Two days after a 3-ton cocaine bust in Panama, a curious boy of four years old was seen downing several ounces of Coke roughly ten miles from the scene of the fiasco. How he obtained the Coke no, one knows.

What this reporter does know is that the types of mistakes children make are often linked to their age, as flights of stairs and kitchens commonly play host to falls and such. The physical and emotional costs of such accidents can vary greatly. How did he get the Coke in the first place? And why didn’t anyone stop him?
One might think, in seeing a lad so young, that the parents should be responsible for identifying and understanding the effects of sugar on the teeth and gums. But this boy was so absorbed in what he was doing, as were the parents who sat off in the distance making out like love pigeons, that both parties seemed oblivious to the harm such caffeine can have on a small body of four.

The incident came ironically two months before National Child Accident Prevention Week in the USA which starts August 11th and ends August 15th.

“A new Journal of Pediatrics commentary asserts that sodas and sweetened drinks play a large part in the rise of child obesity, and a British Medical Journal study found that there are a number of obesity risk factors that can be developed as early as the age of three.” This kid I saw was no older than four!

Sources: http://www.npicenter.com/anm/templates/newsATemp.aspx?articleid=12782&zoneid=24

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Filed under: News on June 26th, 2008