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Hi there. You may remember me as the guy who likes to write humorous posts. Like the last one which was about football and my mourning the end of the season. Which got me in trouble with the wife, by the way. She was not amused. I'll bet she'd write the same thing if they took away her Farmville.Anyway, this post is more serious.
Right now it's all over the news that hot dogs are a dangerous choking hazard for kids. The news is reporting that there are several deaths each year and that people are starting to ramp up efforts to get WARNING LABELS on certain (only certain!) food items as choking risks.
Now, let's for a second take the dumb parenting angle out of the equation - and I think this is much more due to stupid parents than anything - let's take a look at the numbers involved.
First, a few givens. Americans will consume 7 BILLION hot dogs from Memorial Day to Labor Day every year. I couldn't find statistics on the entire year so we'll only do the 5 months. So 7 BILLION hot dogs consumed. That includes all demographics.
Second, in the years 2001 and 2006 there were 61 & 60 pediatric deaths which were related to food. Again, statistics couldn't be found but you can make the assumption that this is fairly accurate. So we'll make the inference that there are 65 pediatric choking deaths which were food related each year.
Third, of these food-related choking deaths, 17% are attributed annually to the hot dog. That's 11 kids.
Breaking down the numbers, that means 1 death for every 636.4 MILLION hot dogs sold. The odds your child is going to choke to death is 1 in 636.4 MILLION. To put this in perspective, the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot is 1 in 195,249,054. You are THREE TIMES more likely to win the Powerball than to have your child choke to death on a hotdog!
I know the media are yellow-colored alarmists but come on! What ever happened to critical thinking? Keep feeding your kids hot dogs without worry and just make sure you cut them up into small pieces...like any good parent does.
8 comments:
Yeah, this is not new news. Cut your kid's weiner and all will be right with the world. (and no, this was not a marketing plug for circumcision)
Retards. Next thing you know they'll put warning stickers on cigarettes.
Half of the warning labels we have out there today are because of stupid parents and stupidity in general. Great job breaking down the statistics though!
Wait, your wife plays Farmville? We could totally be neighbors!
Ian: There's an inherent difference between cigarettes and hot dogs.
Cigarettes - when used properly and exactly as intended - will still KILL YOU!
Hot dogs are only deadly in the rarest of circumstances and even then can be prevented with proper education in the Heimlich Maneuver or prevented entirely by common sense.
So while I understand your humorous dig, it's disingenuous and a fallacious analogy.
And now that I've used my allotted number of syllables for the day I'm out.
Boys, boys, boys....let's not fight (even though I would totally love that). Of course we all know Ian was joking. Let us all take a deep breath and focus on more importan things than choking...whether it be on a piece of ass and lips or a lung. Shall we?
I don't eat hotdogs...never have...but I will probably be feeding my future child hotdogs someday. I don't think it's a big deal to put a little forethought into preparing your kids' meals...as long as you use common sense, there's no reason to be alarmed about this.
I don't eat them either....UNLESS I'm at Fenway or some other baseball field. I don't know why, but they taste better there. Otherwise they just totally GROSS ME OUT!
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