How do I say this gently?

A few days ago, I attended a private event at the zoo. The entire zoo was rented out for the evening, closed to the public, by one of the largest employers in our state, which happens to be a medical company.

I hardly saw the animals. What I could not peel my eyes from was the obese children.

How did we come to this?

There were thousands of people at this event. Waiting in line for the carousel is when I realized that every other child there was morbidly obese. Huge, fat children.

Heartbreaking.

This is the parents’ fault.

If you have a ten-year-old who has to WADDLE because they are so obese, you are responsible. If you have a fat child, ask yourself these questions:

- Do you feed them sugar cereal for breakfast, or do you make them whole wheat, natural yeast pancakes with baked, low-sugar jam instead of syrup?

- Does your obese child watch television during daylight hours? Or play outside?

- Does your obese child eat out of your backyard garden more often than he or she eats at a quick-food restaurant?

Morbid obesity is a death sentence. You can change. You must change. If your child wants to grow up and get themselves fat, that is one thing. But if you never gave them health to begin with, then shame on you.

Decide today to change. If you love our country, then do whatever necessary to give us back our next generation.

6 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree with you more, Caleb. We owe it to our children to teach them how to live healthy lives. When they grow up, they might make different choices, but that will be up to them and their accountability.

    Making the change to healthy eating has literally been life-saving at my house. We still have a long ways to go, but I can't believe how far we've come.

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  2. Amen. As a former fat kid, I couldn't agree more. It's more about taking responsibility than finances. Scrambled eggs are great for breakfast. But just as important as what you eat is how you move.

    Finishedbeingfat.blogspot.com

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  3. When have you ever said anything gently? It's part of your charm :-) You're absolutely right, of course. My mom made it a point to teach us good eating and exercise habits from a young age, and I'm so grateful for that today. I know it has had a profound impact not only on my physical health, but my mental and emotional well-being as well.

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  4. I make whole wheat waffles but not with natural yeast. Guess I better buy your book and find out how to do that!

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  5. The reason for what you saw is the sugar in the modern diet, and NOT because the children were lazy or greedy, etc.

    Most of their parents feed them processed food & don't cook. Most processed food is loaded with hidden sugar because the manufacturers know that increases their sales. This includes everything from tomato sauce to meatloaf to mashed potatoes.

    "Morbid" obesity is actually NOT a death sentence. This idea is marketed to increase sales of diet programs, foods & weight loss surgeries--which mostly DON'T WORK. Most fat people do NOT have diseases like diabetes, and although they do have an increased risk of developing diabetes, they are less likely to get complications.

    It is unfortunate that the hype makes thin people believe they are healthy & can get away with eating sugar & junk. While sugar does tend to cause the weight gain you saw, the real danger comes from insulin resistance, which causes Type II diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks, and maybe even cancer in some cases.

    If you happen to be thin, you can STILL GET all of the above diseases, including the diabetes IF YOU EAT TOO MUCH SUGAR.

    How much sugar is too much? It depends on the individual. One model is that it is OK if you have less than 6 teaspoons of added sugar per day. (Robert Lustig, MD) Strangely enough, this includes fruit juice, which has just as much sugar as soda since the sugar in the fruit is removed from the fiber during juicing.

    For more information, I suggest books/youtube lectures by Dr. Lustig, Richard Johnson, MD & also David Gallespie

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