Things keep getting worse with consuming the foods that the medical community says we should eat. Eating more whole grains and exercising will not fix the problems.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/02/heal...tudy/index.html

I can tell you the kids are not exercising either. Scary numbers but not surprising.

It's hard to exercise when you are miserable and exhausted. Didn't we all try it that way for YEARS? Without success?

I'm sure the kids know that.

In addition to the high carb diet, the children spend almost all their play time in front of a screen.

Our generation was much more active than the current one.

Now I don't think the screens are bad, but too much of a good thing isn't always good.

Mom's need to say, "Go out and play. Without your phone!"

But then, who would the child have to play with?

Just thinking out loud and sounding like an old man here.

Bob

My kids are thin and trim.

What is lacking is regular exercise. One plays soccer so that covers 5 months a year. The other is a computer geek at school....no exercise there. Though he does walk for ten min after school before clubs.

Still far less than my after school activites at their age.

My kids are home due to snow days. And working their butt off. Shoveling for an hour or two plus Snowblowing the drive takes 3-4 hours.

We in the U.S. push scholastic learning Aka sitting. Athletics are for the rich that can pay the school fees. Most families with two parents working : kids are latchkey kids.

There was a health benefit to kids running and playing outside afterschool, when a parent stayed home. And cooked real food, not subsist on take out.

At one private HS, athletics was mandatory 2-5pm.

When kids are outside running around they are not sitting and filling up on junk.

I cant help thinking paying moms who choose to raise children is valuable on many fronts. Children eat better and learn better food habits. So less taxing on the mefical front. Homeschooling allows far more time for exercise as class time is far more effecient. Children are more connected to family and moms know what is going on to help children develop.

Children are more connected to community when there is more time to help neighbors and become vested in that neighborhood.

Schools could offer afterschool programs. Our school district charged a fee I could not afford. So again the richest participated, because the mom worked.


The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Agree with everything said about only children of the wealthy getting to participate in many cost-heavy sport/fitness opportunities. Other challenges for youth include weather (bad here much of the year), disease-bearing mosquitoes vs. dosing with toxic repellant sprays when outdoors, low amount of school PE, lack of time (remember the teachers who act like theirs is your kid's only homework class?), safety (traffic, neighborhood bullies, neighbor child nearly abducted--and in a fairly decent neighorhood) and so forth. All legitimate concerns that have to be fielded through somehow. Gone are the days of just send the child out into the neighborhood to play. My parents might have kept me home if they'd known more about some neighbors even back in the day. My latest plan, bought a trampoline park membership for my teen and me. Kids from school the same age working there so a bit awkward sometimes but we get in some workouts climbing things and bouncing, quality time together. I couldn't afford that if I still had more than one kid at home though. One child plus parent add-on is as cheap as a local gym. But concerning pre-diabetes (I've been diagnosed with), DIET (low carb) is the big necessity. Education on that needs to somehow get out there.

I tutor part-time at our local junior college. A good many of our students are high-schoolers enrolled in dual credit classes. (They get college and high school credit at the same time.) Tuition is free for dual credit classes so a great many of the students come from lower income families. Smart kids, nice kids, and they obviously come from families who CARE about them and are encouraging them to prepare for their futures.

That said, I can attest that obesity is RAMPANT. Very very few of the kids are anywhere close to what would have been considered a "normal" weight when I was in high school and more than half are "larger" than even the most obese students were in my high school graduation class. Being obese is NORMAL for high schoolers these days. Let's just hope and pray that being diabetic (T2) doesn't also become "normal".

The problem is there is no one to play with. My kids are close together so they had each other, but there were never other kids at the park.

I agree with sports except soccer, football, boxing, hockey, or any other sport that causes an impact to the head. The brain bounces in the skull which causes minor concussions. That gives the participant a 25% greater than average chance of developing Alzheimer's or Parkinson's when they get to old age.

I remember reading a speaker at the American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine at their annual conference transcript saying, "Don't let your child play football, unless you really don't like him."

How to get the children more active? First of all, STOP driving them to the bus stop. Let them walk like everybody used to. Get them to ride their bikes or walk to friends houses. Encourage activities that require movement but doesn't impact their heads.

You can always do things with them, starting when they are young. Take them for walks or to the zoo or to a museum. Play physical games with them. Go bike riding with them.

When I was young, a fat person in class was unusual. Now it seems the majority are overweight. This is a tragedy.

Bob

All good points.

bikes.. coulnt afford, bought from junk man to fixup

zoo...extremely expensive. limited to mother's or father's day when one parent free. just a few visits.

roads here too unsafe to walk or bike and no sidewalk. Kids bussed to school as we are 3 miles out. Other parents walk their student to school when for those within a mile of school. (school stopped paying for bussing.)Rush hour traffic coincides with start time of school.

What my kids have been able to do: play outside because we live deep in the woods. Have dogs and livestock as alarms.

Feed real food, no junk food. Starting with preachool my kids became aware of junk food. Mostly what other kids brought: Crappy snacks. cheese nips, and Lunchables were popular. grrrr Hard very hard to steer my kids to bettrr choices.

Now, I dont push 3 meals a day as teens, when they were little they needed to eat far more often. A cheesestick was always available. If they miss a meal now, thats ok.

Dogs, I forgot dogs. Big dogs that kids can love are a great idea. Dogs are full of energy and love to play with kids (at least the good ones). And they are protective too.

When I was a kid, I walked to the bus stop, rode my bike to places and on roads if my mom found out she would have worried herself sick, played basketball, was in a marching band, had a tree fort, played sand-lot baseball (there was no little league there but I think sand-lot is better for kids - no pressure), built a dugout canoe one summer that immediately sank, swam across the Intracoastal waterway to the barrier island, then the Atlantic Ocean and when swimming there, retrieved fishing tackle by snorkel diving near the fishing pier and sold it back to the fishermen, and explored the pine and palmetto woods close to our home.

Kids were active back then, we played with each other. I think cell phones are a great invention, but like Television, enough is enough. In small doses it's good, in large doses it's not.

Mom was a stay-at-home mom and made mostly real food. We did have white bread and macaroni but we also had other things. No boxed meals.

Bob

wow, you sure traveled.


Ahhh the hours roaming the woods and the sea shore after school with my dog......

I did my best to let my kids have fun. Made a bow from a string and 4 foot pine tree.. wonky, just had to know how to work it. Spend hours supervising skill development with a hatchet, then a half ax then a full...

One day two heathens knocked on the door. My little boys had such fun in the mud, their clothes fell off and a mud bath ensued. OMG they were pleased to show me head to toe MUD. Took their picture. then asked them to go get the muddy clothes..... and dumped in trash. lol They got hosed, then a bath...

Lots of swimming and fishing.....all free.

The value of stay at home moms deserves more appreciation.
Si much to do..... and
Hard for kids to get into much trouble with eyes on them.

I was turned off physical activity by the boot camp attitude and enforced gaming. Plus the yelling, Florida heat, and group showers. I just refused to participate and almost didn't graduate.

A walk in the woods is my speed, with a friend or by myself. I live in an area where that is abundant and beautiful. A long walk is as good as a run, I figure

I managed to get through school without taking a single PE class. My children took lots of them and never enjoyed the standing around listening to the instructor explain the rules of the game they were supposed to 'play' next. My youngest son refused to take the group shower and was threatened with failing the course because the shower was mandatory. None of the PE activities seemed to me to increase fitness in any way.

I grew up in Florida, and since we lived without Air Conditioning I was acclimated to the heat (nobody had AC back then). I did a lot of playing outdoors because indoors was less fun.

I still don't live with AC and because of that, the heat doesn't bother me much.

I did hate P-E class though. Drill sergeant attitude of the coaches, lots of laps around the field, too many calisthenics, and not enough fun made it an unpleasant situation.

Sometimes too much adult supervision is not a good thing. Do other animals constantly supervise their children when they are playing with each other?

We played sand-lot baseball. Someone threw a bat to someone who caught it. Hand over hand until someone reached the top. That person got first pick of the kids that showed up that day and then they took turns.

We had a great time. A different game every day, no baggage to take home, no winning/losing season to worry about, everybody played even if you had only one outfielder or a dozen, and no adults were getting in the way of just fun.

By the time I had a son the population had grown and there was little league. He didn't like it and I didn't force it. But I did see the kids not having nearly as much fun as we did. They were serious, had a goal of a winning season, any kid who misplayed something was chastised by hurting their chances at a pennant, and the adult coaches telling them what to do (often barking). There was a lot of stress and pressure on the kids instead of just a playful day in the sun.

Sand lot was much better.

Today too many kids are tied to their parent's apron strings. They monitor where they are 24/7, they over supervise their games, and so on. No wonder they retreat to their screens.

The parents need to exercise some control over their children so that they don't go down a wrong path, but too much control is almost as bad. There is a sweet spot between the two extremes, and that spot depends on the child.

A parents most important job is to bring their children up so that they have a happy life and to help the choose a path to do that and avoid the pitfalls that the inexperienced in life child cannot see for themselves.

Eating too much and getting obese is not putting your child on a road to a happy life. All of us who have been overweight know that.

Bob