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Let's battle against obesity;
let's choose a healthy diet and let's choose healthy weight loss over fad diets. I
have a new passion, and that is to help stamp out obesity and promote a healthy
diet and healthy weight loss. I just wrote a short article on this subject
in one of my forums.
I watch very little TV but I listen to the radio almost
all day long. Lately I have noticed that there are quite a few news stories
about obesity. They say obesity has become an epidemic. There
are more obese persons on earth today than there are malnutritioned people.
And, there is a tremendous increase in the number of obese children.
Think
about that a moment. Why are these people not chosing a healthy diet for their
lifestyle? Instead, they gain weight, go on some fad diet, lose weight,
and then gain it back. The key is to lose weight with a healthy diet, and
then keep eating a healthy diet.
There are four reasons I can think of for obesity:
1 – People eat all the wrong foods. People eat junk
food, such as frozen foods and fast food restaurant foods.
2 – People eat the right foods, but way too much.
Portion control is not in their vocabulary.
3 – There is a tremendous lack of exercise, and fitness
activities.
4 – Eating all the wrong foods at all the wrong times.
So, let’s take these points one at a time.
People are making the choice to eat the wrong foods. Why? Why
not choose a healthy diet? A lack of education, perhaps
the parents did not teach their kids to make wise choices.
Well, I doubt that. I think what happened is the parents did teach
the kids about nutrition, and along came the television and with
it promotion. And what was promoted? All the wrong
foods. Along came trans fats, sugars that supposedly were
not sugars. A lot of false information was spread through
advertisings.
And, go into any institution, such as hospitals, schools, health
care centers, what will you find there? Junk food vending
machines along with fast food restaurants; this is what you will
find.
In hospitals, the food is not high quality nutritious food, rather,
most of it is empty calories laden with fats and sugars.
On the other hand, some people do eat all the right foods.
But look at their plates; they are stacked so full, almost as
if it is their last meal. We all know whatever the body
cannot use gets stored as fat.
And what do kids and parents do today for exercise?
Most kids and even parents play video games in their spare time.
Outside activities are almost not engaged in anymore. How
many kids, parents or families go out walking, hiking, biking,
running, or kite flying anymore? And if they do, is it daily,
weekly, or monthly?
It used to be that mealtimes and snack times were structured.
We know with today’s scheduling issue that is not always
possible. BUT, try for some type of consistency. If
you eat the right foods at all the wrong times it will not help
you to maintain your weight.
So try to choose right, control your portions, try to eat at the
same times in the day, and then get out and do something.
I have two more issues to address here. Issue one:
Many doctors are now prescribing adult medicines for children.
I have just read that many kids have been put on statin pills.
Statin pills are used for cholesterol management. They are
strong pills with some serious possible side effects. How
can we give them to children? (Exceptions can happen, but
I am addressing what seems to be the rule.) Why do doctors
not teach the parents how to feed their kids in a healthy way?
Also, I know of one child who was suffering from heart burn and
came away from the doctor with adult stomach medication.
No questions were asked about her diet. Just hand over the
medication and everything will feel better. Come on doctors,
what’s going on?
I know we see the heart burn advertisings from the drug companies.
The stomach pills are getting better and much more effective these
days. Just take them once a day and you can continue to
eat all the junk food you want. That’s even how they
are advertised. You see the people take the pill and then
stuff themselves with French fries, hamburgers and pizza.
What message are we sending to the kids? These children
will grow up, get sick; they will die younger, become unhealthy
and a burden to society, themselves and their families.
Wake up world. Wake up parents. Wake up doctors. And,
mostly wake up government. Stop promoting health in pamphlets
and then continue to serve junk food in the institutions.
Let’s put a stop to this for the sake of our next generation.
The baby boomers are actually living healthier and longer now
then our children will in the future.
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