America's Number One Terroristic Threat

Americans Have Always Dreamed That Our Children Would be Our Future, but Will They Even Be Around to See it?

Some current studies suggest that the current generation of children will be the first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. This is a very sad set of circumstances, that has been brought about by the over abundance of fatty, processed foods, fat foods, industrial farming, and the use of high-fructose corn syrup in so many products that are touted to be "Low Fat," "No Fat," and/or "Fat Free." To exacerbate the problem, many people don't cook at home anymore, or they rely on frozen TV dinners and other quick-to-prepare frozen foods. Gone are the days of the nuclear family, where mom spent all afternoon in the kitchen and had dinner on the table when dad got home from work, and the whole family sat down together to eat. Now kids are eating quick to heat up frozen hot pockets, and either sitting in front of the TV or playing video games while they scarf down all manner of fatty, nutrionally poor foods, that pack on the poundage at an alarming rate. This lifestyle is not only making our kids morbidly obese, it is also making their health deteriorate at an alarming rate. Who would have ever imagined 12 year old girls having liposuction, or relying on gastric bypass surgery as a quick fix for weight management?

I am neither a physicain nor a nutritionist. Any changes to your child's diet or medical plan should be discussed with your health care professionals. No information contained in this article should be considered a treatment, cure or prevention for any disease or symptoms thereof.

^]Who is Responsible for this Childhood Epidemic?

Many people say that parental responsiblity is the first line of defense against this childhood epidemic, but is it? Walk into any supermarket and look at the prices of your healthy foods versus the prices of all the foods that are laden with fat and sugar. Next take a look at the Saturday morning TV shows that children are watching today, and look at all the commercials. Children are bombarded with commercials for unhealthy foods on every kids' TV show. This is planned propaganda used by the food industry to undermine parental authority.

Take a look at many schools across the country, and what they are feeding the kids during lunch. Standard fare is pizza, chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and this is because the school lunch has to meet a certain calorie count. But nobody said the calories had to be healthy calories. As a matter of fact, if they tried to pack healthy calories into the school lunches to meet the governmental requirements, they would go way over budget. Most of the money schools get from the government to subsidize the school lunch programs goes toward payroll and adminstrative costs. Less than $1.00 per lunch actually goes toward the food in that lunch.

To exacerbate the problem, how many schools have vending machines that sell sugar laden and/or high fructose laden sodas, candies, and other unhealthy snacks? But, try to take those vending machines out of the schools and you end up having a revolt, because kids want to eat cookies, not carrots? It's now believed that by the time the kids being born today graduate from high school 45% of them will have type 2 diabetes as a consequence of childhood obesity, and WE did it to them.

"Obesity has been found to contribute to approximately 55% of cases of type 2 diabetes,^[8] —chronic obesity leads to increased insulin resistance that can develop into type 2 diabetes, most likely because adipose tissue (especially that in the abdomen around internal organs) is a source of several chemical signals, hormones and cytokines, to other tissues. Inflammatory cytokines such as TNFa may activate the NF-kB pathway which has been linked to the development of insulin resistance.^[9] Gene expression promoted by a diet of fat and glucose, as well as high levels of inflammation related cytokines found in the obese, can result in cells that "produce fewer and smaller mitochondria than is normal," and are thus prone to insulin resistance.^{[10][unreliable medical source?]} Fat tissue has also been shown to be involved in managing much of the body's response to insulin and control of uptake of sugar.^[11] It secretes RBP4 which increases insulin resistance by blocking the action of insulin in muscle and liver.^[12][13] Fat cells also secrete adiponectin which acts in an opposite way to RBP4 by improving the action of insulin, however, engorged fat cells secrete it in lower amount than normal fat cells.^[11] The obese therefore may have higher level of RBP4 but lower level of adiponectin, both of which increase the risk of developing diabetes.^[13][14"Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_causes_of_diabetes_mellitus_type_2

To answer the question, "Who is responsible?" the simple answer is parents, schools, the federal government, the food indsutry, media, and children themselves. Everyone of these elements is playing a contributing factor to the problem, and collectively they are sending our kids to their graves before their time.

Solving the Childhood Obesity Problem: Big Challenges

The two solutions to this problem are proper diet and exercise, BUT the challenges to get our kids eating properly and exercising regular may be bigger than one might think. Proper diet needs to start in the home and it also needs to exist in the school lunch program. The same thing goes for physical activity.

Today in many schools kids are eating pizza, chicken nuggets, french fries, and drinking sodas that contain 15 to 20 teaspoons of sugar in each bottle. Would you let your kids sit down at the dinner table at eat 15 or 20 teaspoons of sugar? Well, that's what they are doing to themselves while they are in school. Who is to be held accountable? The school? The parents? The kids?

WHY are there vending machines in schools that are laden with Skittles, Twinkies, Three Musketeers Bars, Potato Chips, Coke, Pepsi, and Mountain Dew? Where are there ice cream sandwiches sold in the cafeterias in many schools, and why are kids allowed to buy them INSTEAD of a lunch? WHY, because WE allowed it to happen. Becuase schools use the many that is raised from those vending machines to fund programs that having nothing to do with health or physical activity. Because the No Child Left Behind program has shifted priorities and taken the funding from where it should go first, to fund programs that are of secondary importance to health. Do you expect your child to get a good education when he/she is too fat to even fit into a school desk?

Where are the school lunch programs that include a healthy portion of fruits and vegetables in each child's lunch? Where are the vending machines that have seltezer water, unsalted nuts, and apples instead of high-fructose corn syrup and sugar laden drinks and snacks? Where are the community education programs that teach parents and their children how to eat right and start getting some physical activity?

Did you ever think about what would be left in the supermarket if you removed all of the unhealthy foods and only left the healthy foods? You MIGHT have two aisles remaining in the entire supermarket. So, "Why," you may ask, "Do the supermarkets promote all of these unhealthy food items?" Becuase, for every $1.00 Mrs Consumer spends, she can get much more bad food for her dollar than good food she could have bought with that same dollar. Consequently, people are starving themselves into obesity. Now, that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it it isn't because a diet that is overloaded with calories from fat and sugar is not providing sufficient nutrition, even though it's allowing us to pack on extra weight in monumental proportions.

This doesn't even address the environmental problems that are caused by the industrial farming industry, from using herbicides, pesticides, contaminating drinking water, and consuption of fossil fuels. Did you know that for every 1 lb an American gains, we have used 29 MILLION gallons of petrochemicals?

What Can I Do to Help Overcome Childhood Obesity

• Make healthy dietary choices for you and your family.
• Shop farmer's markets and buy organically grown, LOCAL produce.
• Consult your physican and nutrionist about changing your lifestyle.
• Get out with your kids and go for a long walk, bike ride, or other exercise that is approved by your family physician.
• Write or call your local school board and tell them you want nutritious school lunches.
• Write or call your state representatives and tell them that schools need to have healty nutritious lunches and a physical education program above all else.
• See if your community has a diet and exercise education program. If they don't, start one.
• Boycott all of the supermarkets that promote poor dietary choices.
• Look at the commercials your kids are watching on TV and write or call the companies that are promoting "bad food" on kids TV programs.
• Encourage your school board to have assemblies that are based on healthy diet and exercise choices.

This is only a small example of things that you can do to help. Every small voice in America that stands up and speaks out can help to make a difference. Remember in America, "United We Stand, Divided We Fall." We CAN NOT afford to be divided on this issue. We need to stand together against industrial farming, bad foods in school vending machines, poor nutrition in federally subsidized school lunches, media blitzes that target "bad foods" aimed at kids, and lack of physical education programs in schools. If you believe in these things, share this on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and all of your other social networks. Let's save our kids!!!!