Kid Fitness: Three in Ten Children Are Obeseby Heather Long | More from this Blogger 30 Nov 2006 03:24 PM That's a terrifying number. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the number of children with obesity in the 6 to 11 year old range has quadrupled in the last 25 years. The American Obesity Association says that three in ten American children are overweight with the highest numbers happening among Hispanic, African-American and Native American children. Obesity comes with it's own particular health problems including heart disease and diabetes that can continue to affect them throughout their lives and there is a very real belief that obesity could soon top smoking as the most preventable cause of death in the nation. Parents Can Be Part of the Problem It's easy to say that parents are part of the problem, because we are. Too often we're not as active physically as we need to be, too often we're in a rush to drive our kids around from one activity to the next and we're relying on fast food to fill in the blanks when we're in a rush or on the go and a bag of French fries are a tasty, if fattening, option. The worst thing for parents who work is that it makes it harder to cook at home and prepare meals that make the best choices in nutrition. We can teach our kids what healthy choices are - but that means when we eat fast food, we need to choose the more nutritional options. For example, the salads offered at McDonald's are pretty good and they are a better choice than a Big Mac - and instead of a fried chicken sandwich - a grilled chicken sandwich is going to be the healthier choice. It's not about never eating a French fry or having a chocolate shake again - it's about living fit and making fit choices. You can have dessert, but have fruit for dessert sometimes and don't just lean on ice cream, sundaes and cookies. So yes, parents can be a part of the problem, but we're also part of the solution and with numbers like we're seeing from the CDC and the American Obesity Association - we need to be the solution far more than we need to be a part of the problem. How do you promote fitness for your kids? Related Articles: Kid Fitness: Myths about Overweight Children Kid Fitness - Beware the Backlash Parenting Style Affects Health Learn more about Heather Long  Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago. Relevantfitness tags children | ideas | parenting | holidays | relationships | Food | weight loss | pregnancy | family | Kids User Comments Nola Redd (7081) 01 Dec 2006 12:49 PMI worry about my kids, since the deck is half stacked against them. My parents are both out of shape, but my inlaws are both obese. Because I have 'good genes', I don't make the best nutritional decisions; I'm one of those people who weighed only 5 lbs more after I had three kids than I did in college, and I still can't give blood. I'm trying to re-educate and improve my choices for my kids' sake, but changing after 25 years is difficult, albeit easier than changing after 40 years. Community Tags activity levels, childhood obesity, cdc, kid fitness Discuss this article
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