I read a disturbing quote in a newspaper the other day, that said if things carry on the way they are, parents will be burying their children because of obesity. That in itself is horrible to read, no parent should have to bury their son/daughter. Granted, tragedies like car crashes can take someone's life regardless of their age, but its just wrong that someone can die from obesity. So why is childhood obesity on the rise? I have a few theories...
Children becoming obese is mostly down to how they are raised. Children don't go out doing their own weekly food shop, their parents do it, and schools feed them food that they choose to have on offer. Those two things are what I believe starts the weight gain in children. I myself am not a parent, but I would hate to see my son/daughter becoming overweight, I couldn't bare it. I would want my children to grow up healthy, fit, strong, so they can enjoy being a child - running around at school, playing football, cricket, tag, and other games they like to play. When a child becomes overweight/obese, they can no longer do those things, and if they can still do them, that's when they get bullied by other children. Weight is in your control, if your a child, most of that control is with the parents, and if your an adult, its down to you. I believe that health should come first, no matter what. I know the economy has been awful the last 5 years or so, and people have used that almost as an excuse - 'I don't have the money to buy healthy food'. But I have watched programs and done my own research showing that it is actually rather expensive to live off junk food. So I don't really buy that as a reason, I think its just an easy escape route. I honestly don't know how parents can be happy watching their children growing up putting on weight. A lot of them will say they are not happy, and it upsets them, which is completely understandable. But they have the power to change that, to stop wasting money on junk food and going to fast food restaurants. Make cut backs in other parts of your day to day lives and spend a tad more money on healthy food, it will make a huge difference.
School meals have been in the news for ages now, and I'm not sure how much has been done about that problem, but I know that Mr Jamie Oliver has done so much work to try and get schools to offer healthier meals. The only reason schools offer fatty foods is because its cheaper for them to buy. They don't think its worth spending more money on food because then they can spend more money on other things to do with the school (or in some cases, give massive pay rises....) Surely children s health should be at the top of the agenda??? obviously not. You can get around this by taking packed lunches that are made fresh at home and are healthy, but kids don't tend think that is 'cool', but if everyone did it, it would be. When you are a young child, they tend to burn a lot of calories because of how active they are (even though kids are becoming less and less active nowadays...) so if they don't put on weight at a young age, and carry on eating junk, when they get older, they will most likely continue eating junk but no longer burning so many calories - meaning weight gain will hit them like a train. I personally know people that were normal weight during the school years, but when they hit late teens and now early 20's, they have gained a lot of weight....and then it almost becomes an 'addiction' and that's where it becomes real tough to reverse that and shift the weight.
I think I will leave it there, I could go on a lot longer but wouldn't want it to become a gigantic post! I honestly believe childhood obesity is getting worse because of the decisions made by the people that are supposed to be responsible for those kids. End of the day, they are just that - kids! they have no responsibilities, they just want to do whatever they want, they don't go food shopping or cook their meals, that is all done for them - and those people are the ones that can really help this problem that this country and also worldwide, is suffering with.