Childhood Obesity --

Would you like some hypocrisy with that?

Think "obsession" is too strong of a word? A quick Google search on "childhood obesity" turns up roughly 588,000 links, and a search for the same on Amazon will reveal over 17,000 books. Many of them make overly simplistic (and alarmist) statements such as, "Sodas Keep Child Obesity Soaring." Obesity is a very serious health concern and it is on the rise in America, including among our children, but with roughly 6-15 percent of children and teenagers considered obese is it really "soaring?" And if we suddenly outlawed soda would that fix the problem? The answers, of course, are not really and an emphatic no, respectively. Soda isn't helping the issue and I'm not defending its place in anyone's diet, but the answer to the problem can only be found by looking beyond each of the popular scapegoats.

Although the obesity rate has increased dramatically for all U.S. children, certain ethnic minorities -- blacks, Hispanics and American Indians -- have been experiencing the highest rates of increase. Nearly 25 percent of children in these ethnic groups are obese by medical standards. Poverty is another risk factor. Between 1986 and 1998, the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables increased substantially more than did the cost of carbonated drinks, meat, sweets and snacks. So it's literally cheaper to eat unhealthy foods.

It's ironic that while obesity used to be a disease of the wealthy, in one of the wealthiest nations in the world it has become increasingly a disease of the poor. But it's not really surprising. When's the last time you heard of the government admonishing ConAgra and Archer Daniels Midland to stop putting so much effort into convenience food made from cheap flour, sugar, corn and soy and to start putting more effort into helping farmers grow more fresh meat, vegetables, fruits and grains (including especially the outrageously expensive convenience food variations such as bagged salad and cut fresh fruit) at a better price for the consumer?

You certainly never have and odds are you never will.You will hear of some well-meaning, but likely ineffective programs. For instance, in my town there was a movement to allow farmers' markets in the area to accept food stamps. Theoretically, this would give low-income families access to healthy, local and often organic food. Clearly their hearts are in the right place. However, let's consider the logistics for a minute. What percentage of the people who are eligible for food stamps have the transportation and/or the time to travel five or ten miles out of town to buy about a third of the groceries they'll need for the week on a regular basis? Probably not many.

Additionally, the places where vending machine junk is being removed from schools are mostly in areas in which parents have the time, the education, the means and the inclination to make the demand. There are some schools with little tax revenue and minimal parental involvement where these issues have been addressed, but for the most part, the kids benefiting from this are not as likely to suffer from obesity in the first place.

Few people are more fond of blaming parents (and particularly working mothers) for the rise in childhood obesity than Mary Eberstadt, author of Home Alone America. According to her, one of the ways working mothers contribute to their children's corpulence is due to the difficulty in combining paid work and breastfeeding. Apparently she's forgotten that back in the good ol' 1950s when middle class white women were home, they were also bottle feeding their infants. Not to mention that in the same time period most of the black and/or poor mothers (whose children would be at high risk for obesity today) were working. Yet in spite of all the things those mothers were doing "wrong," childhood obesity wasn't even a blip on the radar screen of social concerns.

Eberstadt wants us to believe that working mothers are the reason that kids eat too much and don't exercise enough. However, she concedes that maternal obesity is the greatest predictor of child obesity, which (someone should let her know) is actually true whether Mom is home in the afternoon to overeat with her kids or not. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the most significant way that working mothers contribute to childhood obesity is by insuring that they have enough money to keep food in the house for their kids to eat. Those rotten feminists.

Insurance companies are also very concerned about childhood obesity and have instituted programs to teach kids how to eat better, since obese kids tend to become obese adults. My four-year-old recently announced that we won't get cancer and die like his great grandfather did because, "We eat healthy food and drink water." So obviously I'm not opposed to teaching children that it's important to eat healthily, but am I the only one who thinks telling five-year-olds to read nutrition labels is a bigger than necessary burden? And while I'm a fan of nutrition labeling, didn't people know what "junk" food was prior to the mandatory labels? When I was a kid I remember knowing that potato chips were "not good for me," without having any idea how many "net carbs" were in each ounce.

Girls are also at higher risk than boys, because girls tend to tie activity into looking good rather than being healthy (or just being a normal kid). With the sexualization of girls' bodies and impossible media standards, it's not surprising that many young girls suffer from a poor body image. And as a result, they're more likely to contract various kinds of eating disorders, including compulsive eating which often leads to obesity. Fifteen-year-old American girls are twice as likely to be overweight as are girls the same age from Denmark. Obviously activity (or lack thereof) is playing a role here. But so are perfectly airbrushed, nearly anorexic models, who are portrayed in magazines and on television as being normal, healthy girls.

Often the "quality" of school physical education programs is emphasized as part of the cure for childhood obesity. Now Phys Ed is good, but how qualified should someone have to be? It's fine to have a class where kids learn about health and rules to sports games, but is this really the answer to curing obesity? Isn't plain old activity good enough? How about reducing the number of hours kids have to sit at a desk at school and let them go home? How about longer recesses in the earlier grades? Does anyone have to tell a first grader to get out there and move? But you won't hear anyone lobbying for a shorter and more efficient school day. It's easier to simply suggest that, like all the other problems we face in education, inactive children are the result of teachers' general lack of "good enough" credentials. In the older grades, why not end school an hour earlier, and instead of "trying out" for various athletic sports, require that everyone participate in a fitness activity or sport they like in the afternoon? No PhD's in Sports Medicine required to facilitate.

There's an article on WebMD that tells you how to pack "healthy" lunches for your kids (never mind that the kids at highest risk for obesity are those whose parents are least likely to be reading WebMD looking for information on how to pack the healthiest lunch for their child). And practically every choice includes "low-fat" something or other. When is someone going to notice that prior to the invention of "low fat" food, fewer people were fat? Well, Dr. Atkins noticed, but he failed to notice that the same is true for the invention of "low carb" foods. Not to mention how disturbing it is that "experts" are routinely advocating keeping an essential nutrient out of kids' bodies. But, whatever it takes to sell more books and more prepackaged junk food in the name of "fitness."

Denise Austin is in on the action too. But at least her food ideas include real milk and yogurt (some of the time) and even other fat-containing foods like coconut and pumpkin seeds which are actually filling and full of nutrients. And she focuses on fruits and vegetables, naturally. There's seemingly no end to the advice out there around how to keep kids slim.

Even the Cookie Monster diets now. Cookies are now a "sometimes" food (pause for collective eye roll). But McDonalds advertises before and after Sesame Street (in spite of the numerous parents, myself included, who asked PBS not to allow this), though they're demonized as being one of the primary contributors to childhood obesity, along with television and bad parents. Apparently the viewers' "valuable" contributions to public television aren't as valuable as McDonalds' contributions. Watching TV contributes to sedentary kids, which is one of the real factors in childhood obesity, yet Cookie Monster isn't encouraging anyone to turn off the TV. Just more politically correct nonsense, when money is still the bottom line, with lip service to "keeping kids healthy."

next:
Do kids really get obese from eating too many steaks and apples?