‘Progress’ has
made our kids fat

I can't get over that study saying isle kids are fatter than their mainland counterparts. In the 1930s and '40s when I was a kid, Hank, Mark and Shay Auerbach and Sonny Chun in lower Makiki, and Bobby Hinkley, Strat Whiting, Donald Keliinoi and "Tough" Don Fowler in Alewa Heights would swing into action after school. We played football, ran races, jumped, wrestled, swam, swung on trees, rode our home-made skate scooters and bikes and did all that guy stuff. Even a pretty little girl, Phyllis Zerbe, ran with us on Piikoi Street.

And there was basketball before intermediate school started and during recess. In high school we went out for sports. We were too active to get fat. Today's youths have more money and have it too soft. The kids have cars, watch TV, sit behind computers, play video games, spend too much time in fast-food joints and are missing out on all that fun and exercise. Chalk it up to progress and the so-called "improved quality of life," I guess.

--Ben Wood

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