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I hardly think that having a single slice of pizza or a 1 ounce bag of chips for lunch is why kids are obese. How about the fact that kids are warehoused in daycare, after school care and watch to much TV, play video games and mom and dad bring home junk for dinner because they work all day and don't cook?

I am 50. My mom only ever worked part time when we were kids and it was either at night, when my dad was home or grandma watched and fed us. We walked to school in the AM, we walked home for lunch, we walked back for the afternoon and then walked home after school. We did not play video games and we played outside until the street lights came on. We whined if we could not go outside. Even if it was snowing!

I think the cause is not lunch!

Loved your post. Your experiences growing up reflect my own back in the 40s & 50s. My mom never worked during her marriage..only after my dad passed away many years later. We had married dads and moms and grandmas’s/grandpa's in those day, who worked together and helped one another. Mom took care of her husband, children, home. My grandma helped out my mother when she could with babysitting. My mom & her nine siblings took care of grandma & grandpa throughout their lives. My dad worked full time and worked around the house in his free time.

Your daily routine was like my own as a kid. Mom made us breakfast & off we walked to school. Back home for lunch and then the walk back to school. After school, we had a snack, changed out clothes & went outside to play. After dinner, it was homework time, & then listening to the radio for our nightly favorite programs. And then it was bed time. On Sunday, after I picked up the Sunday newspapers on my way home from Mass, my parents would read the news, and my brother & I would read all the cartoons..looked forward to them each Sunday. Use to go to the neighborhood show each Saturday, along with many of the kids in the neighborhood, for the movie, popcorn, candy, cartoons and news of the world on the big screen.

I think we got our first TV in the late 40s/early 50s,and then we'd watch a kid's TV program called kids’ TV program called Lunchtime Little Theatre with Uncle Johnny Coons while we ate our lunch and then back to school. In the evening, we'd do our homework first after dinner, and then watch TV with our parents. If my Dad fell asleep in his char, & my Mom was busy in the kitchen, we kids would then turn the channel to watch something a kid would like to see. Sweet memories, and only one TV in each home!

In the summer, the fun never ended, and we get to stay up later and do summer fun things. Aside from my roller skates, my bike and Red Flyer wagon, all our play consisted of fun things we thought up to do and the props we built with our own hands. The local Boy's Club..we lived in Chicago (b/4 they had Girls & Boys Clubs) and the local parks provided lots of fun opportunities, aside from the big yard we had at home. We also liked to play boardgames & cards when we were younger, as you said defconw, there were no video games or other electronics. “We wined if we could not go outside” to quote your words, and that is sooo true. Even IF it was snowing. Those WERE THE DAYS, MY FRIEND.