The Childhood Obesity Epidemic

This is a complementary article to our BlogTalkRadio program recorded on March 22, 2010, “The Childhood Obesity Epidemic”, which you may listen to on the BlogTalkRadio widget in the right sidebar —–>


We’re Getting It Wrong!!

*  Childhood obesity has become a lethal epidemic in the US and many other parts of the world.

*  It is estimated that one out of every three children in the United States is obese.

*  This generation has abandoned real food in favor of quick, cheap, processed foods in every arena (home, school, and main street)

*   Three decades ago, the food available in each of these three areas was mostly fresh and grown locally. Now the majority of foods served, whether at home, in school or in restaurants, are highly processed foods, filled with sugars and chemical additives.

*  During that same time, childhood obesity has more than tripled. Now, one in three children aged 10 to 17 is overweight or obese.

*  Consequences of being overweight:  diabeites, etc, etc.    Downward spiral of becoming less and less active.

*  Even children who are not overweight, are still toxic.   Cancer, autism, etc, etc is on the rise, and the reasons are similar.   So even if your child is a normal weight, this show applies to you.

Bad Eating Habits Start at Home

*  Home used to be the heart of passing on food culture. This rarely happens anymore, and children are suffering the consequences.

*  Actually it does happen, but what is the culture being passed?

*  Many parents don’t even know how to cook, because their parents embraced the novel convenience of the TV dinner and fast food starting back as early as the 1950s.

*  Time:  Many people resort to fast foods and processed foods simply because they’re too frazzled at the end of their work day to figure out what to cook.

*  Money:   With tight budgets, many buy the cheapest products in the supermarket, regardless of the ingredients

*  Children will not know which foods and eating habits are healthy when parents don’t teach them.  Poor nutrition at home and at school is setting your child up for potential long-term physical and behavioral problems.

School Lunches are a Prescription for Disaster:

*  Proper diet and health is not on the curriculum in most schools. At least not if you judge by the foods served.

*  Many children eat two meals a day in school (breakfast and lunch); these meals are a vitally important consideration in the fight against obesity.

*  Altering school lunches CAN help diminish the obesity epidemic:

*  A study by Swedish researchers found that when schools removed all buns, sweetened drinks and sweets from their premises, the number of overweight 6- to 10-year-olds dropped by 6 percent in four years.  The students were also given the option to choose lower fat or fiber-rich lunches. Meanwhile, among the schools that did not adopt healthier foods, the number of overweight kids increased by 3 percent.

The Problem:

*  The system is largely run by accountants, not food experts, and budgets are tight. The result is cafeteria food that consists of cheap, highly processed foods with a long shelf life. Many schools use little or no fresh foods at all.

*  This type of diet is loaded with sugars and unhealthy carbs, which also break down to sugar in your body.

*  In a misguided effort to make children drink more milk, many schools even offer sugar-laden, flavored milk products. This is foolishness at its finest, as pasteurized milk is more harmful than healthful, and these milk drinks are loaded with fructose, which is the major culprit for the obesity epidemic.

*  It’s easy to see that if you, as a parent, do not take the time to teach your child about proper, health promoting nutrition at home, they simply won’t learn it.

The Leading Cause of Childhood Obesity is….Fructose

*  Although the American Beverage Association claims there is “no association between high fructose corn syrup and obesity,” a long lineup of scientific studies suggest otherwise. For example:

Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children’s Hospital did a study of the relationship between sugar-sweetened drinks on obesity in children.

548 ethnically diverse schoolchildren (avg. age 11·7) from public schools were studied for 19 months from October, 1995, to May, 1997.

He found that for each additional serving of a sugar-sweetened drink, both body mass index and odds of obesity increased in the children he studied.

Interpretation: Consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks is associated with obesity in children.

*  The Fizzy Drink Study in Christchurch, England explored the effects on obesity when soda machines were removed from schools for one year.

The study (2004), on the Web site of the British Medical Journal, found that a one-year “ditch the fizz” campaign discouraging both sweetened and diet soft drinks led to a decrease in the percentage [this does not sound factual, do you have an actual percentage?]  of elementary school children who were overweight or obese. The improvement occurred after a modest reduction in consumption — less than a can a day.

In a recent study, 16 volunteers were fed a controlled diet including high levels of fructose. Ten weeks later, the volunteers had produced new fat cells around their hearts, livers and other digestive organs- Conclusion:

Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans

Decreasing insulin sensitivity is a sign of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. A second group of volunteers who were fed a similar diet, but with glucose replacing fructose, did not have these problems.

FRUCTOSE is the primary cause of the obesity epidemic in both children and adults. Sweetened beverages and processed foods are the main sources of fructose. (see show from March 8, 2010)

Healthy Living Starts at Home

*  Planning a menu and shopping ahead could actually turn meal time into a more relaxed time spent with family.

*  Also remember that whatever money you think you’re saving now by using processed foods, you’ll end up paying many times over later on when your health begins to fail.   And processed foods are often more expensive than fresh produce.  [This is true in Israel, is it in the US still?]

*  Proper nutrition, consisting mainly of whole, fresh foods, really is your number one health insurance policy.

The Parental Action Plan

Reduce your child’s future risk of obesity: (not in any particular order)

1.    Eat dinner together as a family (healthy for the family on more than nutritional level)

2.    Eat fresh vegetables and fruits every day  –  Organic preferable

3.    Have zero sugar-sweetened drinks: EVERY child would benefit

4.    Get off the processed food conveyor belt (read ingredients)

5.    Offer your child new foods to try (have a “must try at least one time” policy)

6.    Involve them in food preparation (so they gain a love for it and the skill)

7.    Be a dietary role model (Children copy what you do way more often then they do what you say).

8.    Make sure your child is getting enough sleep

9.    Limit your child’s passive/sedentary time (television/internet/video game etc.)

10. Plan one hour of physical activity a day.

11. Detox

12. Pay attention, be involved, and know that GOD designed your children to be healthy  –  but they much have a healthy environment to succeed

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