The Epidemic of American Children: Childhood Obesity

Laura Scott, 08/29/2017

America has had many struggles over the years, but the one struggle we are dealing with today deals with the children. Sara Police states that 10 percent of U.S. adults were obese in the 1950’s. It has now risen to 35 percent. The children on the other hand weren’t recorded till 1963. It was practically unheard of for a child to be obese until the 1980’s. 7 percent of children ages 6 to 11 were obese. In 2012 the rates were up to 18 percent. For children 12 to 19 it went from 5 percent to 21 percent. This may not seem very high, but compared to the last few generations this is unhealthy.

Solution? Get fat free foods and exercise more? Wrong. If you go to the supermarket and you buy low fat yogurt to cut off the carbs and fat. Congratulations! You just bought a ton of sugar. Food companies want you to think their product is healthy and taste amazing. But the problem to making it healthy and taking out the carbs and fat your product will taste like cardboard. So what do you do? You add the sugar.

Most kids and adults don’t realize how much sugar is in everything. If you go the store and buy yogurt your buying about 39 grams of sugar. That's about ten teaspoons. The average person should only eat 8-9 teaspoons of sugar a day. You go get cereal and decide on “Honey Nut Cheerios.” The box only says 9 grams of sugar. That sounds pretty healthy unless you look at the serving size, ¾ cup. The average person eats about 1 ½ cups of cereal. The same goes for ice cream. No one in their right mind really intends just to eat ¾ cup of ice cream.

Then there's the vegetable that can be turned into substitute sugar. Corn. Also known as corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, maize syrup, glucose syrup, glucose/fructose syrup tapioca syrup, and many other things that are hard to pronounce.

Food companies know how to appeal their customers. Who are their customers? It’s not the adults, it’s their kids. The products are full of sugar but conveyed at healthy. Now they ship it out to be put on shelves of your local grocery store. Most people don’t realize until they have kids is that every item in the store is strategically placed. The aforementioned products will be placed right at the eye level of your kids. And not only will they be set right where your kids can see them but they will be packaged with bright colors and favorite cartoon characters.

How do you find actually healthy food to give your kids? Well to start, snacks can just be fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Nuts do have calories but not all calories are bad. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner shouldn’t be microwave or store bought. Making your own meals will result in you knowing exactly what you put in your foods. A myth that most people believe is that fast food or boxed food is cheaper but that's not true. You can make a homemade meal for the same price. The last thing to realize is the consequences of soda. Soda is the worst drink you could drink regularly besides alcohol. Soda is concerned about your lifespan just as much as cigarettes. Do not drink soda regularly. If we start considering our food more the more we are able to help are children live a long healthy life.

Lastly, it may have seen that the article was downplaying the importance of exercising but exercising is very important. You should be regularly exercising to keep your body fit because the more you take care of your body the less you’ll be cursing it 50 years from now.

Your body is a gift you have but we make the choice of what we put into it and how we use it. If you choose the path of soda, fast food, and professional couch potato then you will get no guarantee of a long healthy life. Every choice you make could be the difference between the path of obesity or the road of healthy living. Before you eat your next meal decide where you want you want to end up.