DEAR ABBY: I recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She's now 7 weeks old, and I am just now getting to where I can start exercising to get the baby fat off.
Today, when I was at the grocery store, I bought some control-top pantyhose. When I got to the register and the cashier rang them up, the automatic coupon printer printed out an advertisement for a brand of ice cream. Personally, I felt humiliated and insulted. They were implying that if I needed the "big girl" pantyhose, that I would automatically want ice cream.
This is just more proof that our country is in crisis! More than half the population of the U.S. is overweight, and advertisers are playing to their weaknesses. That's no way to help the current situation. It's almost like they WANT us to stay fat. -- NEW MOM, MIDDLEBURG, FLA.
DEAR NEW MOM: The machine that printed out the coupon for ice cream was not trying to send you a personal message. A supermarket manager here in Los Angeles explained to me that these coupons can be triggered by the purchase of a similar product or anything you may have purchased that is put out by the same manufacturer. (I doubt that fresh fruits and veggies are ever among the freebies offered with those coupons.)
While I agree that many people in this country have weight issues, in this case your grocer was not trying to insult you, only drum up a little more business.