How can we get American children to eat healthier?

Question

More and more of America's children are gaining weight from eating non-stop junk food. Twinkies, HoHos, DingDongs, etc. All of these are leading to heart trouble. Which in the end leads to kidney failure, and even death if too serious! My question here is, why do America's children eat all this junk food if they know it is bad for you? And why can't everything prevent them from stopping? I mean seriously, food bans in schools, whole grain markets, and even the cookie monster on Sesame Street is now the vegetable monster. The 21st century is not a good place to be! And everyday immagrants come to America just to make more obese people in the future! 1,000 pounds for an adult is ridiculous! And so is a kindergartener who weighs 200 pounds! And the sad part, its so true! Its insane! More and more people are gaining weight, and this needs to come to an end!

Answer 1

Soon we'll be sharing the wealth with Europeans as they introduce junk food vending machines. The is one company that is actually giving away free sample of bags of chips in European schools.

Our school menus need to change. The meals are high in fat and sodium. When my son was on dialysis, he had to carry a bag lunch every day.

Add to that moms and dads who get home tired and exhausted from working all day - barely enough time to set down their bags, make dinner, help with home work, into bed and do it all over again the next day. They don't have time to struggle over whats for dinner and whose going to eat it, so they use what works - what their kids will eat.

Yes, 1000 lbs is rediculous and so is 200 lbs for a 6 year old, but keep in mind these are extremes. They are poor examples to use when trying to convince people that something needs to change.

How do we get kids to eat healthier? As parents, we need to limit the amount of "filler food": candies, sweets, sodas, chips, hotdogs, cakes, etc. I mean REALLY limit it.

We need to stop giving our kids "juice" boxes filled with high fructose corn syrup. Look at the label folks - look for 100% fruit juice!

Instead of candies and sodas, we need to offer our kids fruits to eat as filler foods between meals.

Answer 2

unfortunately food items have become so tasty that's all people care about these days. when there is a choice between healthy and tastes good, the majority will go with what tastes better. personally I could care less about taste. I would rather feel good 24 hours a day 365 days a year. there have been enough medical studies on smoking, drinking, higher education, athletics, etc. we already know that the children will do and model themselves from what they "see" the parents doing, not by what the parents tell them to do. and I've heard all the excuses about parents hot having enough time to cook, and it's all bs. eating healthy is quick and easy and if family members where to pitch in meal prep time can be further reduced. children do not know what's best for them. it is the responsibility of the parent to educate and protect their children.

Answer 3

Hello, and great post. It all starts at home. Doesn't everything start at home? I believe so. If we educate the parents, obesity in this world would drop considerably. Unfortunately, I also have to say that there are parents out there who could care less. Case in point. I met with a teenage client the other day for a fitness consultation. It saddens me what I see with this generation. Relatively healthy weight, but huge stomachs and love handles. I don't know where this has come from. Well, this client was no different. Her mother sat right beside her as I asked her what her eating habits were like. She proceeded to tell me about how she starves herself during the day, eats huge, heavy meals at night, and enjoys going out to mexican restaurants frequently. When I told her that in order to reach her weight loss goals she would have to slowly eliminate these types of eating habits, her mother chimed in and said, 'Well, I'm sorry, but life is not worth living if we can't eat like that.' My jaw dropped. Mind you , mama could stand to lose quite a bit of weight herself. Part of the reason why she said that is because the media sells us lies everyday about how we can lose weight and be health instantly! We can eat whatever we want and still lose weight. We can sit on the couch, be inactive, eat doughnuts, and still lose weight. We can pop this pill and that pill, and be healthy. Wake up, America, and stop acting like you don't know better. When did we ever turn on the television in the 80's and see all these drug and weight loss commercials? Never. The children were always busy running outside, riding their bikes and MOVING their bodies. Nothing in this life worth having is easy. Sometimes I wish I could grab a megaphone and talk to the people. We need to take responsibility for our eating and our health, and our children. If we don't, we can't complain when one day we wake up and are diagnosed with Type 2 diabeted, and heart failure. Ok, I'm done.

Answer 4

Because most of these foods have addictive properties on their ingridients. One more problem we have is that parents are not tought about health and foods or not as much as in other countries. In my country I know that schools enforce a test of literature provided to parents and they have to signed and be returned to the teachers to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Now if the parents decide to follow or not is up to them but at least schools in other countries are a bit more concious and they also are much poorer so they don't have the money to buy too much junk food!

One other thing is that, like in my country kids tend to play more outdoor games. People do have video games but because we are always expose to girls at a younger age, girls tend to try to look better at a younger age and guys try to look good also for the same reason!! Or at least is a good incentive........the stronger, faster and more active you are and better you look the more girls will be attracted and the less effort it will be for you to hook up with!!

Here I see kids having cuddies about girls..........in my country kids at age 2 are already thinking about how cute a girl is or not and by first grade is almost a competition to have a girlfriend, who it is, and in a scale how do they stand around the school or grade classroom and stuff!!

Although kids still eat junk food they also exercise a lot specially if they play soccer or swimming which are some of the sports most played in my country by the majority of the population!

We need to change how we eat and how we teach people to eat!! But remember this is a free country and people use freedom for just about everything they can think of and think that because they are allowed to do this things they are in the doing things right!!!

Answer 5

Fast food is easy. Kids get used to it, when the parents try to do something else, they give up too easily at the protest of their children. Alot of American kids run the household sadly.

Kids don't get as much exercise today as in the past either. Too many indoor activities, too many channels to watch. Not to mention it isn't really as safe as it once was to be able to tell your children to go outside and play.

Not too mention the addition of soda as a family staple.

All of this then can turn into food addiction which just makes it all worse.

Answer 6

I feel a lot of it has to do with technological advances as well. When I was little we played outside. Rode bikes, walked to friends houses, played tag and kickball. Now children are on the internet all day or playing video games....riding electric scooters!! Kids would rather be I.M.ing each other than playing in the neighborhood. Its sad. It takes away from socialization too. But technology will continue to advance and so will the obese children!!

Answer 7

Its not the kids, its the parents. There are no ho-hos in our house, there is not soda and rarely juice. My kids dont even know who Little Debbie is. They eat veggie nuggest and veggie hot dogs at home and cookies and cakes are an occasional treat, not something thats part of our shopping trip. They get their share of junk but they eat healthy overall. I think a big problem is the schools. They preach carrots and apples and then serve fried chicken and mini cakes. Also, when we have overweight, bon-bon stuffers, its hard for them to keep the food out of the home, thus, easy access for the kids.

Answer 8

This may seem like a way out solution and if you are a liberal it will shock you.

Lower taxes.

If you lower taxes enough, Mom will be able to stay home and not have to work to maintain the same lifestyle. She will be able to spend time cooking and feeding her children appropriately instead of having to do fast food and prepared foods.

Oh and by the way, it will eliminate a host of other evils as well. Supervised kids: get in less trouble. study more, are more respectful, get more rest, play nice, don't sell drugs, don't form gangs.

Answer 9

It all comes down to educating the parents who then have to educate the kids.
Banning the unhealthy food in schools are a good start, but if the kids are able to bring candy & pop from home, it doesn't do them any good. I think by not allowing the kids to leave school at lunch time would be another thing, to get them to sit down with their friends and eat the school lunch.

Answer 10

Its the parents fault. My kids ate what they were given. Whether they liked it or not they ate it. They didn't have to eat all of it but they had to eat enough to qualify as a meal. My daughter is not very into cooked veggies now, but she is served them, shes 16, she will say, Mom, how many do I have to eat. When she was little once she started asking we told her she had to eat as many as her age.....My son brought home the saying from preschool. You git what you git and you don't throw a fit....Even as a baby, my kids at healthy because thats all I fed them. To this day soda is a treat, water or ice tea is preferred. We don't keep ice cream or cookies around, if we really want them we go buy them or make them, eat our fill and we're done with it.

I've been a working mom for 21 years, the daycare I chose was loving and healthy...I went with someone who had the same values....they weren't given the option to be anything but good consciensious people.

Parents need to not put up with how the liberal media thinks we need to raise our children..discipline is good, kids need it. Respect is key, parents need to demand it. Responsibility is key, teach your kids they are responisible for their behavior.

My kids are wonderful human beings, so much so that even though they are 16 and 21, I want two more.....they were a joy, rarely did they upset me. Not to say they didn't...one night my son wouldn't sleep for anything, he just kept whimpering....in my frustration as he lay in the middle of my bed I kind of started pressing on the bed, making it bounce....he started chuckling.....god was that a life saver....it worked with my daughter too. Laughter is the best medicine.....