By Julia Easley, Co-chair of Dallas Area Coalition to Prevent Childhood Obesity
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-507845.mp3
Dallas, TX –
Have you recovered from the assault of the chocolate bunny? Do your kids have baskets loaded with luscious sweets, not to mention thousands of calories and fat grams? Quick, flush it all and take them for a walk!
We need to think seriously about the problem of poor nutrition for our children. Chances are good that each generation of your family has lived longer than their parents.
But that is not realistic for too many of today's children. It seems that every week a new study is published pointing out the serious health risks that threaten children who are obese.
Overweight children are at much greater risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and cancer as adults. All of these are serious, life threatening diseases. That's scary for our children, for the future health care system and for the economic cost to society.
As a grandparent, this is weighing heavily on my mind.
More than 150,000 area children are overweight. That is staggering! And, I was shocked last week to hear that five percent of all three year-olds are too heavy to safely use a standard child car-seat designed for kids up to 40 pounds.
Just take a look around you. Clearly our children are getting heavier; eating too much and spending too many hours indoors watching television or at the computer. Health guidelines recommend at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day, but 25 percent of children get no free-time physical activity at all.
A 14 year-old who is overweight has a 70 percent chance of being overweight as an adult. Unfortunately, I'm a living example of that statistic. I went on my first diet at age 13. Decades later I am still trying to overcome my poor eating habits and an ingrained sedentary lifestyle. I'm taking my grandsons for hikes and trying to escape those chocolate bunnies!
To really tackle this issue of childhood obesity, we have to start when children are young and are developing their lifetime eating habits. Children are bombarded with advertising for yummy foods. By age two or three, children start recognizing their favorites and demanding the latest prize in the kid's meal.
The factors causing this epidemic of childhood obesity are complex. There are never enough hours in the day. How can we find time to get to cook nutritious meals and then clean it all up? Who has time to get the kids outside and moving around? How can we combat the barrage of marketing targeting our kids? But the real question is - how can we not invest this time in the health of our kids?
Children spend most of their time away from home in environments that parents can't control. Encouraging healthy eating and exercise habits for our children is a problem that families or schools or the medical community can not tackle alone. It will take all of us working together.
But for parents themselves, now is the time to take action. Model good eating habits for your children. Take them to a doctor for a checkup. Take the kids outside to play, rather than fire away at a pretend predator on a video game.
Now is the time to ask your children to walk with you - not only for an evening stroll, but also for a lifetime of healthy living.
We must support parents now, as a community, before the real predator of childhood obesity takes long, healthy lives away from more of our children, our grandchildren, our neighbors, students, and friends.
Bottom line, this may be the first generation to not live as long as their parents. That is just not right. We must act now to improve the health of our children. The clock is ticking.
Julia Easley is co-chair of the Dallas Area Coalition to Prevent Childhood Obesity. For more information, go to childrens.com and click on "obesity."
If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.