Childhood ObesityThis is a featured page

Being overweight is an issue which a lot of people, young and old, battle with every day. Overweight can quickly lead to being obese. The words overweight and obese, and the visual perception of what constitutes being overweight and obese, has evolved and taken many shapes and forms throughout the years. Many years ago a person was thought to be voluptuous, stocky, or big-boned. These terms did not have negative connotations connected with them. More recently, if a person exhibited any curves and contours on their body they were considered fat and undesirable. Today, through research and technology, we have come to a better understanding of what constitutes being overweight and obese. We have a better understanding of what those extra pounds on our bodies can do to our overall physical health. Through research we have also come to realize that being overweight and obese is not contained to us, personally…. It is a global epidemic involving children as well as adults. What a person eats and how active they want to be is an individual’s own business and not one which another person has a right to be involved in. Or is it? No one has a right to tell an overweight or obese person they need to lose weight and that their outward appearance is not acceptable. Or do they? This is a complicated and emotionally charged issue. Each one of us resists being molded and formed into someone else’s idea of what is acceptable. Even if we know we are doing something that might be harmful to ourselves we are very defensive when other people, even those we know love and care for us, point it out and insist we change our ways for our own good. But is it really just for our own good? Are we really just hurting ourselves? I spent 40 years on a journey from being chubby to becoming obese. I personally know first-hand the feelings of disillusionment, despair and frustration. I also know the feeling of defiance, stubbornness and indignation. I have lived the journey of a chubby child, and overweight adolescent, a starving but desirable young adult, and then on to being an overweight young women, to being obese. I watched my health progressively deteriorate, making me feel twenty years older than I actually was. I have had loved ones, health professionals, friends and strangers tell me what to do, how to do it and why I needed to stop stuffing food in my face and get out and exercise. The resentment I felt towards these people and so-called experts was overwhelming. No one was going to tell me what to do! This was my life! If I wanted to be fat, that was my choice. If people cared about me, really cared, they would accept me for what I was and not what they wanted me to be. That attitude changed the day I realized that my choice to live the life of a fat, unhealthy person was not just effecting me and my health, but was providing a poor example to young people who I loved and cared for. Yes, we have freedom to choose how to live our own lives but we have to consider the examples we give to the young people of today. Taking ownership for our actions is the first step to choosing health and wellness over that stubborn, selfish, one-sided perception. Living a healthy life style and making the choices to value exercise, good eating habits, and responsible life decisions will hopefully contribute to our children’s future without childhood obesity. Children today are bombarded by media advertisements promising them unlimited popularity among their friends if they serve pizza rolls after school. They are guaranteed to be the most popular kid at school if they have a lunch bag full of goodies like Blow Pops and Twizzlers. How the commercial advertising of foods contributes to the epidemic of obesity among children and adolescents is still an on-going debate. There seems to be widespread speculation that the exposure to food advertising may contribute to unhealthy food choices and weight gain. Despite the debate, some countries like Sweden, Norway and Finland have banned commercial sponsorship of children’s programs by food companies. Sweden does not even allow any television advertising targeting children under the age of 12 (Anderson pg 279). In the United States, most recently, companies such as Kraft Foods have decided to lessen advertising aimed at children in an effort to encourage better eating habits (Ashton pg 51-2). McDonalds is now offering a Happy Meal with fruit slices and milk instead of French fries and soda. Whether the statistics prove it or not, children can be just as influenced to make healthy food choices by the mass media then unhealthy choices. Why not use it to our advantage? If the media in the United States followed in the footsteps of other proactive countries, they could be considered to be part of the positive influences used to educate children and adults about living healthy lifestyles and making good choices. Influencing children by living by an example, using the media as a tool for education are all excellent examples of working together to achieve a common goal. However showing them how to eat is just one way to influence their choices. “The Chefs Move to Schools” program, run through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, helps chefs partner with interested schools in their communities so together they can create healthy meals that meet the schools’ dietary guidelines and budgets, all the while teaching children and young people about nutrition and making balanced and healthy choices (USDA). During the school year, at least one meal a day if not two meals are eaten in a school cafeteria. Allowing children to directly experience balanced nutritional meals and involving them in the process of making those meals is teaching them to empower themselves giving them the skills they need to be healthy adults. The USDA has developed an initiative called “Team Nutrition”. This program lends technical assistance to food service personnel, schools and community programs for the education of children on healthy eating and physical activities. Not all schools and communities are taking part in these programs but the numbers are climbing every day. It took us 40 years to see this epidemic take a strong foothold on our society. Realizing we have a serious problem and seeing the repercussions of obesity has set the wheels of change in motion. Laying blame on one institution or influence is not proactive or realistic. We did not become a fat society because of the Big Mac commercials or the invention of the remote control. Working together as a whole creates a larger common interests fueling the fire of change. Educating ourselves, supporting ongoing research, and living by healthy examples are key to changing our future and our children’s future.


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mmbarrett23 		Latest page update: made by mmbarrett23 , Mar 6 2011, 11:00 PM EST (about this update About This Update mmbarrett23 Edited by mmbarrett23

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