I spent so much money!
3:12 p.m.
The other thing was the question being asked the public on the radio-noon phone-in: Do kids eat too much junk food and what is a solution to this problem? The statistics quoted are really quite alarming: 15% of school-age children are obese in this country, three times what it was 20 years ago. But, that parallels adult obesity too. There are just more fat people around than there used to be, and a corresponding rise in diabetes and heart disease and high blood pressure. These ailments have been reported in younger and younger children.
The first caller (and the only one I heard) was a high-school teacher. She was complaining that the Quebec government has taken the teaching of nutrition out of the curriculum since introducing the education reforms, but has now said that teachers should be teaching it extra-curricurally without being paid for it. That�s a pretty raw deal. The teachers are working to rule right now in an effort to get the government to recognize their legitimate workplace complaints. This seems to be another one of those camel straws.
I have my own thoughts on �junk food� and obesity, and eating in general in our society. Snack food is addictive. I think the manufacturers season it especially so that it is difficult to refuse. �Betcha can�t eat just one� is an apt marketing slogan. It is also high in calories, be they delivered as sugar or fat (and blood-pressure-raising sodium, lest we forget) and low in the nutrients that the body needs to remain healthy. Human beings don�t need much to sustain them. The calorie requirements suggested for normal-sized people (what is normal these days?) could probably be reduced by a quarter to a third, and those same people would be thinner, healthier, and live longer. The problem is that we, as human beings, have evolved with physiologies that crave certain substances because they helped us survive as a species when Mr. and Mrs. Cro-magnon were hunting and gathering their way through the Dordogne valley.
With the kind of lifestyle that most urbanites lead these days, the need for calories is further reduced, but their availability is increased. The solution to obesity in children and adults is simply to avoid the consumption of those extra calories. Exercise is always a good option, but shouldn�t be looked at as a weight-loss or even weight-maintenance solution. There are a lot of very fit fat people out there. You see them in the gym all the time and on the tennis court. Also, as anyone who exercises knows, it�s a great appetite inducer! So, what is a normal human being to do?
That is a personal solution. Everyone must work out for himself (or herself) how he (or she) is going to eat. But children only get hooked on junk food when it is available to them, and it is only available to very young children when their parents provide it in the home or elsewhere. If you want to avoid having a fat child and want that child to learn good eating habits, then you the parent must show true leadership in this matter and set a good example. If this means that you deprive yourself of those nutritionally-empty, calorie-laden snacks you yourself crave, so be it. Willpower starts in the home. It means passing by those racks of chips and pretzels and the candy bars placed strategically in the supermarket to tempt the hungry shopper. It means heading for the produce section first and stocking up on fresh fruits and vegetables. It�s not hard. After a while, you don�t even miss those foods. Sort of.
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