When Fitness is a Lifestyle
|
When Fitness is a Lifestyle |
         |
As the summer gets into full swing I hope you and yours are doing well. I remember as a kid I LOVED the summer months, playing outside for endless hours. We would play football, basketball, baseball, ride our bikes, and all the other activities kids play. It seems that children are not including physical activity as much as they once were. People are quick to point out that schools are not funding physical education programs for kids, and in some cases eliminating them all together. In this newsletter, I want to talk about the risks involved for children and teenagers that are either overweight or obese.
As with any discussion about weight, we need to look at both nutrition and exercise. This month we will look at the nutrition side of the story. What has over 1600 calories and is loaded in fat? How about an “Awesome Blossom” from Chili’s restaurant! McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and Kentucky Fried Chicken have become the latest five food groups. With most parents working full-time, it’s hard to have healthy home cooked meals on a regular basis. Besides, the fast food chains have given us the .99 menu so it’s fast and cheap. Kids are not drinking water or any other low calorie beverage. Instead, they are opting for sugar loaded pop. This quote is from the Washington Post on this very subject, “Kids are heavy consumers of soft drinks, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and they are guzzling soda pop at unprecedented rates. Carbonated soda pop provides more added sugar in a typical 2-year-old toddler’s diet than cookies, candies and ice cream combined. Fifty-six percent of 8-year-olds down soft drinks daily, and a third of teenage boys drink at least three cans of soda pop per day. Not only are soft drinks widely available everywhere from fast food restaurants to video stores, they’re now sold in 60 percent of all public and private middle schools and high schools nationwide, according to the National Soft Drink Association. A few schools are even giving away soft drinks to students who buy school lunches."
Are you as floored as I am? Overweight and obese children grow up to be overweight and obese adults. So your thinking – well, at least my child is eating a healthy lunch at school right?
Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and many other fast food companies are bringing their food to your children’s school. In California, 90% of the schools surveyed already are serving fast foods in their schools. Fast Food In Schools Report Good luck getting your kids to eat a nutritious lunch when the can eat a high calorie, high fat lunch washed down with a large sugar filled drink! This makes me sick! Unfortunately, most things boil down to money. Schools will continue to do so because kids are leaving school to buy this stuff anyway. Besides, soft drink contracts and the fast food restaurant franchises contribute a lot of money to the schools. I have an idea - how about using that money to fund a physical education program? The only solution I see is to educate your children, and hope they make better food choices. The problem with our children being overweight is they can develop the same types of health problems adults have related to being overweight or obese while still being children. They are:
To wrap things up, I am not saying make your kids eat carrots and broccoli everyday, but they do not need to eat the triple cheese burger, large fries and a 64oz of soda pop. Moderation is the key. Encourage the kids to try some of the salads or the leaner chicken sandwiches. And maybe just maybe they could drink water. You never know!! I could not help but to include pictures of my beautiful girls.
|
