His name is Cookie Monster!

I watched tons of Sesame Street as a kid. When Cookie Monster came on, it made me laugh, and, sometimes even want a cookie myself. I wasn't an obese kid, though. My parents wouldn't let me have too many cookies, because, despite what the Cookie Monster used to say, cookies aren't good for you.

Blame the parents who let their kids get obese. Don't blame Cookie Monster. He's just a puppet.

Yes, it ruins the fun, and also misses the point of Cookie Monster, who's always represented the unrestrained id, the insatiable pleasure-seeker driven to addictive behavior that children (and adults) must learn to control to exist in civilized society. He's Sesame Street's furry crackhead.

It would make more sense for Cookie to experience some consequences for his sugar-seeking behavior: stomachaches, fatigue, cookie hangovers. Or maybe could be pointed out that he's a monster, not a child, and requires different nutrients. Cookies are for monsters, vegetables and whole grains for little boys and girls. But having Cookie like eggs? Ugh.

It does spoil the fun, let kids have fun.

Are you serious?

Cookie Monster was and still is my favorite character. i watched him all the time and had every Cookie stuffed animal or toy my parents could find.

My favorite pastime no is competing in triathlons (not very well, but hey I try).

Cookie did not turn me in to a fat slob.

Blame the parents of the fat kids. Not Cookie Monster!

Yes. Hopefully your kid's main nutritional role model is not Cookie Monster. It is the job of parents to be nutritional role models for their children and to serve healthy, balanced food in the home - this is how kids learn to eat well. Kids know cookies taste good from experience, they are not learning this from a gluttonous tv monster.

I never liked Cookie Monster as a kid when he ate things that weren't supposed to be eaten. It creeped me out. If he'd stuck to cookies, that wouldn't have been so bad, particularly if he bought everyone else a few on occasion. But did he ever compensate people for the things that he ate, particularly the poor car in the Big Bird movie? That's theft and property destruction right there. ;)

To blame childhood obesity on an object. Ridiculous! Parents need to take responsibility for their children the same way our parents took responsibility of us when we were small.

Ridiculous!! Veggie Monster? (...) is that? It will always be Cookie Monster. And one day when I have kids I will tell them his name is NOT Veggie Monster. His name is COOKIE MONSTER. ALWAYS!!

I bet the commercials shown with kids' television programs promote unhealthy behaviors way more than Cookie Monster does.

Food doesn't have a moral value. Let the cookies stay!

Cookie Monster was interviewed on the Colbert Report about this very subject. It was great! You can find it by searching "colbert cookie monster" on Google Videos.

Obedient Comrades!

Television is for telling you what to think and do.

It has been decided that what you must now think is that unhealthy food items are a problem.

Not any sort of nonsense like personal responsibility, which is just imperialist fascist propaganda.

You will eat what we tell you. After all, if we are all responsible for each other's health care, natural we must all be responsible for each other's health.

Keep quiet and do as you are told, or there will be problems.

That is all. Get back to work.

i liked how Mrs. Michelle Obama came and changed it cause she is the first lady and whatever she does on the show will have a big inpact on these kids and parents. For example if she maked cookie monster eat veggie's. He can be veggie monster and she can influence people to eat healthy. So she plays a big role in her part.

Good christ, aren't there bigger things to be worried about in the world of children's programming?

Is anyone paying attention to the incessant slog of advertisements for all manner of inappropriate crap, both edible and inedible, on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, DisneyTV, etc...?

Marcie is spot on in describing Cookie Monster as the "unrestrained id." It's characters like that that made Sesame Street both entertaining and educational. Trying to turn Cookie Monster into a yapping PSA for eggs and tofu is ludicrous' PC nannyism run amok.

If parents are too stupid or neglectful to make these distinctions for their own children then they shouldn't be having kids in the first place.

This is the dumbest thing that people have done to beloved Sesame Street characters yet! All of the monsters of SS represent the purest forms of childhood feelings! Cookie Monster represents the love of excess. Telly represents the total focused worry that all children have when they are young. Grover is all of childhood imagination and Oscar reflects childhood grumpiness.
I get what the adults that have decided to do this are wanting but children as a whole are smart enough to get that these "monsters" are not kids. Children relate to monsters because they can have some of the same sense of weirdness and pure wildness that monsters can inhabit but most kids are smart enough to know they are different than these monster characters. They are not going to as a whole blindly mimic the behaviors of what they know are characters. Children are not just shoving fistfuls of cookies in their bellies and even if they were is that a reason to blame Cookie Monster? Come on!

C is for cookie.
That's good enough for me.

why blame a kids cartoon for childrens obesity? its been cookie monster for years and it shouldnt change now!! vegie monster just ruins the fun of it. its the parents that make the children become obese, they shouldn't let there children eat as fun fattening foods, its not the cookie monster thats doing that, is it? i mean,come on!

Dear Comrade,
Television is for entertainment, not mind control! Jeeze! It doesn't matter if his name is cookie monster or carrot monster, there is still going to be obese kids all over the country. The problem isn't with television, it's with how the kids are raised by their parents. Obeseity doesn't just deal with what you eat, but also how much exercise you get, and there are even some people who have conditions when it comes to being over-weight. It's actually quite sad there society has resorted to blaming cookie moster for their mistakes...HES A PUPPET...A FICTIONAL CHARACTER!!! Open your eyes and look around a little bit, you will see that there are bigger problems than what cookie monster eats. Problems like people in the world starving! I would like to believe that we are given our own free-thinking mind for a reason, not just so other people can control it and think for us! I refuse to be quiet and let you tell people what to do! We are all aloud to have our own opinions.

Geez, whatever happened to "television doesn't influence people"? Double standard! It's used against sweet, childlike things and for criminals!

Our society is constantly blaming someone else for their problems...in this case obesity...blamed on a furry, blue, silly monster puppet!!!!???? Families do need to take responsibility for their own eating habits. Bravo to Marcie who said everything so very well in her posting. I'm now heading off to eat some Keebler Elf Fudge cookies for dinner - better yet, maybe I'll just sneak a few more treats out of my kids Halloween buckets - I'm blaming the witch that brought them in here in the first place!

Every child must learn little facts of life as they grow. Cookie Monster needs to learn constraint...Grouch is grouchy and children need to learn how to deal with grouchy people in real life. Ernie is rude to his best friend...who didn't go to school with a rude kid...and you had to learn to deal with it.

Last time I checked, a 5 year old can't buy cookies or drive to McDonalds. But I'm sure they will add a fat tax to all of those things..."for the kids sake"

cookie monster is amazing. im 17 years oldand i grew u watching him on sesame street and he has always been my favortie character. i dont think it is right to blame him for childhood obesity blame their parents. i personally have grown up loving him and i am a student athlete and in shape. i really dont like this new cookie monster and i want the old one back.

Kids are smart enough to understand that eating too many cookies/sweets isn't good for them. Cookie Monster is a fun puppet for that message. Don't have him plug eggs, though! They're definately not the most healthy option out there with all the cholesterol and such. Let him plug vegetables, whole grains, fruit and nuts.

Cookie Monster is now helping promote eggs with the American Egg Board. Does making Cookie Monster an advocate of healthful eating spoil the fun?

No, that makes him a w#$%^ (prostitute/capitalist).

Oh, let me guess, the Egg Board is a sponsor.

Well, that's logical. How was your Little League game, Butch? Awesome! A home run. Pie? No. Cookies? Don't make me spank you. Here's some Egg Board-approved flan or some Nutra-Sweet zabaglione.

No snack for you. Put on your Snufflufagus Exxon PJ's and go right to your CitiBank bed.

Here's your lesson kids, sell out, cash in, compromise your values and sublimate your desires and you can keep your job. Now, that's America.

What an awesome combination of capitalism and Communist-style propaganda

Of course, all childhood education is propaganda.

As someone raised Catholic I always found the corporate sponsors acknowledgments on PBS to be pathetic, Charity should be anonymous and carry no strings, otherwise it's just a sort of corporate Fascism which really ruins Fascism.

Cookies don't make children fat, eating any type of food too much and not having any form of exercise is what makes kids obese.
don't blame the cookies.

Leave Cookie alone--his name is Cookie. Why are we worried about what Cookie eats when our kids can go to school or the internet and find terrible things! C is for Cookie--not carrots, pees, or whatever. Political correctness has gone too far,

Good for you, Whoopi, you tell those shrieking housewives!

As he's been feasting himself on Cookies for nearly forty years now, how come childhood obesity wasn't such a hot topic in the 1970s?

He's a boggle-eyed blue monster, for heaven's sake!Surely the whole point is that his behaviour is absurd!? That's what makes it funny! I loved Sesame Street as a child and I loved Cookie Monster in particular, but at NO point did it ever make me either hungry for cookies or want to mimic his behaviour. Not once. Show some common sense, people!

*sigh* He's Cookie Monster. They want to have him promote healthy eating? Make him orange and call him Carrot Monster. But for now, cookies aren't a sometimes food, despite what he would have you believe these days.

Who says that making Cookie Monster into moderate eater will improve kids' behavior anyway? Indeed, for years, Cookie Monster has devoured not only cookies, but things which merely look like cookies, including plates, Frisbees, and the moon. If Cookie Monster is so influential, why haven’t I heard more about kids going to the hospital after trying to eat plates?