I went to my daughter's spring dance recital yesterday and one thing stuck out to me... like HALF of the teen girls dancing were overweight, and probably a third of them were obese - like, backfat-jiggling obese. One older teen in particular, participated in 5 different dance routines. This would point to a fairly rigorous schedule of dance practices throughout her week. These girls weren't just standing on stage going through the motions, either. They were rockin' it.

The prima ballerina of the show had two solo performances and participated in 6 other routines - she's one of the dance instructors, so she dances day-in and day-out. She's gotta be 30-40 pounds overweight.

My comment isn't meant to offend anyone or to poke fun of these girls. I think it's great that girls aren't necessarily allowing their appearance hold them back in doing what they want to do - that's just awesome. I wish I'd had that kind of confidence at their age!

I thought it was striking because these girls have strength, endurance and poise. You can't half-ass dancing. These girls train hard. Yet, so many of them are still so heavy.

It's gotta be the diet.

The more I look around me, the more I see how right Gary Taubes is about exercise for weight loss.

That is an interesting observation. Something is seriously wrong with the environment, and it has gotten much worse in the past 15 years or so. I am going to be 30 soon, and when I was a teenager only a few girls were really fat. Now I see them everywhere. My cousin (who is 18 and obese) brought some friends over to the house a while back and only ONE of them was thin. What the heck is going on?

I know exactly what you mean, howlovely. I have a 17-year niece who regularly stuffs herself into clothing several sizes too small. When she first started dressing this way, my thoughts ranged from, "OMG, she has NO idea she has a back fat roll coming out of the back of her tank top!", to, "Awww, that poor girl just wants to wear the stylish things her friends are wearing... poor kid.", to, "OMG, has she no shame or mirrors? How can she *not* realize that those pants look awful because they create a muffin explosion on top?!?!"

It wasn't until I started taking a look around that I realized my niece is actually very normal with her weight and the way she dresses as a teen. Most of her friends that are thin seem to be the sort that have those naturally thin bodies. Everyone else seems to range from chubby to morbidly obese.

I am pretty sure that children's clothing sizes have been tipping larger in the last few years. My daughter started wearing slim-sized pants by age 10 - not because her body or proportions had changed - but because the clothing did. She's not really the kind of kid that comes to mind when you think 'slim.' She's got more of a medium/athletic build.

Now my son, on the other hand, was born slim. He's always been long and lanky. I used to be able to buy him regular sized pants and just make sure he wore a belt with them, but I can no longer do that - some of the regular pants have waists so large that belting them looks kinda hillbilly.

It is a sad state of affairs.

blame it on the crappy school lunches?

I know what you mean, Jenn. My cousin sometimes expresses a desire to lose weight, but she is not really that bothered by it and I think it is because it is the new normal. At my high school we had one really fat girl. One. Now I see really fat teenage girls all the time (this was in Texas). It is just so strange to me! I am seriously starting to wonder if something is happening in utero now that began in the early 90s and has only gotten worse. Something beyond low activity/eating too much is going on here.

Here is sort of my theory (non-scientific): the pancreas and thus insulin sensitivity is harmed while the baby is still in the womb. Many kids today are born with a metobolic issue that used to take until adulthood for most people to develop. Basically, they have a low insulin sensitivity, something that most people would not start to see the effects of until their mid 20s or 30s. This might not be a problem except we consume way too much sugar and refined carbs. For example, my cousin regularly drinks 44 oz soft drinks. That much sugar would make me puke, but it does not seem to bother her at all. My guess would be most teenagers are drinking sodas in that quantity.

Crappy school lunches and crappy food at home.

I grew up in the south which has always been known for bad diet.
But, still, I could count fat kids at school on one hand and even in adults, obesity was not so common.
Certainly not like anywhere you go in the country now.

It is a different world.

I don't think the root of the problem could be that specific. I think this is a holistic problem with diet. Is there really that much of a difference between school lunch and the typical brown bag lunch?

When it's chicken nuggets + tater puffs vs. Oscar Mayer, Nabsico, Yoplait it's all crap -and the kids are the only loser, ya know what I mean?

My problem is that it does not seem like the diet has really changed that much in the past 15 years. I mean, in South Texas there is still the big soft drinks, fast food, and Tex-mex. The kids are still into school sports. Basically, the diet now at least SEEMS like it is the same as it was 15 years ago. Yet 15 years ago there were not groups of fat teenage girls everywhere. Now they are common. At a dance recital 15 years ago, all the dancers would have been thin.

Or am I wrong? Has the diet changed in some way that I am simply not seeing?

BTW, I think this discussion is crucial. These poor girls. I just cannot imagine being a teenage girl and obese. There is no way that is pleasant.

I remember watching the DVD of woodstock. Not one fat person, that I can recall. I'm 37 and clearly on the curvy side, but when I see young girls (mostly) out shopping, I think, "sheeez, you're 19 and have no children- 10 years from now you are going to be well in trouble." I think maybe my mother had a relatively good diet, raided us on home cooked meals (yep, pasta, risotto) and thats why I'm only as heavy as I am. These girls look like they were raised by Colnel Sanders.

Jem51, I remember being in high school (class of 1992), at 5 ft. 2, I weighed ~145 pounds and I was mortified when I got fitted for a symphonic band uniform and had to wear the 'boy' model because none of the girls fit. There were a few people in my class that were on the way large side, but they were few. I was the typical fat girl then - I was always the biggest of the girls.

My mom's yearbook (class of '74) is loaded with ultra-thin chicks. What the hell? How did we barrel down the fat train so quickly?

I've noticed that there are many young girls who look to be the appropriate size for their body except for the big jiggly belly they have.... 10, 12 year olds etc. Makes me believe the predicitions that thousands of people will be diagnosed as diabetic in the years to come. Not good.

I think that is because they were. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe kids today are eating differently than I did. Yeah, downtown still has a Dairy Queen, and we went there sometimes when I was a kid, but it was a TREAT. I have observed my cousin with her friends and her boyfriend and their entire social life revolves around food. If they meet up to do something, they go to sonic, or DQ.

This has happened several times: my cousin and her BF will have been hanging around the house all day. I tell them I am starting dinner and that they can stay for dinner. I will make something like a roast chicken with potatoes and salad. They won't eat it! They go get fast food instead! I don't get it. It's not like I made something "weird." Yet they do not consider that to be good food. Oddly enough, when my cousin is alone, she will eat what I cook. (Her BF is overweight too). I think these kids are sort of like drunks that meet up at a bar. They seem to support each other eating crap all the time.

Thinking back on being a teenager, I don't really recall eating with my friends all that often. Sure we might go get something to eat if it was mealtime and we were hungry, but it just did not seem like our lives revolved around it. In fact, I recall my best friend making us meals that included spinach salads when we were at her house. I don't think that happens any more.

One thing has changed under the radar - sugar is in everything. They put it in most "quick" meals, boxed processed food, everything.

As a kid I never had money for food away from home. You came home when it was dark or you got hungry. I think parents are more carefree about money nowadays, and give a child money and they'll spend it on sugar. No one being at home, due to more women working, also I think makes an impact.
***work more, less time, eat easy or fast food, pay for a gym membership to combat it, work more, come home exhausted and sit in front of the TV which is full of advertising, or dawdle about the shops spending money while you eat more food on the go and its like the mouse on the running wheel.... without the running. Picture the worn out obese mouse....

I dunno. I grew up in the midwest and grew up on 1 meat + 1 starch + 1 vegetable + 1 bread for each meal, and then we'd settle on the couch with Jell-O pudding layered with Cool Whip in Tupperware parfait dishes to watch The Cosby Show. Things like ice cream were expensive and so we didn't have that outside of birthday parties; we certainly didn't have 40-foot linear sections of the grocery store dedicated to just frozen novelties. I remember that my parents drank Coke and Pepsi like it was going out of style, but we were only allowed to have some once in a great while - I had friends whose parents let them split a Coke each night at dinner and I thought that those kids were like, the luckiest kids in the world and that their parents must have been pretty rich, too. :P We made no-bake cookies and cake-mix cakes with homemade make-shift frosting made out of margarine and powdered sugar when we wanted something sweet. I don't remember having boxes of crackers around to snack on - I remember mom bought them around holidays to lay out with sliced cheeses. Chips were strictly a lunch side-dish. I remember my (thin) friends and I would pour sugar into plastic bags, mix in a bit of the powder from a kool-aid packet, rip off a corner and just eat pure sugar all day.

I think we were a pretty typical family. My parents were thin people until the late 80s. My maternal grandmother was the fattest person I knew when I was a kid and looking back at photos of her, I don't even think she ever broke 200 pounds - and she's like 5 ft. 6!

So yah, it's like something fundamental has changed.