Childhood Obesity and What You Can Do To Stop It.

You Got To Move This, Childhood Obesity Solutions

Obese Child

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It seems like everywhere you look there is a story of Obesity in Children. You see it on the news all the time. They want to change the lifestyle of children from the very home they live in to the schools they attend to even what they eat.

When I went to school we didn't have the mass media that distorted stories to the heights that they do today. Most people minded their own business when it came to how they raised their own children.

Today it is a much different story. Today we see ads andnews articles and stories abounding with the focus on Obesity. The reports are shocking! It is said that the amount of obesity in children has raised some 33% in the last however number of years. Do the math and look at the children in those schools. We are focusing on a very small group of children. Not every single child that eats aschool lunchor a "fat" lunch by today's standards turn out to be obese.

Just by observiation of the last 30 years since I was in Elementary school to when my own children attended school things have been changed dramatically in the school system. They changed some things and now they are dealing with the consequences

Sometime in the 80's the government came up with a plan to remove Physical Education from the daily curriculum. I think it was due to how those people saw how other countries children weresmarter than us. It was that comparison that got the wheels turning in some people's minds that if we stress more of production and more fundamental learning such as Math and Science that we would be greater than those other countries. At that point in time I really don't think that they considered the full outcome of their decision.

How Did We Get This Way

When I was growing up there weren't a whole lot of obese childrenaround. There may have been a few, but they weren't plastered all over the news and on billboards or in the newspapers, medical journals and television for all to see. They had jeers and pokes from the other children but we were raised to not make fun of anyone else--or at least that is how I was raised.

Growing up in the 60's and 70's we didn't have the technologythat we have today. Computers seem to rule our world now more than ever. It wasn't always like that. No one ever thought of a Personal Computer or a Wii system. Though I don't have problems with theWii systems because you can get games that include physical activity.

I kind of get a good chuckle when I think of the difference back then, and it wasn't that long ago, and the the things that we have now. I seem to remember that we really weren't headed into a society where everything that you take for health is in That Pill That You Took Today. Is this where we wanted to end up? It kind of scares me to know how fast we got here as to how fast we will get to another milestone in which we have told ourselves that we will not be like that.

In the 80's our leaders looked around at the way that other nations raised their children. They saw smarter kids and more technology being made. They watched the kids in those classrooms in those other nations and we wanted the same. We watched as China raised their children and how they schooled them. We wanted smarter children too. so they started making changes to the school curriculum. They put more pressure on the school systems to foster more smarter children and they revamped the standards of learning. They also took Physical Education out to afford a more learning environment. I guess they thought that only the brain learns while it is a state of being occupied with numbers and science and all sorts of things and the body doesn't need any of that stuff. They are to be trained from the first day of school to be mind machines so that we can be smarter than other nations or as it is said, "Better Than The Joneses". We are constantly comparing ourselves and try to be in the number one spot in everything, from how we eat to what our technology will be in the future to war craft and so on. Has it made us smarter or better?

Underweight Child

What Are We Doing

Do we really know what we are doing and what the consequences will be? Now that they have taken just about any physical activity out of our schools curriculum we are finding all kinds of things and situations that we didn't bargain for. Obesity is one of them and another is the restlessness of students that display aggression to the max including all those killing sprees. In order to cut down on the Obesity the medical field is pushing that we also need to adjust the school lunch program. They have gone as far as blaming the parent's in their choices of foods. What a few have done for technology sake is being brought down the line and is now being blamed on the parents. The parent's aren't the ones who chose to take physc=ical activities out of the schools. They didn't opt for more hours at work or that the system would get so out of hand that both parents have to work outside the home just to have decent home for their children. They didn't make the rule that changed the curriculum just because we wanted smarter children!

Focusing on obesity in children is a very bad example to set for the kind of adults that we want to foster our future. I am on Face Book and do get the news feeds and nutritional updates and news articles and that is about all the media and the news and studies are focusing on--OBESITY, not only in children but adults as well. When we focus so much on a negative we are going to get a negative back. We have the medical industry focused on getting people thinner by someone's standards. Who that someone is/was needs to be brought out into the public view. Then you have the Pharmaceuticals telling us that they have a cure all for anything that ails you. They are suppressing our very own autonomic body systems. All this is blamed on the parents once again.

In one of the news updates their article criticized Obese children and they are stressing that the school lunch menu needs to change and that parents need to pack more healthier lunches. The things that I stressed what that not all children are obese. There are some children that attend our school systems that are underweight or that have other health problems. A mass conversion isn't the answer. Stop blaming the parents for the food choices. If you sat down and watched just a half hour show you would notice that there are up to 10 commercials that include or talk about food in one way or another. It doesn't matter if it is diet foods or not, it is still food. It's ridiculous. What do you think is going through the minds of the children who are watching them and adults for that matter. The advertisers are using Psychology to get us to buy those foods and they are using it to their advantage. They aren't thinking abut Obesity. They are thinking about profits and selling and money.

You used to hear about Child Psychology in the news alot and now you don't. All you see is Obese Children being plastered all over the place like they are some strange and interesting animal. What kind of message are we giving them by degrading them and putting them on display. Guilt trips are one thing but we are raising these children to be our future society. We are teaching them how to relate to others and themselves. We are teaching them about self-esteem.

What kind of people are they going to become? We are raising children to be our future. We better make a better effort as to what we want out of that future by what messages we are telling them today. Putting them on guilt trips is not the way to go. Blaming the parents is not the answer to what we seek either. That just puts more pressure on the parent's when the pressure should be rightfully put right back on those who took our school system and made it into some factory for technological advancement.

Childhood DevelopmentWe Have To Move This

The brain doesn't only learn by sitting in a classroom for 6-8 hours of the day. It learns and needs oxygen and movement in order to function properly. It needs movement to learn and to grow. One cannot sit in a classroom all day long and only get learning from books.

When searching for this type of stuff in school and such, I was amazed to find articles about not allowing your school to take out P.E., but I have known for quite a long time that they have already taken that program out many years ago. As stated above they did so to make better, smarter students in training our children to be better than other countries.

In my school years we got up and took our papers to the front of the room to the teachers. We also walked down the hall to the Principal's office to deliver things and some of us to get a talking to and we had P.E. Phys. Ed. was about getting your bodies to move and be healthy and active. Getting oxygen to the brain was important. It was also learning other cultures, customs and socialization. It was the perfect way to release tension and get the angries out and the muscles to grow properly. Talking was not permitted in a classroom unless you were asked a question and then you had to raise your hand to get chosen to answer it. We didn't learn socialization then, we learned it in Phys.Ed. and we learn it in our playtime with others. The brain needs this as well as the books.

Being spiritual and reading the Bible, now some of you don't get your panties in a bunch just by me mentioning this, BUT Jesus was the one who said that not everything thing is in a book. We need to expand our minds by our surroundings and get our bodies moving.

Get those kids up out of their seats 5 minutes before each class ends. Get them moving around the room. We Have To Move This (Music video and lyrics provided) to protect our children and to foster a more positive self image for them and for our future.

Good Morning America had a news spot on this and you can watch the video: Shrinking School Recess

"Move This" by Technotronic

Yo Come On Move This

Shake That Body
Shake That Body

People dont you know, dont you know
its about time
cant you hear the jam is pumpin
while you taste the piece of mine
many different flavours
and the bass is strong
get into the hot stuff
let me pour a little on

Baby let me show you how to do dis
you ve gotta move this
youre doing fine
theres nothing to it
you gotta move this
come on and move this
shake that body for

People dont you know....

Can you feel the mellow crawling fast
drum oh baby
rhythms blast
pump it pump it pump it up
bet you cant make this once stop

youve gotta move this
youve gotta move this

shake that body ah
shake that body cool

People dont...

Pump It taken
Fingers snappin
hands club and Mamas Rappin
Talkin about cold loughin
shut up and you the one
use what you got show me
your on the floor so let me see
dont say nothing less i saw
and remember i like it raw

Baby let me show..
.