Obesity in Kids May Be Tapering Off
There may be some good news in the fight against obesity in children according to some new numbers gathered that show that the numbers have remained pretty much the same for the 2006 and 2007 years compared to 2004 and 2005 number gathered on percentages of kids that were considered overweight, obese and severely obese.
Now here’s the shocking news. Although those numbers were going up for years, they have indeed seemed to level off over these past four years, however, wtih the overall rate of kids classified as overweight in some way being around 32%, we still have a shockingly long way to go when it comes to fighting obesity and weight issues in today’s youth.
There are fingers pointing everywhere, but I personally think that it is a combination of factors that is a sign of the times today that has caused this mess. We now have more processed and unfulfilling foods today than ever which take a lot more for people to be satisfied on, hence they eat more. Also, kids today are more sedentary thanks to television and video games, whereas these sedentary activities were not available to kids in the fifties and sixties, who were outside being active much of the day.
As mentioned in other studies there may be other smaller and less apparent and perhaps even far fetched reasons for the weight increases in kids, like air conditioning and other temperature controls where the body does not have to burn calories to stay at a comfy temperature, and the fact that with new neighborhoods being so close knit, kids no longer have to ride or walk very far to go see their friends, either that or their parents just take them in a car.
The numbers leveling off may be a fluke or simply an anomaly some researchers think, and that perhaps the numbers aren’t really leveling off, but some are hopeful that the message to get kids to eat right and exercise and be more active is getting out there.
The emphasis on fruits and vegetables over other snacks like processed simple carbs and fatty and salty foods as well as sugar snacks is important, but activity is really important, especially since children are supposed to have generated all their fat cells by age 8, you are setting your child up for a lifetime of weight struggles if you allow them to get out of control at such a young age, so it’s very important to teach them early on.
