Childhood obesity stole headlines yet again this week: from a study that gestational diabetes is linked to early childhood obesity to news of a national trend to minimize or eliminate junk food in schools (thank God)! In addition, new studies suggest that those nasty sugars and preservatives in everyday foods are linked not just to hypertension but also to hyperactivity and rotting teeth (surprise, surprise).
Just a few quick thoughts from me on the matter...perhaps it's because I'm reading Fast-Food Nation for the second time but obviously obesity and particularly childhood obesity has been on my mind lately....I often ask myself why is the childhood obesity epidemic surfacing now? I posed this question to Jennifer Burnell, a nutrition education and fitness specialist with the Athens Regional Medical Center, today. Since great minds obviously think alike, we had similar thoughts on the issue. "There’s no one thing that we can pinpoint that is the ultimate cause of epidemic," she said. "Several factors are involved." She cited family lifestyle changes (i.e. eating more fast food, known for large portions and poor nutritional content, and less structured family meals) and greater periods of inactivity in childhood (i.e. more "tube or screen time" at home and less opportunities for physical activity in schools). Since I liked her reasoning here, I asked her the million dollar question, "what can we do about it?" She encouraged parents to be healthy role models for kids (chunking the "do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do approach out the window). "The ultimate parent role is to provide proper portions of healthy foods," she said. "Allow kids to make healthy choices (such as knowing when to stop eating)." Burnell begs parents to nix the clean-your-plate rule. It sounds as if someone on high is finally listening to experts like Burnell (see school story above). Now if we can just figure out a way to stop craving those McDonald's french fries.
Up next: Children and Mental Illness
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3 comments:
I think it's interesting the changes being made in school foods. I remember watching that Naked Chef guy singlehandedly attempt to change how one school in Britain prepared the food and one of the main concerns was cost. Is it more expensive to prepare "real" food as opposed to "junk" food. What about physical education programs? Now that many schools no longer offer P.E., should we leave that up to the parents, too?
There's a lot of truth here. Your comment about "finishing your plate" got my attention. I was discussing food health and obesity with my brother recently. We both agreed that Americans just eat too much. I read somewhere that serving sizes in France are a third the size of ours, and they seem to be doing ok. In the U.S. we have so much available to us and we tend to think that more is better, but sometimes, it's just more.
I definitely believe parents are the primary factors in the nutritional health of their children. I am lucky to have parents who fed me a wide variety of foods growing up. As a result, there are very few foods that I really dislike.
Parents do not realize the harm they are doing to their children when they allow them "options" at meal time. When the kid doesn't want what mom cooked, he is allowed to eat Chef Boyardee instead. This practice only breeds picky, unhealthy adults.
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