics that currently exist about childhood obesity.

Today, 59% of children are at least overweight; put another way. if your kid is in a class of 30 children, 18 of them will be overweight. That’s staggering, and to those who are responsible for the welfare of children, either on a governmental level or as parents, it must be terrifying. And certainly, nothing you want to see a round little punk taking you to school about.

Of course, that won’t stop me.

 The American Academy of Pediatrics, for example, recommends that every child undergo a BMI calculation once a year. Considering we debunked the BMI right in the first issue of this column, I’m already skeptical. Next, the AAP suggests parents “promote healthy eating, limit television, internet, and video game use, and encourage physical activity in both structured and unstructured environments.”

And, from these seemingly benign and sensible recommendations, I am not only convinced that no one in the AAP has children, but in fact they never actually grew up and were instead vat-grown in a cubicle somewhere in Omaha according to specs extensively focus-grouped and stamped with the approval of at least 12 bureaucratic offices.

What kid, honestly, operates like this? Has EVER operated like this? “Oh, mom is promoting healthy eating by giving me carrots at snacktime. She must really love me. Yum yum, crunch crunch.” No, that kid will throw his lunch away on the bus to school and trade up for a Lunchables taco pack to fit in, and will guilt trip his mom because “he can never bring his friends around when they’re playing, we always go to Mrs. Johnson’s house. SHE makes us cupcakes.”

Let me ask you a question. Do YOU prefer carrots to cupcakes? Of course not; you’re reading a fitness column. And I assume you’re not, you know, insane. So why would a kid, who hasn’t had the life experience to understand delayed gratification enough to know how long a car ride is, be able to apply the same logic to food?

Childhood is about instant gratification, or as instant as circumstances allow; it’s the only time in life when you’re not self-aware enough to second-guess your own happiness. It’s about Saturday morning cartoons and Red Rover and Cookie Monster, for goodness’ sake. I don’t even want to HINT to you the expletives my office was treated with when I discovered that Cookie Monster barely eats cookies anymore.

It’s not that I don’t get the seriousness of the epidemic. I do. I just don’t think that making kids be neurotic about their pleasures, self-conscious about their wants and needs, and judgmental of their television friends - in short, making them act like adults - is really what is going to help. And if that is the route we go in trying to make them thinner, I don’t see why we’re surprised when they adopt other facets of adulthood, like wearing miniskirts at age ten or needing pills to cope with stress.

Stress, I would venture to suggest, is probably the number one deterrent to weight loss (or possibly number two, after sanctimony), whether you’re a kid or an adult. At 26, I’m probably on the tail end of the last generation of kids not to be subjected to adult-levels of stress; my mom and dad swore by such truly transgressive parenting strategies as ‘letting me play outside in the summer,’ rather than signing me up for fifteen origami/racquetball camps or dumping me in a Dachau-style Juvenile Recreation Facility so the sexual predators wouldn’t get me. As I said, I wasn’t thin, and I did love to play my video games. But I also loved to build treehouses, and if anyone had ever suggested to me that the treehouse building was something I Ought To Be Doing, and the video games were in some way wrong, I’d probably have snuck back in the house to kill Koopas and never seen the sun.

So here’s my suggestion. If we’re really so worried about childhood obesity, rather than trying to make kids act more like adults, let’s act more like kids. Allow me to demonstrate.

1. Wake up at 6 in the morning. Eat Sugar-Frosted Cocoa Puffs with chocolate milk from a tiny Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bowl, while watching Thundercats. After the sugar high hits, tie a blanket around your neck and run up and down the stairs for an half-hour screaming “I AM LIONO!”

2. Go to work. Fidget in your chair for at least two hours. Rather than going on a cigarette break or stopping by the vending machine, take two recesses. At 10:45 and 12:45, go outside and climb a tree. If you’re really feeling ambitious, see if you can coerce your coworkers into a game of dodgeball in the parking lot.

3. For lunch, don’t spend ten bucks at a diner. Spend those ten bucks on ebay getting the sweetest possible lunchbox you can (mine is a Japanese-style plastic bento with little cat faces and the hilarious phrase “Lovely Lemon Day”) and fill it with a tuna sandwich, an apple and a thermos full of chicken noodle soup. See if you can score a packet of Hostess Cupcakes from your buddy two cubicles over. Or, take a leaf out of elementary school and opt for cafeteria style food. I promise as soon as you get a whiff of the potato-grease-and-stale-no-name-brand-catsup ambiance or a look at the pizza with the rubber cheese product and freakishly regular pepperoni slices, your appetite will have shrunk to the bare minimum.

4. Finish work and go to the park. Try to cross the monkey bars without stopping to rest. When you fall, try again. Ride bikes really fast on the sidewalk. Chase your friend up and down the courthouse stairs. Fall and cut your lip. Keep playing.

5. When it starts getting dark, go to the Gravity and use whatever change is in your pocket to get a small twist cone. Try to finish it on the way home so no one knows you spoiled your dinner, and completely fail because there’s chocolate all over your mouth.

6. Eat dinner. Complain about the vegetables. Eat them anyway. Don’t get seconds.

7. Spend two hours stealing cars in Grand Theft Auto IV, an hour watching TV, and an hour reading a book. Go to bed by 9.

I can pretty much guarantee that those tips will never be endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. But I’m also pretty sure that, if we followed them, we’d all be a lot thinner and a lot happier.