When are we going to take a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror as a society and realize we’ve gone too far with fitness? Now, before you beat me to death with your Atkins cookbook and start spouting obesity statistics, just listen to this one little complaint. I may be dooming a whole generation of kids to hopeless chubbiness, but I don’t think we should be frothing at the mouth so much with the fitness craze that we need to sign our toddlers up for yoga.

Yes, you read that correctly. Yoga classes are now available for kids too young to read, write, or in some cases, even speak. Some programs, like the Itsy Bitsy Yoga classes run by Helen Garabedian, say that youngsters can start as early as three weeks old.

You know, because kids need to lose that extra “womb weight” they have from being born so they can fit into a two-piece 13 years later.

Teaching yoga to toddlers might not be so offensive if there was a strong religious motive behind the effort. Yoga in America, however, has been stripped from its Hindu roots so people seek just the practical health benefits of the exercises.

What is most disturbing about this trend is that it means parents are so anxious for their children to be fit that they are making physical fitness a major issue only days after the child is born. Isn’t that a bit demanding of your newborn? At least let the kids have a chance to walk and talk before you start putting them through leg bends and back stretches. Since some of the kids are as young as a month old, they need help even moving their legs into the right position and holding them, meaning the parent almost has to do all the work for the child anyways.

This insanity is mostly in response to the fact that about 30 percent of the U.S. population is obese. We find out we have a fat problem, and what do we do? Do we reduce our fatty foods, eat more nutritiously, spend less time watching television or become more active? No — we throw our infants into yoga classes.

Some of the benefits for toddlers claimed by Itsy Bitsy Yoga Company are, “Positive Body Image and Increased Self-Confidence” and “Better Regulated Emotions.” This world must be worse off than I thought if babies only a few weeks old have low self-esteem before they can even talk.

The only thing that is “regular” about a baby is how often they need to be changed, not their still-developing emotions.

But do the exercises actually help the baby? The American Academy of Pediatrics says no, because toddlers don’t have the ability to sustain the exercise needed to gain any benefits to cardiovascular health or flexibility.

Much of the anecdotes from parents about baby yoga classes have the parents raving about how much more relaxed the babies are and how easily they sleep.

They say that the yoga teaches the kids to relax and regulate their sleep. Whatever happened to singing a lullaby or reading a book to your baby? Why spend money to fix your child’s legs into the lotus position when you can rock him or her to sleep at home for free?

In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong and Tiger Woods were never subjected to yoga as infants. Yet against all odds, they managed to become great athletes later in life. How did they ever get past all that baby fat, I wonder?

What angers me the most is the fact that parents aren’t letting kids be kids anymore. Children are more frequently shouldered with “structure” and responsibilities. Being a baby is all about laziness, crying when you don’t get your way and being able to sleep whenever you feel like it. It’s the only precious time in life when we get to be completely selfish. Let the poor babies just be babies for a while.

Babies are meant to be chubby and to lounge about, hardly moving while they drool on themselves. Making sure they don’t carry those same attributes when they’re 50 is a lesson that can wait until they’re able to understand the language.