When you look at your waist-to-hip ratio, which ideally should be 35 inches or less in women and 40 inches or less in men, it's more about your waste-to-lip ratio, that is, the amount of so-called "junk-food" calories that is a leading factor in Michelle Obama's new campaign to fight childhood obesity, an urgent health factor locally.
According to the Bloomberg News article, February 9, 2010, by Roger Runningen, "President Aids First Lady’s Campaign Against Obesity," the president just signed an executive order to start first lady, Michelle Obama’s national campaign to fight childhood obesity.
Michelle Obama looks at childhood obesity, as an urgent health issue, not a problem of how any particular child looks. There's too much emphasis on outer looks where children get the idea they have to resemble airbrushed movie stars or models in magazines. What the new executive order is focused on is the improvement of child health in the USA.
Michelle Obama's national anti-obesity campaign includes President Obama's 90-day executive order. But what will that order require? Most importantly, the order is geared to mobilize resources in both the public and private sector to better coordinate media information. That includes public information. The White House administration wants children to eat healthier foods and also be more active physically, not sit all day and play video games.
How will the executive order encourage children to eat better or become more physically active? First, let's look at the goal. It's to solve the burgeoning obesity problem among children and adults in the country. Michelle Obama wants to start with kids born today in the hopes that new new generation will "reach adulthood at a healthy weight," according to the statement issued by Michelle Obama's office.
The first step in the executive order is to create a task force on childhood obesity. Obama's big concern is that childhood obesity is at epidemic levels currently. The biggest concern is that children born today will have a shorter lifespan than their parents, due to childhood obesity afflicting children now that may or may not have influenced their parents.
In the private sector, it calls on manufacturers of popular foods and beverages to make some voluntary changes. For example, according to the Bloomberg News article, "PepsiCo Inc. pledged to list calorie content on the front of its drink containers, vending machines and fountain equipment by the end of 2012 as it endorsed the first lady’s initiative." But whether soda pop manufacturers print calorie amount labels on packages up to 20 ounces, and whether the total calories are listed, or whether other containers list calories based on 12-ounce servings, will kids even read the labels?
Will parents read the labels as well? Or are parents, on average, already so familiar with the popular sodas from their own childhood, that they drink carbonated beverages by habit without reading labels? That's an important questions. With the manufacturer's listing calorie labels to solve the obesity problem, in perhaps a small part from the corporate perspective, what does that change about the ingredients in generic soda pop?
Will putting healthier beverages in school vending machines solve the problem or make the soda manufacturers more interested in promoting their product in competition with healthier beverages? Or will a campaign start on drinking filtered, clean water that doesn't stand for a long time in plastic bottles?
When you consider the childhood obesity statistics, with almost a third of American children overweight, to solve the problem, first ask why has obesity tripled in adolescents? Why has it doubled in elementary school-age children in the past 30 years, a full generation? Type 2 diabetes in children, and earlier starting ages for heart disease, hypertension, cancer, and asthma also increased in the present generation.
What is it the parents ate compared to what the children eat today in schools, where many get most of their calories? In the 1950s, for example, the era of today's childrens' grandparents, schools served vegetables plates or burgers without buns on a plate with a green vegetable and a yellow vegetable, routinely. Children didn't have as much of a choice. They ate in the school cafeteria using a "lunch token."
Michelle Obama is looking for the type of "effective intervention" from manufacturers of food products, schools, and parents that also will solve the financial problem that's looming--the money strain on the nation's health-care system, according to the order. So the new order also is a "follow the money" solution. The result of childhood obesity is that it puts economic stress on the health-care system. To reduce the financial problem, you reduce the obese kids, the order implies.
But without intervention, how many more children will have increased risks of health problems? What will Michelle Obama emphasize? The two main goals are healthier diets and more activity. How will Obama achieve her goal? By a campaign. Who will be included besides the voluntary participation of so-called "junk food" manufacturers? The answer is the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Health and Human Services, and Education, and numerous other government agencies.
How far can the government control what kids eat by a promotional campaign? Will the public awareness be motivated? How will the food manufacturers cooperate without losing money in competition with healthier foods? How will the activity directors participate to encourage children to exercise, play outdoors, or walk more? The thought of more kids bicycling on the sidewalk, bumping into slow-moving seniors walking home from supermarkets is scary to the older generation. That means more parks where kids can run, play, or cycle without running over pedestrians is important around urban and residential streets.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CD) has pretty good statistics on childhood obesity rates. According to the CDC, nearly 17 percent of children ages 6 to 11 in the U.S. were obese in a study conducted from 2003 to 2006, up from 6.5 percent 30 years ago.
In Michelle Obama's personal life, she brought up the point in her January 28, 2010 speech in Alexandria, Virginia, regarding her pediatrician's mention that Obama should look at her daughters' body mass index. Actually, some doctors tell adults and teens to look at their waist-to-hip ratio as being more important than the body mass index or BMI as an indicator of being overweight.
Michelle Obama did make changes in her daughters' diets by including low-fat milk, bottled water in lunch boxes, grapes at breakfast, apple slices at lunch, and vegetables with dinner. She stopped allowing the two girls to watch TV on weekdays.
When parents heard about Michelle Obama's changes, will they copy-cat the same dietary and activity changes to pattern their childrens' diets after Obama's? What Michelle Obama is emphasizing is that the changes make huge improvements, but the changes are tiny, according to Michelle Obama's January 28th speech.
Besides type 2 diabetes, asthma, and depression on the rise in younger people, there's the opposite problem of anorexia and bulimia in children, especially in teenagers who perceive themselves as obese when they are really thin. There are eating disorders where children stop eating to lose weight and fall into anorexia or bulimia when some parents push too hard to look thin. So parents need to keep in mind, it's not about looks. It's about health.
What Michelle Obama is doing is a publicity campaign that will involve sports, media, and entertainment figures as well as businesses. What you can do is run your own promotional campaign in your own home involving your family, kids, even your children's teachers and school food suppliers, if you emphasize health and activity rather than just looking like the thin, airbrushed models and movie stars.
You'd be surprised at how resilient the confident voice of consumers are when it comes to health and nutrition at any age. And what's the big picture behind the health of the nation's kids? It's that if the kids keep eating less health foods, the strain on the health care system result is economic--about money.
The person who cares most about the health of children are their parents. It's time to educate families about food and activities. That's where the real campaign starts. Asking what foods and activities are affordable and healthy is the way to begin. Will manufacturers change their ingredients? That depends on the cost and the feedback in writing from consumers.
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