Kids are cruel. Growing up in Chicagoland we used to tease the one fat kid in our school. The one who couldn’t run as fast, or who was out of breath just running up to the cafeteria line.

I thought about that yesterday when I was at the Getty. There were groups of schools at the museum, and as I stood looking at dozens of boys and girls walking, I realized that perhaps 8 out of 10 of them were overweight. Granted, many of the kids had names like Hector, Arturo and Roberto and the last names were Martinez, Gomez, Elizando. And inevitably I associated higher weights with lower incomes.

But I know 11 and 12 year old kids, in Beverly Hills and on the Upper West Side of New York who are really fat. They are children whose parents have incomes (or so they say) in the six or seven figures. Just what exactly do these children do daily that turns them into fatties?

Could it be:

1. Sitting in front of the Internet for hours?
2. Watching TV for hours?
3. Being chauffered in a car instead of biking or walking?
4. Eating every meal in a restaurant with huge portions and salty food?

When every kid is fat, suddenly it won’t seen abnormal for a 10-year-old to weigh 160 lbs. Just like it isn’t strange anymore to see 250 lb. women with tattoos who wear low cut jeans and flip-flops. The grotesque becomes commonplace and accepted.

But nobody is teased anymore. They just get diabetes.