Redesigning the Hot Dog

This is positively un-American.

Don't mess with hot dogs.

Leave the shape of hard candy alone.

MONDAY, Feb. 22 (HealthDay News) -- The leading group of pediatricians in the United States is pushing for a redesign of common foods such as hot dogs and candies, along with new warning labels placed on food packaging, to help curb sometimes fatal incidents of child choking.

"We know what shape, sizes and consistencies pose the greatest risk for choking in children and whenever possible food manufacturers should design foods to avoid those characteristics, or redesign existing foods when possible, to change those characteristics to reduce the choking risk," said Dr. Gary Smith, immediate-past chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention and lead author of the organization's new policy statement on preventing choking.

"Any food that has a cylindrical or round shape poses a risk," he pointed out. Smith said that hot dogs were high on the list of foods that could be redesigned -- perhaps the shape, although he said it would be up to the manufacturers to figure out the specifics.

Hard candies, on the other hand, could be designed so they're flat rather than round, said Smith, who is also director of the Center for Injury Research & Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

The AAP policy statement appears in the March issue of Pediatrics and is the first such guidance on the subject from that group.

"There's a general recognition that more needed to be done to protect children from choking," according to Smith. "We have a number of laws and regulations that help prevent choking due to toys. There are no such similar regulations for food."

"Any food that has a cylindrical or round shape poses a risk."

Are you kidding me?

Any food poses a risk to children. Put too much non-cylindrical or non-round shape food in your mouth at once and you could choke.

Parents need to be sure to cut food into small pieces for very young children. They shouldn't allow their very young children to have hard candy.

Very simple.

No redesigning is necessary AT ALL.

Warning labels?

Good grief.

This is so stupid.

I'm surprised that the American Academy of Pediatrics is suggesting redesigning hot dogs and hard candy instead of saying don't give them to little kids in the first place. Why pump kids with fatty sausage and sugar?

Parents need to take responsibility for what they feed their kids.

If parents are so clueless that they don't know better than to pop a piece of hard candy in their little children's mouths, then those parents pose a real danger to their kids and aren't fit to care for them.

This article notes that grapes are a choking hazard. How the hell are we going to redesign grapes?

It's ridiculous.

"I'll give you my cylindrical hot dog and round hard candy and grapes when you take them from my cold, dead hands!"