My Take on Chilhood Obeisity

First of all, I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not trying to tell you that you're wrong for having a career and kids at the same time. My purpose is just to make an observation about where our society has gone over the years and the affects it has had on our children.

Secondly, I don't disagree that our children eat too much junk, and our society needs to be better educated on what healthy eating habits look like. I'm all for the elimination of trans fat. All this is good, but I don't think it gets at the root of the problem.

When I was growing up in the '70's and '80's most of the mother's, at least in my neighborhood, stayed at home with their kids. This meant that their were always kids around in the neighborhood. We spend hours upon hours in the summer and after school climbing trees, and playing every game under the sun, from freeze tag to red rover. We came in at night dirty and dog tired. I remember my dad always telling me how proud I should be for the bruises on my legs because it meant I was active.

We didn't play organized sports until we got older, but these neighborhood games are where I learned to play football, soccer, kickball, and most importantly, learned that I could run... and loved it. We didn't just play three times a week for an hour a day like kids today do when they go to soccer practice, we played all the time. We didn't have time to sit in front of the television, and we burned enough calories that we didn't see the immediate detrimental affects of a little junk food.

Now I realize that it would be nearly impossible to go back to times like this. I think it's great that we are becoming more aware of what we put in our food and our bodies, but I don't think we should pretend that controlling everything our kids eat will significantly reduce childhood obesity. It think we need to give our kids time to really play so that working out isn't work, it's just part of having fun and being a kid.