Posted on 02/05/2006 6:00:01 PM PST by KevinNuPac
Couch Potato Kids
By Julie Mosher
With so much emphasis on looks in today's society (mainly in bulimic Hollywood), there is a growing problem we all know as obesity. Not only is this a serious problem in adults, but it is now a huge problem in our children as well. Why has this become such an out-of-control crisis when in the last 30 years it was seen very rarely, if at all?
There are many factors that are in play here to answer that question. Perhaps the most important question to answer is, to whom does the responsibility fall for letting a child get this way?
Well that's a no-brainer. The parents. Could this be an involuntary form of child abuse?
It is much easier for a parent to say 'yes' to that second cupcake than it is to say 'no'. Most parents these days work all day and find it hard to find the time to prepare the proper healthy meals for themselves and their children. Well to me that is just an excuse! What could be more important than the health of you and your children? With the internet and television programming such as the food network, and even the library, parents can find the resources to make a vitamin-packed quick meal.
It takes dedication to the health and well being of a child. The parent is the adult and must be responsible. There are many diseases that obese children will acquire if parents do not intervene before it is too late. Understand, this is not might get, but are sure to get if they are not helped. Like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma and enlarged heart. This is not to leave out how cruel school kids can be when it comes to an overweight child, causing severe depression and anxiety and possibly even suicide. These social challenges are quite unnecessary.
Overweight children tend to be overweight adults essentially shortening their life span. Today 9 million children, ages 6-19 are overweight. That is astounding! When Sesame Street changes what cookie monster eats, I think we have a problem! Kids need more aerobic activity. Turn off the TV. Let them go play outside. There is bike riding, rollerblading, ice skating or simply taking a family walk through the neighborhood. Let them build a cool fort where they can exercise their imaginations as well! Exercise can be fun (yes, I said fun). Family exercise also strengthens the family bond as well.
When adults are getting Gastric Bypass surgery (a choice with potential dangers) because they simply have no control over their lives, what message do we send to the overweight youth of America? When people are suing airlines for the seats not being wide enough, what message does that send? When people are trying to sue McDonalds for their own obesity (read: lack of control in NOT overeating), what message does that send?
Suing McDonalds is not only preposterous, but it avoids what's really going on here. Personal responsibility! Only YOU are responsible for what your own hand brings up to your mouth, McDonald's is not. This sends a message to our children that personal responsibility doesn't matter and that the burden for one's problems will fall on someone else. This is not a value I will ever teach to my children.
It is estimated that there are 129.5 million American adults who are overweight. That is nearly 67% of men and 62% of women. About one third of adult Americans are becoming unhealthy.
We are the fattest nation when this problem is very preventable!
So parents out there, whether you are obese or not, please, for the sake of your children's lives, get active and shop smart at the grocery store. Use common sense and arm yourself with knowledge. You'll be around to see your grandchildren grow up, and your kids will be around to actually have them! God bless!
For more info on obesity in children and solutions to the problem visit: www.kidshealth.org
# # #
Jules Mosher is State Editor of the Michigan page of GOPUSA and co-host of The 15-Minute Mom segment weekly on The Kevin Fobbs Show on WDTK News Talk 1400 AM. The Kevin Fobbs Show airs daily 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. EST. Listen online at www.wdtkam.com and call in toll free at 1-800-923-WDTK (9385).
I think a lot of this is due to both parents working. Kids then spend too much time indoors watching TV (when mom's home she yells "get the hell out of here and play outside!" :) and everyone's eating quick manufactured food for their meals (which is high in fats and carbs). It's also been my experience when you see fat butterball kids their parents are huge as well.
"Well that's a no-brainer. The parents. Could this be an involuntary form of child abuse?"
Yes and thank you for naming and blaming appropriately. Parents need to evoke the term "NO" more often. Their own self-discipline will speak volumes to the short people in their life. Want your kids love and respect? Trying eating a meal or two prepared at home, preferably daily. We do - and six together on the weekend!
heres an exerpt from an oldie but a goodie i was emailed today ...
it really brings back memories of a simpler time in life...
(taken from a piece titled ... TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !! )
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because :
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet, no I-Pod or chat rooms..........
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them in our own town, neighborhood and state!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
If we were lucky, they were eating a meal and we got invited to eat with them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
When kids are dumped off in child care for most of their lives (Parents call the scant hour or so at home together before bedtime "quality time.), after-school programs, camps, etc., it's impossible, almost, for them to be anything but couch potatoes. There's no one to individually motivate them, care for them, take such an intimate interest in them and emotionally bond with them. Sports and other physcially active things require parent care and monitoring....MUCH easier to put kids in with other dumped-off kids and turn on the T.V. and video games.
Food is a wonderful substitute for parents. Kids have a tough enough time not being able to bond with mom in their pre-school days, so they learn that they 1. make trouble in day care for attention, 2. shut up, be good, get ignored...and be rewarded with food.
As they get older, in after-school programs, there's ALWAYS a snack, money from parents, hush money, to buy even more snacks. Then, finally, at 6:30 at night, home for take out and/or fast food.
Then, as teenagers, food is a bonding mechanism with other day-care-bred teens. The pressure to be cute and thin for girls sometimes leads to bulemia....stuff face, toss it up, start all over again.
Stay-at-home moms don't know what damage is prevented by not working. Special bump for stay-at-home moms!
I'm really isolated from reality here in Manhattan.
I go to the gym and all the guys are slim except for huge back, shoulder and arm muscles. They get on the treadmills and run at 8 MPH for thirty minutes without much effort.
I don't look bad for 52, but I'm not like these guys. But this isn't really America. Out in the real world, they don't spend $30 for lunch, either, or live in 750 square foot apartments valued at $800K.
yes! yes! yes! to every point you made!
Thanks!
Got any personal experience or hard information to back up that smack talkin'? We used daycare for three years, and the life you descibe is a complete fantasy in my experience.
I'm not a fan of daycare, and thankfully we don't need it anymore, but sometimes it's a necessary evil.
Yes, we used to go outside and play all day, ride bikes, etc. Perhaps that was BEFORE we as a society started allowing convicted child molesters to roam free. A truly civilized society would allow these b@st@rds to live exactly five seconds after our so-called criminal justice system releases them. After a few hundred, maybe less, have their clocks punched by angry parents, maybe they would see the light. Allow my kids to play unmonitored in a neighborhood where there may or may not be some of these guys roaming around??? I THINK NOT. Let's get at least some of the blame for our overweight kids where it belongs: the politicians and judges who allow these predators to live free in society. And the voters who keep them in office.
i lived that life for quite a few yrs and could see my
kids slipping into some of those routines. i've been at
home for the last 4 yrs now and do see changes in our
choices as a family.
my kids are more active afterschool outside w/ friends,
riding bikes or skateboards and more active in sports
at school as well.
we eat home cooked dinners at home that include (gasp!)
a variety of fresh vegetables and lean meats. :)
both my boys are in much better health and physical
condition than they were before.
yes, they are "snackers" but maintain good health due,
i'm sure, to the other choices they make in activity
and diet. we even escaped the dentist office last
week cavity-free! :)
There have always been child molesters roaming the streets. Go to missingkids.com and there are still open files on stranger abductions from the 1970s. If you let your kid play outside unsupervised he or she stands a much, much greater chance of getting hit by a car than molested (and that is still a pretty small chance). The news has gotten so sensational now that parents believe half the adult population are child molesters!
There isn't an epidemic of child molesting going on. The rate of child abductions is about the same as it was 30 years ago. It just receives a lot more news coverage.
One disturbing trend I notice is that kids spend most weekends lounging in their pajamas. I go to the Dunkin' Donuts on a Saturday morning and you see the moms pull up in their minivans with carloads of kids in slippers and pajamas. They get their donuts and get right back into the van where they probably spend the rest of the day watching television, playing video games or on the computer.
yep! i agree! there should be consequences for those who
molest children, etc. this is the end of that very same piece...
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
We produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
If YOU are one of us . . . CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
And while you're at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
True. Let's see...if moms started staying home, we could...use half the oil we're using, bring the prices of a bezillion things down, out-populate Muslims, re-create a decent and safe society....
Do you have a url for stats on that?
Missed the url, however I would still say no way kids were missing at the same rate as today.
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