Growing up I can remember being jealous that my friends had their lunches packed with cookies, fruit roll-ups, cans of pop, potato chips. and Twinkies while I sat next to them eating my sandwich on WHEAT bread with an apple, a real fruit juice box, and a green vegetable of some sort. A couple of times a week I’d get cookies, but they were usually the small SnackWells kind that tasted similar to the crayons I would eat in kindergarten.
Looking back now, I’m thankful my parents didn’t feed me food processed with blubber and sugar. Do you have any idea how high the obesity rate is for children under 16 years old? In 2002 alone, one in five children were considered overweight. The cause of this? Diet is the defining factor in obesity, but coming in second place is the amount of activity children get. Almost half of children ages 8-16 watch three hours of television a day! How many children are eating during this three hour period? Probably most of them. I can’t even sit still that long!
There is HOPE!
Recently, the school lunch ladies came clean with the truth about nutritious foods costing schools the same amount as the usual fatty foods. The most exciting part of this University of Minnesota study is that the children ate the more healthful lunches which included fruits and vegetables rather than potato chips and cookies.
We’re on the road to recovery, folks. – Lindsay Brown