Youth and Obesity

Interesting article from Reuters about the growing number of obese children. Timely article, too, considering that I just had lunch with 100+ teenagers at McDonald's. I was there for the Apple Dippers, which are a nice 100-calorie dessert to follow the tuna-and-wheat-cracker entree I had prepared for myself. The kids were there for the fries, apparently, judging from the number of trays I saw with the telltale super-sized red cartons on them. It also seemed as though most trays had large sandwiches like Big Macs or Quarter Pounders on them. That's a lot of fat calories for lunch. Curious, I asked one of their teachers if any of the kids had ordered salads. At first she said 'no', but then she remembered seeing one (ONE) walnut-apple salad. She also said she had seen several kids with yogurt parfaits. So that's what, 4 or 5 out of 100 kids. And as I was leaving, I saw two of those yogurt parfaits sitting untouched while their purchasers finished...you guessed it, their super-sized fries. Oh well, it was a better choice than the Big Mac combo, I suppose.

If I had had access to the fast food and convenience food options these kids have (not to mention the funds to purchase them), there's no telling how big I would be today. When I was their age, canned fruit (as opposed to fresh) was about the worst dietary choice I could make. Pizza, burgers, and such were available, I just usually didn't have any money with which to purchase them. For that matter, neither did my parents. "Snack Night" was a big deal at our house. We each got to pick one thing that we wanted, and Dad would go to the store and purchase just those things. Mom would almost always get a Butterfinger candy bar, my sister asked for Hostess Twinkies, Dad would get some sort of Hostess product, and I would get the Hostess Banana Flip. It only happened about once a month, and the whole excursion probably set Dad back about two dollars, but it was A Very Big Deal to us. Limited snacking--what a concept!

Obviously, I lost my way somewhere along the line, and for that reason, I can identify to some degree with teenagers today. It's easy to get caught up in doing what everyone else is doing, and not really considering the long-term consequences of what we're doing. I can only hope that we somehow "fix" the system so that these kids have a good shot at long, healthy lives.

The whole experience reminded me of my own commitment, so I took the stairs back up to the office. Seven flights, all uphill. :) It wasn't pretty, but I made it. I definitely need to continue to do this, at least once a day.