Is the Burien Fred Meyer's new family friendly checkout line really that family friendly?

I understand the concept that has been adopted at all Fred Meyer stores. Remove from one aisle per store the magazines with bikini-clad cover models and cheesy stories about celebrities who are famous for being famous.

That way, families will have one line to wait in to pay for their groceries where impressionable minds won't be subjected to pop glitz.

The Moral Majority celebrates another small victory.

But what did they leave behind in this supposedly family friendly aisle?

Mass quantities of fattening candy bars, tooth-rotting sugared gum and what could only be categorized as "impulse items."

You know, the cheap trinkets you would never write down on your shopping list. But while you're standing there doing nothing, they suddenly look like something that you can't live without.

And besides, it's so easy to just toss them into the cart.

In fact, to fill space left vacant by the banned magazines, the family friendly line sports extra candy bars, sugared gum and impulse items.

The trouble is, kids are all impulse, especially when it comes to candy, gum and flashy junk.

So, while the parent is feeling virtuous for steering the children away from another Paris/TomKat/Britney cover, the kids are screeching, "Mommeee, Buymeee candy!"

You call that family friendly?

The less humorous side of this is the obesity epidemic among children.

The Center for Disease Control reports that nearly one-third of our nation's kids are medically defined as "obese."

Dr. Caroline Cederquist, a weight management specialist, tells horror stories of severely clogged arteries in boys as young as 15.

"That's no mere case of 'baby fat'-it's a potentially deadly condition," Dr. Cederquist writes. "Such childhood obesity grows up into adult heart disease, diabetes, kidney ailments and other lethal complications."

I never worried about this stuff until the cold winds of too many August birthdays made me notice that there are no fat people in retirement communities.

If I wanted to live long enough to be a burden to my children, I realized I had to start being choosier about what I ate.

My weight struggle didn't start as a kid. My mother put on the table enough to adequately feed her five kids. The extra was held back in the kitchen as leftovers for the next day (or two).

Besides, we lived on top of a hill so if I ever wanted to get back home, I got my exercise by walking back uphill. (The family car was reserved for chauffeuring my baby sister, but I'm not bitter.)

When I went away to college, my roommates would sit around the cafeteria table griping, "This is outrageous. We should strike for bigger meals."

"What do you mean, this is great," I would reply with my mouth full. "Mom said we didn't like steak. She said we preferred liver."

Thirty pounds later, I got my college degree.

My mom's policy of only putting out what was meant to be eaten has caused me trouble in adulthood.

At weddings, funerals and CASE meetings, I tend to follow the same policy of eating until it's all gone.

(Funny, I don't get invited to as many weddings or funerals as I used to.)

But back to Fred Meyer.

The question is, what is more family friendly? Bikini babes or Baby Ruth bars?

Angelina/Jennifer/Nicole could teach the virtue of being thin.

But then there is the other problem of teen girls wanting to be too thin.

I bet you didn't realize that stepping into a Fred Meyer's was so fraught with philosophical dilemmas.

Eric Mathison can be reached at hteditor@robinsonnews.com or 206-388-1855.