Fat Children

[OrdinaryTa]

In the supermarket yesterday I noticed that there seems to be a lot more obesity in children than I remember. In some cases I saw kids pleading with their parents for some foodstuff that was high in sugar and low in everything else.

Children's activities seem to be more formal and structured than I remember, too. We didn't have adults supervising our play. But "fat" kids in my day weren't nearly as fat as fat kids are today.

Perhaps some of the presidential candidates have addressed childhood obesity as part of an overall commitment to improving America's health. It's certainly the beginning of lifelong health problems, as well as early menarche and Type II diabetes.

[TrogL]

1. There were plenty of fat kids in my day

Kids in general, though, were a lot skinnier because we actively played more.

In other words, we ran riot. Parents thought nothing of kicking the kids out of the house at 9 a.m. on Saturday and not expect them to show up much before lunch, then be back on the road until 6 and again until nightfall.

We didn't mind because there wasn't much to do in the house except board games, and reading.

I think this business of kids being under constant supervision every second is impossible to implement.

[shrike]

2. Re: fat kids

They're all indoors playing video games. Except the kids who live a few streets over from me. A group of pre-teen boys who are out of the house every time the weather's good, playing ball in the street, goofing around by the creek. They don't bother anyone so no one bothers them. The reason I mention it is because it seems so rare these days.

[democrat in Tallahassee]

3. Actually, you can be fat and healthy. It's a lack of exercise

that is harmful. And yes you can exercise and be fat, too. Genetics plays a large role. I don't have the link handy, but a Duke study recently showed that when you compare overweight people who exercise with overweight people who both exercise and lose weight, the ones who only exercised increased the health benefits just as much as the ones who also lost weight. It's not just a matter of fat or not fat; it is a very complicated issue.

[CBHagman]

4. I can't recall the statistics, but there are more overweight...

...adults and kids in the U.S. now than there were in, say, the 1960s. In other words, a higher percentage is simply overweight or downright obese.

While there's no question that genetics do play a role, I think the main problem is our lifestyle and diet. Fewer of us perform physical labor daily, for starters, and it's easy to live an almost completely sedentary life. If you don't walk or bike to school and physical education classes have been cut, you're probably going to be spending a lot more time sitting down.

Then there are the computers, which do keep a lot of us sitting down for hours on end, including times when we could be doing something else (I am guilty of that too often).

Add to that a tendency towards a high-fat, high-carbohydrate American diet, and we've got the basis for the problem.

By the way, I haven't been back to the U.K. lately, but I've heard they have similar problems. Does anyone here have some info on that?

[Lurking Dem]

5. MODY is reaching epidemic proportions.

MODY = Maturity Onset Diabetes in Youth.

Yes they are now getting adult onset diabetes and many of these kids will be dead from complications before they hit 40.

[supernova]

6. Physical fitness

and and recess are being cut way back in schools too. Part of it is budgetary, but part of it is also to make more room in the day for teaching to standardized tests.

Just adding on to the "none of us getting enough exercise" train.