If Your Grandma Didn't Send You This Article About A Boy Going Blind From Too Much Junk Food, She Doesn't Love You

Hello Christopher,

I saw this story below on the news this morning and felt the need to go on the Google and pass it along. I know you like your pizzas and your chips up at State but I hope you remember to eat your fruits & veggies, too. They’re important for your bones. Grandpa says hi.

I love you,

Grandma

From USA Today:

Here’s another reason to eat your veggies.

A British teen who doctors described as a “fussy eater” was partially blinded because of his diet, which consisted of nothing but fries, chips and the occasional slice of ham.

The case was reported Tuesday in the peer-reviewed Annals of Internal Medicine, the flagship journal of the American College of Physicians, and described how the boy had been treated for health problems related to his poor eating habits since he was 14.

“His diet was essentially a portion of chips from the local fish and chip shop every day. He also used to snack on crisps – Pringles – and sometimes slices of white bread and occasional slices of ham, and not really any fruit and vegetables,” Dr. Denize Atan, who treated him at the hospital, told the BBC.

His family practitioner first prescribed him injections to treat a vitamin B12 deficiency and told him to change his diet when he came in reporting “tiredness,” but the boy did not keep with the treatment, nor did he change his diet, according to the case study.

When he was 15, he started experiencing hearing loss, but MRIs showed no structural problems. Vision problems followed soon after, the case study reports.

Over the next two years, he progressively lost vision. Atan told the BBC that he met the criteria for registering as blind.

I mentioned this story back in the office’s kitchen area today as I heated up my 2nd plastic container of Cheesy Mac in less than 24 hours. Coffee, chocolate, ice cream, faux cheese products & bagels toasted with extra butter make up about 95% of my diet, and so as I watched the Mac spin in the microwave I wondered allowed if I could get *scurvy (*that disease malnourished pirates used to get) and also brought up this article about the kid going blind.

Right away someone laughed and told me their grandma had sent them that article (shout out FFFPod commissioner, Conner Knapp) today, and I know if either of my grandmas were still around I would have received the same message. Probably via snail mail & complete with multiple news clippings on it…

Sadly, either way it would have fallen on deaf ears with me (probably from too much of that faux cheese) because damnit, I know what healthy is. I’ll be just fine.