Child Obesity "...Expected To Soar"

[MikeD]

Yeah, I know we've hashed this out...but this type of news is disturbing. I'm more concerned from an economic standpoint, since the costs will certainly be passed on to everyone.

50% of our youth expected to be overweight by 2010?! :faint:


LONDON - The number of overweight children worldwide will increase significantly by the end of the decade, and scientists expect profound impacts on everything from public health care to economies, a study published Monday said.

Nearly half of the children in North and South America will be overweight by 2010, up from what recent studies say is about one-third, according to a report published by the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity.

In the European Union, about 38 percent of all children will be overweight if present trends continue — up from about 25 percent in recent surveys, the study said.

“We have truly a global epidemic which appears to be affecting most countries in the world,” said Dr. Philip James, chairman of the International Obesity Task Force and author of an editorial in the journal warning of the trend.

The percentages of overweight children also are expected to increase significantly in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Egypt have rates comparable to fully industrialized nations, James said.

He estimated that, for example, one in five children in China will be overweight by 2010.

“They’re being bombarded like they are in the West to eat all the wrong foods. The Western world’s food industries without even realizing it have precipitated an epidemic with enormous health consequences,” he said.

James said living in isolated areas was no longer a safeguard to securing quality of life or traditional eating habits.

He said children are “being exposed to the world’s marketing might,” arguing that governments should step in. “There needs to be a ban on all forms of marketing, not just television adverts.”

Researchers analyzed a variety of published medical reports on obesity from 1980 to 2005 and World Health Organization data. They were able to track the growth rate of obesity in school-age populations in 25 countries and in preschoolers in 42 countries.

Researchers concluded that the prevalence of childhood obesity increased in almost all the countries for which data were available, a trend fueled by more sedentary lives and the increasing availability of junk food, among other factors.

The public health consequences of the trend alarm experts, said Dr. Phillip Thomas, a surgeon unconnected to the study who works extensively with obese patients in the northwest England city of Manchester.

Because obese children tend to carry the problem into adulthood, Thomas and other doctors say they will tend to be sicker as they get older, suffering from heart disease, stroke and other ailments stemming from their weight.

“This is going to be the first generation that’s going to have a lower life expectancy than their parents,” Thomas said. “It’s like the plague is in town and no one is interested.”

Another doctor who examined the journal report was Dr. Brian McCrindle, a childhood obesity expert and professor of pediatrics with a pediatric hospital in Toronto.

He warned that the looming problem must be addressed.

“The wave of heart disease and stroke could totally swamp the public health care system,” he said.

He warned that lawmakers had to take a broader view of the looming problem — and consider doing things such as banning trans fats and legislating against direct advertising of junk food toward children.

“It’s not going to be enough any more just to say to the consumer ’You have to change your behavior,”’ he said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11694799/

[Cubsfan]

How about we extend the school day for 1 hour and put PE back in. I used to love playing dodgeball or whatever other games we played. Maybe extend it 2 hours on Wednesday and go for a hike outdoors. I don't think it'll kill kids to have a little more PE time instead of XBox time.

[zero2dash]

How about we extend the school day for 1 hour and put PE back in. I used to love playing dodgeball or whatever other games we played. Maybe extend it 2 hours on Wednesday and go for a hike outdoors. I don't think it'll kill kids to have a little more PE time instead of XBox time.

I think the solution exists on a deeper level...it's the parent's responsibility to kick their kids out of the house every day and say "go play outside". The problem is - most parents don't care and don't take an active interest in their kids doing anything, so the kids default to tv/game time with one hand in a bag of chips and the other hand on the controller/remote.

I was telling my wife the other day about how pleased I was that every day, there are at least 20-30 kids that live around us playing outside...makes me glad that at least some people actually tell their kids to go play/get exercise, play sports etc. still. When my daughter gets old enough...she'll be out there with them. 1 hour a day of outside play would do wonders for the kids in the world...that and being cut off of the "McDonald's diet". :shifty:

[welfareloser]

How about we extend the school day for 1 hour and put PE back in. I used to love playing dodgeball or whatever other games we played. Maybe extend it 2 hours on Wednesday and go for a hike outdoors. I don't think it'll kill kids to have a little more PE time instead of XBox time.

every teacher i know would love to... just try getting it funded, tho.


The problem is - most parents don't care and don't take an active interest in their kids doing anything

*sigh* :2far:

that's a baseless judgement following in the footsteps of an oversimplification.


I was telling my wife the other day about how pleased I was that every day, there are at least 20-30 kids that live around us playing outside...

and on the other side of the fence are the people who will sneer and jduge for the exact opposite reason... "you let your kids play outside?!?!? how do you keep track of them??? how dangerous! bad parents!" or "those freakin kids and their stupid noise that i have to listen to! bad parents!"

parents can't win. no matter what you do, 50% of the peanut gallery is booing.

anyway... just because you never see a particular kid playing outside doesn't mean the parents don't actively incorporate exercise into the child's life. for example, my kids have asthma, wicked hay fever, and fair skin. they're not outside much in the summer. we're in a bad mosquito area. pretty much the only time they're out in the yard is when you're at work. there are indoor activities, things the parents may drive them to... it's not real cool to let kids play in the streets in most places these days like i did when i was a kid.

and jsut because you see a fat kid doesn't mean his parents don't care :hmm:

[nickel]

"when i was a kid" my mom would kick our asses outside all the time. we'd go out in the morning and in the afternoon unless it was raining out. we were always playing some kind of sport/game with the neighborhood kids or chasing/getting chased by one for some reason or another. we rode our bikes and went swimming every day and in the summer and in the winter we were constantly at the ice skating rink.

you really don't see kids nowadays involved in near as much exercise, and if they are it is in some parent catered and organized activity.

[welfareloser]

you really don't see kids nowadays involved in near as much exercise, and if they are it is in some parent catered and organized activity.

because these days, if your kid so much as skins a knee without you breathing down his neck, you've got people calling dcfs on you.

[MikeD]

you really don't see kids nowadays involved in near as much exercise

:agree:

Got XBox?

Got PlayStation?

What you don't "got" is enough exercise. It's actually a pretty simple concept...

[zero2dash]

that's a baseless judgement following in the footsteps of an oversimplification.

Baseless judgement?
How many times now have kids done stupid things and the parents blame someone or something else when the blame clearly rests on their shoulders?

How many kids have murdered their classmates now to have the parents of the murderers on tv saying "he played DOOM too much and look what it did to him!? Damn you Nintendo!!!".

"He listened to that Metallica and they told him to do it!"

etc.
it's not a baseless judgement, it's the f'n truth. The majority of parents don't do anything in their kids lives until there's a problem and they're facing 'questions'.


and on the other side of the fence are the people who will sneer and jduge for the exact opposite reason... "you let your kids play outside?!?!? how do you keep track of them??? how dangerous! bad parents!" or "those freakin kids and their stupid noise that i have to listen to! bad parents!"

Please - tell me who (other than old geezers complain about everything) are complaining about kids playing outside. 'Cause I've never heard of it. I've never seen a news story that shows how terrible it is that kids are playing outside...but I've seen a whole lot of them talking about kids who eat fast food 24/7 and play video games and sit on their butts watching tv all day. Morgan Spurlock didn't make a movie based on the effects of exercising for 30 days in a row, he made a movie based on eating McDonalds for 30 days. :rolleyes:


parents can't win. no matter what you do, 50% of the peanut gallery is booing.

I'm still wondering where all this "complaining" is about kids playing outside.


anyway... just because you never see a particular kid playing outside doesn't mean the parents don't actively incorporate exercise into the child's life. for example, my kids have asthma, wicked hay fever, and fair skin. they're not outside much in the summer. we're in a bad mosquito area. pretty much the only time they're out in the yard is when you're at work. there are indoor activities, things the parents may drive them to... it's not real cool to let kids play in the streets in most places these days like i did when i was a kid.

My wife and I both have asthma & we live in Missouri...the place where summer = humidity + heat + mosquitoes. When I was a kid, we still played outside. If it was too hot to play ball, you swam in the pool; it's still 'exercise'. We played indoor soccer and hockey and basketball too. Sure, there's indoor activities...but we're still dealing with the problem that some parents are "too busy" to drive their kids around and they're too cheap to pay for it. In this day and age when people are too busy to cook dinner to feed their kids, what makes you think that those same people would bother to take their kids to a gymnastics class? Maybe it's the cynic in me but I don't think so.


and jsut because you see a fat kid doesn't mean his parents don't care :hmm:

True but just because the parents care doesn't mean they do anything about it either (until, again, they're questioned). This country needs to start being proactive instead of reactive. :nono:

[ShawnLee]

I just have this image of the Simpsons. The Kamp Krusty episode with the Fat Kamp where Martin is stuck on a pull-up bar in a concentration camp, and eats up vats of gruel when freed.

[nickel]

I just have this image of the Simpsons. The Kamp Krusty episode with the Fat Kamp where Martin is stuck on a pull-up bar in a concentration camp, and eats up vats of gruel when freed.
:heh:

"vats of gruel" gets me every time. :laugh:

[Merlin]

I tend to blame the diet more. Parents are stretched thin and as such take some short cuts with fast food.

[molecularfire]

I really don't understand what welfare and zero are arguing about. I do think that Zero's statements are a bit over-simplified and generalized but I can't say that he's wrong... IMO, parents are taking a less active role in their children's lives. Is this the only reason why more children are getting chubbier, heck no. Is it a significant reason, yeah. Other reasons why children are getting chubbier is because fast food is quicker, cheaper, and easier than actually cooking, because video games and TV is easier and safer than playing outside, because our society doesn't care enough about physical education to actually implement it in our schools. When it comes down to it, our society is always looking for increasing the comfort and easiness of life... not surprising that we are going to suffer from the diseases of ease. Sometimes, life should be hard... sometimes it should be painful... IMO we tend to forget that.

Yeah, no matter what you do, 50% of the peanut gallery is going to boo you... who cares what the peanut gallery thinks. That's why we call them the peanut gallery. What's more important to you, your kids health or some stinkin peanuts. :D

[catch22]

"because these days, if your kid so much as skins a knee without you breathing down his neck, you've got people calling dcfs on you."

and yet it is ok to let the kid watch/play tv or video games for 12+ hours.

I agree there is no being a kid anymore, riding around, making dirt tracks, getting into innocent trouble.

[ShawnLee]

...our society doesn't care enough about physical education to actually implement it in our schools. When it comes down to it, our society is always looking for increasing the comfort and easiness of life...I totally regret not giving PE any credence when I was a kid. It would've made my life much easier as an adult if I had... Shoot... Oh well, lesson learned.
I agree there is no being a kid anymore, riding around, making dirt tracks, getting into innocent trouble.I don't know about you, but I never got into innocent trouble. My trouble always ended up being the "If you don't end up killing yourself doing that, I'll kill you when I get home" type of trouble.

Throwing firecrackers inside bottles and then chucking them at other kids, jumping off rooftops, climbing the sides of my apartment walls (from the outside) by digging my toes in between bricks (while living on the second story), etc.

In retrospect, I pity my mother. And I fear that when I have kids, I'll have one like me. </shudder>

[zippyjuan]

There was an article in the local San Diego Union Tribune Sunday that tries to make the point that drinking lots of soda leads to obesity. That is a hard one to seperate out since the people who drink lots of soda also tend to eat a lot of other things not consdered to be healthy. When I was a kid we could have one soda on a Saturday night and that was all the sodas we usually drank. Otherwise it was water, juice, or milk. We usually spent our days outside playing- unless it was raining. We were also lucky enough to have an elementary school over the back fence (literally) so we could go there and play and still be sort of kept an eye on. TV watching was also kept to a minimum and we did not have video games. They were not used as baby sitting tools. My mom was also a stay- at home while my Dad worked. It is harder if you need all parents working (whether that be one or two) to pay the bills.

[Dem0072]

I find the problem quite simple actually.

The parents either kick em out or horde them in. It's called "Give the kid a cellphone, teach them how to use it, and call em every couple hours". If your kid frightens you so much that you can't find yourself having trust in letting em out on their own - then you've already messed up, theres very little chance of correcting it.

It's the parents responsibility to guide & teach kids to a degree of common sense & good judgement, instead of teaching kids how to make cherry bombs & annoy the neighbors, or letting them learn in the first place (though google cant be helped much).

Its simple, instead of babying your kid & holding his/her hand through everything - do the novel thing & prepare them for the hard brick in the face of reality - teach em right from wrong, make **** sure they choose wisely, and if you raise em "reward or reprocussion" they should do whats ultimately right.

On the other hand about obesity (the central issue here)

I like to call it B.S. for health these days - science experts with college degrees spent countless years debating how healthy the incredible edible egg actually is, and they try & claim ground over a good diet suggestion...

Teach the kid: Eat to live, not live to eat. Green is good, not all green is horrible. Cash in bread for potatos, macaroni & cheese for rice, mushrooms, and broccoli with cheese & grilled seasoned italian marinated chicken breast with a green sundried tomato salad. All in all I can sight multiple examples how you dump just as much money into shake & bake, mac n cheese, as you do a decent steak & baked potato, the difference is whos who in the kitchen mastery.

Which bings me to another central issue, turn off the TV, drag your kid into the kitchen, and teach him. When the kid comes in the kitchen, state a tip, and keep him away from people who think cooking is for women & homosexuals.

That way the kid eats right, learns to cook for himself so when THEY are on their own, they arent restricted to chinese buffets gorging themselves, and the greasy lard saturated McDonalds diet.

Remember, its what you eat, and just as that, HOW MUCH. Your gut bag (stomach) is roughly equal to your fist. I don't viably conclude it necessary to consume a quarter-pounder with cheese, fries, McNuggets, and an Ice Cream Cone. Better yet - if you have to, get a shaker salad, double cheeseburger, and ice water.

My point is, its what the kids eat, how much they eat, when they eat, and how their bodies honor the meal - promoting it to fat or lean health, muscle, and a respectable BMI.

You don't need a gym account, bowflex, or Richard Simmons spanking your hind end in the morning to be healthy.

15 minute walk a day, take stairs instead of elevators (unless skyscraper), and carry groceries instead of carting them around.

10 pushups, 300 meter jog, 20 situps, and setting a respectable pace while walking places is what I consider physically fit.

& make sure MTV is blocked, make the kids watch Fox News & discuss (rationally) national & world issues of interest/importance at least every few days.

Done with my War & Peace Physical Health & Parenting lecture...

Dem0072, please watch the language

- GAM

[Merlin]

I totally regret not giving PE any credence when I was a kid. It would've made my life much easier as an adult if I had... Shoot... Oh well, lesson learned.
Where I went to school gym class was only once a week so the benefits were limited.




I don't know about you, but I never got into innocent trouble. My trouble always ended up being the "If you don't end up killing yourself doing that, I'll kill you when I get home" type of trouble.
...
In retrospect, I pity my mother. And I fear that when I have kids, I'll have one like me. </shudder>
:stupid: I always seemed to get into the big trouble as well but it was only a few times that either an ambulance or police car was involved.

[johnnymk]

I live on a street where there are a ton of kids. Every time the weather gets a little warm in the winter and in spring, summer and fall, practically everyone of them are playing softball, hockey, basketball, riding go karts, etc. I have only noticed a few kids who are overweight. But then, most of these kids are probably not teenagers yet?

Maybe it's a teenage phenomenon.

[pain2010]

I was out side all the time and the cops was chaseing most of it too. I was rideing dirt bikes all over the place. I gave them someting to other than eating doughnuts all the time.:nono:

[welfareloser]

Baseless judgement?
How many times now have kids done stupid things and the parents blame someone or something else when the blame clearly rests on their shoulders?

How many kids have murdered their classmates now to have the parents of the murderers on tv saying "he played DOOM too much and look what it did to him!? Damn you Nintendo!!!".

"He listened to that Metallica and they told him to do it!"

etc.
it's not a baseless judgement, it's the f'n truth. The majority of parents don't do anything in their kids lives until there's a problem and they're facing 'questions'.:


baseless, baseless, baseless. how many kids have murdered classmates? a couple dozen. are you seriously trying to use that as proof of anything? get real. the MAJORITY of parents do lots and lots for their kids - period. more than you'll ever see... especially if your mind is already made up and you're not even looking.




Please - tell me who (other than old geezers complain about everything) are complaining about kids playing outside. 'Cause I've never heard of it.

you wouldn't until you have kids. i hadn't til then. if you want to know who, come shadow me for 48 hours. i can design experiments, and you can just watch. i'll do things one way... i'll do things the other way... and people will condemn me either way. the peanut gallery never fails me on this one. you'll see. trust me.


I've never seen a news story that shows how terrible it is that kids are playing outside...but I've seen a whole lot of them talking about kids who eat fast food 24/7 and play video games and sit on their butts watching tv all day. Morgan Spurlock didn't make a movie based on the effects of exercising for 30 days in a row, he made a movie based on eating McDonalds for 30 days. :rolleyes:

uhhh... are you seriously using number of hours hollywood and the news devote to a subject, or don't devote to a subject, as proof of how much a phenomenon is actually occuring???? :P cuz, uh... i seem to remember zillions of news hours devoted to shark attacks and africanized bees, to name just two... ;)




I'm still wondering where all this "complaining" is about kids playing outside.

like i said... come shadow me. if i let my kids so much as go down the street to play on the corner - a place where i can still see them from the window - i can think of at least three neighbors who would threaten me over it. when you have kids, you'll see... since everyone has been parented, and most people have been parents, EVERYONE has an opinion about exactly how things are supposed to be, and far too many people are not the least bit shy about lettin you know how you're f***ing it all up.




My wife and I both have asthma & we live in Missouri...the place where summer = humidity + heat + mosquitoes. When I was a kid, we still played outside. If it was too hot to play ball, you swam in the pool; it's still 'exercise'. We played indoor soccer and hockey and basketball too.

sounds like my childhood in southern IL with asthma/allergies. we're not arguing about anything here, dude. i understand the physical conditions are the same; the social ones, however, have changed mightily. not everywhere; i know in very tiny rural towns it's still like that. that's not where i am right now. and you can only go against the grain so much before "they" smack you down.


Sure, there's indoor activities...but we're still dealing with the problem that some parents are "too busy" to drive their kids around and they're too cheap to pay for it. In this day and age when people are too busy to cook dinner to feed their kids, what makes you think that those same people would bother to take their kids to a gymnastics class? Maybe it's the cynic in me but I don't think so.:

it's the uninformed cynic in you. if you'd like to try to back up your baseless argument that MOST parents do not care about their kids exercise and eating habits, i'd love to see what kind of data you can come up with to back it up... because i can come up with mountains to the contrary.




True but just because the parents care doesn't mean they do anything about it either (until, again, they're questioned). This country needs to start being proactive instead of reactive. :nono:

again... show me something, anything, that backs this up. are there lazy parents out there? of course. always have been, always will be. but if you really think most parents are slugs... you'd be surprised.

anyway, i don't necessarily disagree with your basic concepts... the problems you describe are certainly real. it's simply your conclusion that it's because "most parents are lazy and don't give a hoot" that is dead wrong.

[molecularfire]

you wouldn't until you have kids. i hadn't til then. if you want to know who, come shadow me for 48 hours. i can design experiments, and you can just watch. i'll do things one way... i'll do things the other way... and people will condemn me either way. the peanut gallery never fails me on this one. you'll see. trust me.

Haven't you already been warned to quit experimenting on your kids?











btw... did that hair ever grow back on EG? :hehehmm:

[welfareloser]

Haven't you already been warned to quit experimenting on your kids?











btw... did that hair ever grow back on EG? :hehehmm:

yeah... just not on his head. another successful experiment! :P

[Dem0072]

This is a rather fun topic...

Lets all agree on something - never tease the fat kid... he may not run too fast but he has a temper indeed.

[molecularfire]

Yes, yes I do.

[Dem0072]

ahhh Cleatus! Mamma want you to be a Strong Boy! Yay *claps like the clumps* HERCULES! HERCULES!