PhilsBlog

Childhood Obesity - Not My Kid

Posted At : July 28, 2007 5:07 PM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Childhood Obesity

Has our society been looking at overweight and obese children so long, overweight children are now beginning to look like the norm? Are there so many obese children, the overweight children start to look like they are in pretty good shape?
 
It reminds me of a cartoon I saw about 2 years ago. It showed a picture of an obese mother walking down a busy street holding hands with her two obese children. All the other people on the sidewalk were also obese except one man walked by of normal weight and the mother turned to her children and said “It is not polite to stare”. I am sure I did not capture the image as well in print as if you were viewing the cartoon, but hopefully you get the point.
 
I guess another comparison would be drinking beverages in bottles and cups. Years ago, most soft drinks were sold in 10 oz bottles, soon after moving to 12 oz. Several years later most beverages jumped to the 16 oz size. The beverage containers continue to grow. Fountain drink cup sizes grew at the same rapid rate. A normal (regular) size beverage cup from years ago would be considered a kiddies cup today. Now the widely accepted cups have gone from large (16 0z) to extra large (24 – 32 oz) to the Big Gulp, to the Super Big Gulf. I am not sure how many ounces are even in the Super Big Gulps. The scary thing is most places with the super size cups, also offer free refills. Car manufactures had to increase the cup holder size several times in the last several years.
 
Can we make a comparison of the accepted size of  "normal" beverage containers to the accepted size of our youth today?
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Big Food - Big Movement?

Posted At : July 28, 2007 1:17 PM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Childhood Obesity

Recently I wrote a blog reporting our country spent a billion dollars last year alone on nutrition education programs, and the experts graded the effects of these nutrition programs a big “F”.
Every since the childhood obesity epidemic started, I have said 95% of the publicity and the solutions have focused on food. The entire nation has spent several years and billions of dollars focusing on calories in……it is time the nation spends the next several years focusing on calories out.
All children are in school. This is the best place to implement programs focusing on physical activity. Every school in the country should adopt a PE4life type program. The bonus, nutrition education will also be addressed.
I know everyone likes to point fingers at McDonalds but their CEO shared a wise vision recommending the food companies’ starts helping our youth focus on physical activity.
Maybe we can get the 11 big food companies CEO’s to get into a room and make plans to become the leaders in supporting physical education reform nation wide. I respectfully challenge McDonalds CEO Jim Skinner to organize this meeting. Chicago would be a perfect place to host this “think tank”. After the meeting the group could tour the national physical education model, the PE4life Academy, located close to McDonald’s headquarters.
The following statements were included in two recent press releases. Make sure you read the full articles
“McDonald’s CEO has rejected cutting back on advertising to children, saying on Monday that a new program of promoting physical activity was the right thing to do.”
“So when 11 big food companies - including McDonald's, Coca Cola, PepsiCo and Kraft - voluntarily agreed last week to curtail the marketing of sugary and fatty foods to children, it seemed like a good thing.
Any move that tempers the collective youth appetite for unhealthy food is welcome. But it's also clear that the measures, alone, won't shrink waistlines and were never designed to do so.”
Getting our children healthy one step and a time
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Mom to blame for obese children?

Posted At : July 22, 2007 4:53 PM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Childhood Obesity

What is the cause of childhood obesity? I thought by now I had heard them all:
Fast food, too much TV, video games, computers, soft drinks, vending machines, not enough exercise, no recess, no physical education etc. Well I have now  heard a new one…..of all things it is Mom’s fault…………sorry mom, I don’t agree, just sharing the reports in the news…….How about we challenge the media, as the school year is about to start, can we get  the media to report only on solutions that are working to solve the childhood obesity crisis. I am tired of reading about the problem; it is time to start reading about the solution. (Of course I think quality daily physical education is the long term solution)
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Emotional damage of childhood obesity

Posted At : July 15, 2007 1:26 PM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Childhood Obesity

Physical education teachers across the nation are being challenged to help fight the obesity crisis. So many times are focus is on stopping on-set diabetes and heart disease. As we fight the childhood obesity war, make sure we stay sensitive to the emotional damage of childhood obesity. The following article: Overweight Kids Face Widespread Stigma , will help us have a better insight to just how devastating obesity is to the emotional side of children.
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New Plan Fighting Childhood Obesity

Posted At : July 12, 2007 10:10 AM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Childhood Obesity

Many leaders in Washington DC feel like the war in Iraq is failing. If a plan is failing, leaders better change the plan. It also looks like the war on childhood obesity is failing also. The war on obesity is not failing because there was no plan, but the plan has not been working.
 
There were several media reports stating the federal government spent more than a billion dollars on nutrition education this year. According to Dr Tom Baranowski, a pediatrics professor from Baylor, “Any person looking at the published literature about these programs would conclude they are generally not working
 
There is no question that childhood obesity epidemic is a very complex problem, which will require complex solutions. For a moment let’s take a simple approach to the problem. Over simplified, the obesity solution is calories in and calories out. Let’s turn back the clock before the obesity crisis. There has always been food (calories in), admitting, some of the food choices and the amount consumed may have changed. When we turn back the clock concerning physical activity (calories out), our nation has seen a dramatic change. I know calories in is an issue but I think it is time to start putting a stronger focus on physical activity (calories out). Our society has almost completed eliminated physical activity from the lives of our youth. The obesity crisis started with the elimination of physical activity! Families for years grew up drinking whole milk, used real butter, and cooked with lard. These families may not have had fast food but they did have grandma feeding them homemade cakes, pies, and cookies. Yet in that environment, we had no childhood obesity crisis, because we had an abundance of physical activity.
 
Since our nation has launched the war against childhood obesity, the attack has been on food. School vending machines became the headlines, the plan, change vending machines and we will win the war on childhood obesity. Soon to follow was the cafeteria food, again an important strategy. Next step was the Federal government’s mandated school wellness plan. Hopefully this plan will be more than a document on a shelf, but most school wellness plans have only focused on nutrition.
 
Don’t think for a second I do not think we need to educate our youth about nutrition. But we need to face the facts that our nation’s childhood obesity war plan is not working.
 
The new plan………..our nation should start focusing on physical activity. It is time for us to spend a billion dollars on physical education this year. The difference is PE4life has data that proves this plan will work.
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Personal trainers for kids?

Posted At : June 27, 2007 12:12 PM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Childhood Obesity

There is a new trend in youth fitness, personal trainers for kids. The obesity epidemic has parents concerned. NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND has caused schools all over the nation to cut back on physical education. Parents are being forced to look for new solutions to fight childhood obesity.
 
More than a million children ages 6 to 17 turned to personal trainers for their fitness fix in 2006, according to an annual survey administered by both The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association and American Sports Data, making children 17 percent of the 6.3 million who employed private fitness instructors.
 
Instead of expensive personal trainers, maybe parents should start demanding quality physical education in their children’s schools. If you are a parent, contact PE4life, they can help you with a plan to encourage your local school district to offer more quality PE time for your children
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Preschool obesity

Posted At : June 27, 2007 10:42 AM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Childhood Obesity

Many of you are high school PE teachers - in this day an age many of us justify our PE programs because we are a first line of defense against the obesity epidemic. Is it too late by the time students get to high school? Based on this report below, you better start supporting your elementary PE programs and even check if your school district is associated with preschool programs. How much time do preschools commit to physical education? How qualified are preschool teachers to teach physical education?

June 27, 2007 - Melbourne, FL - Childhood obesity has become a worldwide epidemic, affecting an estimated 22 million children under age 5!

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Shaq Attack

Posted At : June 25, 2007 10:36 AM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Childhood Obesity

Since the obesity crisis hit the news the part of the problem that has received most of the headlines has been FOOD. Food is obviously part of the problem, but finally someone is talking about another major part of the problem: lack of physical education in schools. Shaquille O'Neal blames childhood obesity more on inactivity than fast food. Only 6% of schools have mandatory physical education classes,  O'Neal noted, down from 80% when he was growing up.

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Screen Time

Posted At : May 24, 2007 9:32 AM | Posted By : Admin
Related Categories: Childhood Obesity

I attended a workshop last week-end on fighting childhood obesity. When the speakers started throwing out stats, I found I was familiar with most of the health statistics on children. There was one statistic that was new to me. Inactivity is always discussed as one of the causes for childhood obesity. Screen time (TV, computers, video games etc) always takes part of the blame. I thought the average American child spent 5 hours a day on screen time, at this workshop they claimed that is now more than 6 hours a day children spend on screen time. Screen time can have a double negative affect. Not only are the children inactive, many times they are being influenced to make bad food choices.

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