If you or anyone in your family is overweight you need to watch Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution on Friday evenings at 9 PM.
We are a fatter, less healthy country than at any period in our history. We consume more calories than can be used by our bodies while we exercises less. We are paying price
The number of obese people has grown to epidemic proportions since the 1970’s. An impassioned Jamie Oliver is trying to do change the tide and bring sanity back to the way we eat. After watching the first two episodes of his new series, it is easy to see why fully 30% of the US population is obese or morbidly obese.
If you think our schools are doing a good job addressing the nutritional needs and obesity problems facing our kids you’d be wrong! If your child’s cafeteria serves food like the schools in Huntington, West Virginia, described as America's unhealthiest and most obese city, where the show is being shot the chances are you are raising an unhealthy child who will grow into an unhealthy adult.
The first show was as stunning as it was telling. The food being shoveled into our kids’ stomachs is calorie laden processed junk food masquerading as real food.
In the opening sequences we saw elementary children drinking strawberry and chocolate flavored milk that contains more calories than their favorite soft drink and eating pizza for breakfast! Lunch time their trays contained fried chicken nuggets, tacos, French fries, hot dogs, and other finger food that didn’t necessitate the children learning how to use knives and forks!
We witnessed a classroom of children who couldn’t identify a tomato or a carrot, or beet, or a potato! They could identify French fries and ketchup but couldn't tie these foods together with basic vegetables. Stunning!
The effects of weight related disease in overweight children will bring a shortened life because of poor nutrition and a lack of exercise that taxes the heart and burns calories.
The statistics are grim:
• 60 percent of overweight children already have one risk factor for heart disease
• 85 percent of children diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are obese
• 25 percent of overweight children are already showing early signs of type 2 diabetes
• Approx 20 percent of newly diagnosed cases of childhood diabetes are type 2, associated with obesity.
It’s time to act. Obesity is costing our country 150 billion dollars a year and will double in 10 years.
Don’t know where to start? Start by:
- Going to your kids’ school and look what is being served in their cafeteria
- Read Kenneth Cooper’s, Fit Kids, an excellent resource for parents
- Work with other parents and demand that physical education be brought back into the curriculum
- Demand that Home economics, nutrition, and cooking is being taught to boys and girls
For more info: WebMD, Food, Inc
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