Let’s see…. they (the BIG Corporations) put crap in grocery food – stuff we can’t pronounce – it puts on weight… FAST food places feed us “FAT pills” – it puts on weight. Skinny bullies make fun of fatter kids… The educational “system” has been ‘dumbing down’ children for 50+ years… HOW Do You Expect grades to be high??????

Although I respect the fact that researchers from UVM and UCLA were involved in this study, it immediately strikes me that there may be a mediating variable here. Bad parenting.

Bad parenting is probably associated with both obesity and poor academic (math) performance.

I would like to recommend the free NAAFA Child Advocacy ToolkitSM (CATK) and other written guidelines/resources to assist you looking at programs. The total health of our nation’s children is a serious responsibility.

The NAAFA Child Advocacy Toolkit shows how Health At Every Size® takes the focus off weight and directs it to healthful eating and enjoyable movement. It addresses the bullying, building positive self-image and eliminating stigmatization of large children. Additionally, the CATK lists resources available to parents and educators or caregivers for educational materials, curriculum and programming that is beneficial for all children. It can be found at:
http://issuu.com/naafa/docs/naafa_childadvocacy2011combined_v04?viewMode=magazine&mode=embed

It is my hope that you will take this opportunity to look at the information held in the CATK and keep what is included in mind when making decisions regarding the children in your charge.

Darryl C – What about the people who put that crap in their mouths every day? Are they being mislead? Do they think that McDonalds is good for them? No, of course they don’t, they know exactly what they are doing. We need to stop making excuses for fat people – they’re the reason health insurance is so high and the NHS is struggling to keep going – everyone should be taking responsibility for their own weight. It really isn’t difficult or expensive to eat fresh food.

There are a lot of people that say a healthy body houses a healthy mind. I also read a study on Futurity that showed a link between foot speed and brain processing speed which was very interesting.

Daryl and Kimbee,

It is also worth noting here that there is a food policy component left out of your dialogue, something more powerful than individual choice in many cases and also something that in a representative democracy we should be able to change (emphasis on should).

In short, basic economics tells us that people respond to prices (consumers and suppliers) in a competetive market. But in agriculture, subsidies (especially protective direct payments) have allowed farmers to sell off commodity crops like corn, sugar, and grains even during surpluses. And price supports prevent the market from crashing. Therefore, counter to economics, there’s a ton of corn syrup, sugar and wheat on the market, more than suppliers would normally produce otherwise. And marketing companies take this enormous surplus and turn a profit by adding value to it through snack products and large portions. Really the problem begins with food policy, not, individual choice or evil corporations trying to make people fat. It dates back to the seventies when food policy was changed to direct payment instead of non-recourse loans, because of another grain policy with Russia that jacked up the price of basic commodity foods in the US. Politics–don’t forget about politics.

Reid,

An interesting point, but surely this can only apply to processed/pre-made foods? I live in Europe where the food culture is much more based around local freshly grown wholefoods, the majority of people that I know try to eat in-season foods that haven’t travelled more than 50 miles or so. However, more and more people are losing sight of what is important and turning to these pre-made fatty foods. Obviously it would not be possible for everyone to eat in this way, we are very lucky to have such good farmland, but I’m sure that every shop that sells crisps and chocolate probably also sells apples, eggs, flour, butter?

I personally feel that laziness is one of the biggest causes of obesity, people can’t be bothered to cook from scratch when they get home from work, they assume that cooking is too difficult or time consuming and can’t be bothered to find out otherwise. I don’t mean to call everyone who is overweight lazy, they might be very motivated on a day-to-day basis, but when you put a processed meal in the microwave instead of some pasta in a pan, that’s lazy, I don’t care how tired you are cooking really isn’t anymore difficult and it’s cheaper, healthier and tastier.

I work 40 hours a week, as does my partner. We buy all our produce from local markets and we cook, from scratch, every evening. We do not use any ‘low-fat’ ingredients, the fresh food we eat is so good that we can drench it in rich buttery and creamy french-style sauces and still have our mums bemoan that we are too skinny. It tastes so good that all the processed products are bland and greasy in comparison.

Healthy eating IS the way to stop this obesity.