Sweets Can't Kill You

Sweets Can’t Kill You
It’s Worse Than That

     “Lauci, you can get dressed now and join your mother in the lobby. Please don’t leave though. I want to talk to you both in a few minutes about the test results.” Childhood Healthcare Professional Peavic said as he finished writing something down on a piece of paper. Then he put it in a folder – and left. Lauci had already started getting dressed.

     It was actually about an hour later before Peavic talked to Lauci and her mother Wande. He sat behind a cluttered desk in a small equally messy office. Wande and Lauci sat opposite him.

     Peavic opened a folder on his desk. But he had to search for it a little first. He pulled out some papers and exam images. “Here are the test results we did earlier. They look pretty good too.”

     “Then why can’t I lose my extra weight? I’m almost a Young Adult. And I can’t weigh like a fabric airship when I do.”

     “There is one thing about your health that I need to talk to you about. It’s amount of sweets you have been eating.”

     “You said that I could eat all the sweets that I wanted to eat. Didn’t you say that at my age it was okay for me to eat as many sweets as I want.”

     “That’s true, I did say that. That was just after you turned eleven eight months ago.”

     When Lauci and Wande didn’t respond Peavic continued. “According to the tests you have been eating a lot of it in the last eight months. I knew you would be eating a lot of sweets during that time, but I didn’t expect it to be that much.”

     “What can we do about this problem?” Wande asked. “We tried to tell her to slow it down, but she wouldn’t do it.”

     “You could have just denied her sweets. She doesn’t have a way to get Credits does she?”

     “No, she doesn’t have a job. She has watched some younger children a few times, but she didn’t get enough Credits to justify the amount of sweets she has been eating. Lauci gets all of her spending Credits from us.”

     “Then why haven’t you stopped giving her Credits when you knew that she was going to use them for sweets. If you had done that you wouldn’t be here today. Actually, that isn’t true. We would still be here. But it wouldn’t be as bad of a problem as it is now.”

     “We don’t give her that much spending Credits. Most of the sweets she gets we get for her. She is our only child, and we have a hard time saying no to her – especially her father Tain.”

     “How bad of a problem do I have with sweets?” Lauci asked.

     “There is only one thing that you can do. And that’s to cut out sweets completely. If you do that you might be able to lose the weight you want to lose in a year and a half - maybe.”

     Lauci’s jaw almost fell into her lap when she heard that. “You expect me to give up eating completely.”

     “Did I just hear you correctly? You didn’t just say sweets is all that you eat – did you? If that’s true, you have an even bigger problem than I thought.”

     “She doesn’t just live on sweets. We aren’t that bad of parents. Lauci does eat a lot of sweets a day. But she also eats at least one good meal a day. We insist on it.”

     “You had me worried there for a minute.” Peavic returned the papers and images to the folder. Then he got up. So did Wande and Lauci. “Do you think that you can do that Lauci? Can you give up sweets completely?”

     “If it means I will lose the weight before I am a normal Young Adult then I can do it. I will do whatever it takes to do it.”

     Peavic escorted Wande and Lauci to his office door. He didn’t have to push the clutter out of the way because he did that when he let them in. “I’ll see you again in eight months. We see how much of a progress you have made. Then I will be able to give you a more positive response as to if you can lose the weight in time.”

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     It wasn’t easy, but Lauci did it. She did slip up a few times during the next year and a half. Lauci begged her parents for just a little bit of sweets. Not much, but she had to have some. Tain and Wande didn’t give into her though. They refused to do it. It wasn’t easy for them either – especially Tain, but they did it too. So she used her own spending Credits she got each week to do it. When her parents found out about it they cut off her weekly spending Credits. They didn’t care if it was a government rule or not. Lauci’s health was more important to them than some stupid rule.

     Eight months later Lauci had her next testing with Peavic. And it didn’t look too good for her. Peavic didn’t think she would lose enough weight. Then he found out about her lapse in her sweets decision. And he changed his mind. Lauci still had a chance to do it. Only it meant she had to do it right that time. No more sweets - period. It was hard for Lauci to do it. In fact, it almost drove her crazy. But she not only did it – but she did it with three months to spare.