An elementary school held a Physical Fitness Challenge day earlier this spring. Kids were assessed for their fitness, and were weighed and measured for height. Many of these kids – all of them under the age of 12 – weighed in at 150 pounds or more. What used to be the average weight of a 16- or 17-year-old boy is fast becoming standard for grade-school kids.
Until the time I graduated from high school, I could not have counted ten grossly overweight kids in all of my school years put together. Now I can count ten obese children in five minutes of walking through a mall.
It’s pretty much the norm that adults gain weight as they age. Probably most of us had parents or grandparents who were a bit overweight. But when we were children, it was almost unheard of to have friends who were obese. What has happened?
The U.S. didn’t even collect data on obesity until the 1980s. Back then, the prevalence of obesity (for all ages) was less than 14% nationally. By 2006, there were states that exceeded 30% obesity in their populations. These percentages are not people who are slightly overweight, these are people who are obese. And far too many of them are children.
In the past 20 years, the prevalence of obesity among children ages 6-11 more than doubled, to 17%. For adolescents between 12 and 19, the rate more than tripled. Type 2 diabetes mellitus was formerly an adult condition; now it is being diagnosed with alarming frequency in children. An estimated 6% of obese young people have at least one additional risk factor for heart disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. A generation ago, these types of medical concerns were barely conceivable in relation to children.
If we agree that obesity is usually the result of an improper balance between the calories we consume and the energy we expend (the calories we burn up), then we have to ask how it is that these thousands of children are burning up so many fewer calories than they are consuming. There’s no doubt that, for multiple reasons, many kids today get less exercise than kids of previous generations. Fortunately many school districts are revamping their curricula to once again require more physical activity. But if kids have P.E. at school a couple of times a week, but when at home sit for hours in front of the TV or computer, that little bit of exercise may be negated.
Studies point to the impact of food marketing on children, but the bottom line is that for most children, the food they consume is not food they buy for themselves. It’s food provided by their parents. Fast food. Junk food. Lazy food.
I don’t for a minute believe that parents set out deliberately to sabotage their children’s health. Every one of us has dealt with kids crying for a Happy Meal, or candy, or soft drinks, and sometimes we give in, in spite of knowing that we shouldn’t. But when we give in over and over again, when we throw in the towel and rationalize and make excuses, when we fill our refrigerators and our pantries with junk food because it’s too much trouble to take the time and make the effort to feed our families healthily, then we’re sliding rapidly down the slippery slope of irresponsible behavior.
And we’re killing our children in the process.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website contains links to thousands of publications that address the problem of childhood obesity. The U.S. Department of Health and the National Institute of Health have instituted programs aimed at enhancing children’s activity and good nutrition efforts in order to fight the problem. Dr. Matthew Miller writing in TimesBulletin.com says that if we don’t take drastic measures to curb childhood obesity, kids of this generation are at risk of having a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Shouldn’t we all be appalled by that prediction?
This is a problem that we have created. This is a problem we must eliminate. Our children’s lives may depend on it.
(Dallas Morning News Opinion Page June 19, 2009)
