Child Obesity who do we blame?

The above photo is a a billboard picture that will be appearing in Georgia USA.  I have to say when I saw this picture I was appalled!!

I understand that child obesity is at an all time high, but to blame and humiliate a child, or to guilt children who have no control of what their parents bring into the house, is ridiculous!

I have been thinking alot about why child obesity is on the rise, and it's no wonder really.  For those mums that have children in school what do you send them to lunch with?

If we go to the "Healthy" section of the supermarket, we find products such as a nut bar that is worth 500 calories, just for a 60 gram bar.  If we send our children with fruit then we are putting huge amounts of natural sugars into their bodies, if we send them  with LCMS that are advertised with skinny active children on the ad, then we are pumping, per bar 390kj of energy, 2.6 grams of fat and 7.5 grams of sugar into them.  They aren't really that good for them.  Yes they are better than a bag of chips but they still aren't really that good. 

I had a conspiracy theory many years ago about McDonalds, that, they were planning to set up a restaurant, so you didn't have to travel any further than 500 metres to get to one.  And in between the McDonalds there is KFC, Hungry Jacks, and Red Rooster.  All high sugar, high fat foods, that sell products aimed at children. 

Our fruit is gas ripened, I wonder how many good nutrients that takes from our fruit and veggies, and messes with our metabolisms.  We live in a world where people live in terror, we see on the news so regularly about a child being kidnapped, a child being hurt, and bullies.  So we drive our children to school and back.  We are living in the world of home and land packages.  A home is built on 400sq metres of land, leaving no backyard for kids to naturally go and play in.  There is no longer backyard cricket, guns, skippy or hopscotch because there is not enough backyard to do it.

Society tells us that we are meant to look like Posh Beckham or Natalie Portman, grotesiquely tiny women, who in their own right are unhealthy.  This puts a huge emotional drain on young people that live in fear that they will put on weight, so one of two extreme things happen, they end up overweight, from emotional eating, or they end up anoerexic or bullimic.

Not only this but modern technological advances have created it so that children no longer have to go outside to entertain themselves, instead inside the house is the place to be.  It's because inside the house we have dvd players, blu ray players, desktop computers, large screen tvs, surround sound, xbox, wii, playstation, gameboy, ipods, ipads, laptops, mobile phones and probably some that I have forgotten. 

I bought my son a t'shirt for Christmas this year that said "I went outside once, but the graphics weren't that great".  Children don't need to go outside, because they can create an online base of friends, they no longer have to go to the local park to meet up with their friends on school holidays, they just have to get on xbox live and talk to them, they can facetime them on the ipad/ipod, they can chat with them on msn, yahoo, facebook or twitter.  They can play virtual games with them instead of playing with them in the real world.  All sitting inside a house, on a chair and not moving an inch, except to go to the toilet or get something to eat!

And like I have experienced in the last few days, if your child is overweight and you encourage them to get out and exercise there are little arseholes who will be nasty and make mean comments to them.  This happened to my youngest son Peter, as he walked home from school, to the point that he has had to alter his route home, because he is afraid of these older kids yelling at him telling him that he is fat.  Might I just add that my son Peter, is actually of a fairly "normal" weight compared to the other children in his class.

So whose fault is it that our children are overweight? Well quite frankly it is ours!  We buy the food, we make the dinners, we are in charge of our childrens health.  And this is why the above billboard angers and disgusts me so much.  Children don't deserve to be punished, humiliated and made feel like shit because of their parents choices!

Love you all

Sam

xxx