 |
| Rewind the Future--Stop the Cycle |
There is an obesity epidemic. Frightening statistics are
thrown at us every day: 73 % of Americans are either over weight or obese; childhood
obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the
past 30 years; and, it is now estimated that 1
out of every 3 people will have diabetes by 2050. These are the facts. It
is easy for us to see with our own eyes when we look around us.
What has gotten people riled is that the video shows scenes
with a mother over time encouraging unhealthy eating, starting with her feeding
her baby French fries to keep him quiet. What mother hasn’t made choices like
that? We are hardly perfect and we have a super-sized food culture that
actually sets us up for failure. Moms are not the root of the problem but we
can be a significant part of the solution.
No mom wakes up everyday and says “how can I kill my kid
with food today?” In fact, this is the furthest from our mind. Our dream is to
have our children grow up healthy and happy. The reality is we have not
understood the consequences of the food we have served our children. It is all
too easy to make unhealthy food choices because of the fast food world we live
in. Portions are huge. Readily accessible, affordable food is packed full of
calories and harmful ingredients we don’t need. And if that wasn’t bad enough,
our culture and family traditions have us thinking it is a good idea to over
feed our kids because food is the manifestation of our love.
Because we love our children, we have to lead the fight to
change ourselves and our culture when it comes to our food habits. We have to
because our current ways are killing us and our kids. It starts with us.
Parents have an incredible influence on our kids. By learning about healthier
foods and healthier lifestyle habits we can begin to make the change and bring
everyone along with us.
There are more and more resources available to learn what is
healthy and ways to make it easier to implement those changes in our
households. There are programs to take advantage of through our employers and
through our health insurance that are free. To find out the basics about
healthy eating you can go to myplate.gov.
There are many websites that offer healthy recipes like myrecipe.com and cookinglight.com. Then there are great
resources for revving up your physical activity and exercise like myfitnesspal.com or you can just search
on YouTube for great exercise videos—all for free. For kid specific information
checkout kids eat right.
For fun tools to engage your kids think about books you can
read together like Sammie
and Sax in the Land of Quinoa: the Search for a Balanced Meal or give them
their own right-sized
dishware to support healthy eating. There are even healthy and kid-friendly
recipes you can find and have your children participate in the preparation
of the meal. Research shows the best way to get kids to try new foods and
healthy foods is to have them help prepare them.
Rewind the Future—Stop
the Cycle may be an exaggeration and unfair assessment of a mother’s role
in her child’s obesity but it is most certainly a wake up call for all of us.
We do have the ability to make a healthier world for our children and it starts
in our own kitchen. Let’s stand up to the challenge.
#obesity
#prevention
#rewindthefuture
#momsuniteforhealth
No comments