An article in the local daily helped solve one of life’s great mysteries. It is often asked why Appalachian folk clog the supermarkets for bread and milk when snow storms are announced. Methinks it has something to do with the kids getting free school lunches and parents not budgeting for snow days.

Even with the great government nutrition programs feeding so many kids, a large number are not chunky, not fat, but obese.

In Buncombe County, 28 percent of kindergartners are overweight and that number increases up to 39 percent for fifth-graders.

Methinks this has something to do with school poverty. The lottery is so impoverished, schools are having to apply textbook funds toward the construction of new buildings. As a result, students are reading five-year-old books in which carbs were evil. In poorer districts, students are even encouraged to get on the oat-bran diet. If more people gambled, the kids could have enough new buildings to learn that trans fats are the real perps. However, by that time, the enemy will be something else.