Childhood Obesity Epidemic

Today a friend posted this on her Facebook...

"Ohhh my geese the lady at the jiffy store just bought her already over weight children giant honey buns & Mt. Dew.... Why don't you try giving your kids a nutritional breakfast instead of a pound of sugar!!! & make them play outside every once in awhile!!!"

And instantly people began to agree and then disagree. Of course those that disagreed used the 'its genetics' excuse for being overweight themselves as well as the
Obesity epidemic that is sweeping across our youth. This is a pet peeve of mine because clearly those children were not overweight due to genetics, it is clear they are that way because of poor parenting as well as poor nutritional habits. I don't blame the children one single bit. They are only doing what they are taught and eating what they are fed.

I also have beef with using genetics as an excuse for being overweight! Obesity runs in my family and for a long time I blamed genetics because I was overweight. Then I realized, it wasn't genetics but the poor food choices I was making and the lack of exercise making me fat, which were all things I learned from my family. I learned from childhood to eat deep fried, sugar coated, and starchy everything. I spent much of my childhood overweight and I carried into my adult life. Then I woke up and changed the way I ate, and got moving, and guess what? Suddenly I started to lose weight! So long as we make excuses for the way we look and don't look within ourselves and realize it is out own fault we are overweight, we won't change, we will merely just begin to accept that we are predetermined to be that way. No one is born overweight, we become that way. Stop blaming genetics, and get to the real root of the problem.

Another thing that was mentioned was the 'I eat pretty healthy and I stay overweight'...bull! You can't half-ass eat healthy. Either you are or you aren't. If you were eating healthy food and appropriate portions you would lose weight and slowly get out of that overweight category. That state of mind irritates me. Its just another excuse.

Now I know people will get offended by this but this is being written by someone who was obese, and has worked her butt of to reach a healthy weight and achieve a healthy lifestyle. And I do understand some people have medical conditions such add thyroid issues, but there are thousands people who have lost weight successfully even with health issues. So that isn't a valid excuse either.

America needs to stop making excuses for overweight children, and take the necessary steps to make them healthier.

This concludes my rant for the day.