Last Week's Exercise Report: 1x Perfect Cardio (warmup, abs), 1x Treadmill (60 mins, 4 running - ok. Running for me. And not all 4 minutes together.)
It was bad enough when they came out with a report recently that exercising might not do anything...for a select few because of genetics. (Gotta read that fine print. But that's not what they led with, and probably not what everyone heard. I had to go looking for the details.)
Then it was you can be obese at your natural weight.
Now it's
babies at 3 or 4 months old. Really.
Really?
How insane is this? I knew as a culture we were totally obsessed with body image and weight. But seriously. I was skinny my entire life. All the way to college. My issues with weight didn't start until second/third year of college. And even that wasn't too bad. It got worse when I returned from the Peace Corps and had access to all this
food I didn't for two years. The readjustment period sparked self-esteem and body image issues that I'd already had. But we ate well growing up. I was active, so to speak, until junior high. Until playing tag and riding bikes, etc, became a not-cool thing to do. Actually, until I learned to drive.
Most doctors would now classify me as obese. Not morbidly (like the images we see on tv when discussing this.) But obese. I'm 40 pounds heavier than
I think I should be. Sixty heavier than the docs prefer. (I've been that weight and looked like crap.) I think our views of what is healthy are seriously skewed. But it was my lifestyle and mentality and personality as an adult on my own that caused my weight issues. Not what my parents fed me at 3 months. Sheesh.
Yes, being overweight and obese is an issue. But looking at chubby 3 and 4 month old babies and thinking "obese" is insane.
Why don't we just try making our lifestyles as a whole for all ages healthier? Try making eating green, fresh, more affordable. Because seriously. I've tried eating healthy. Buying from the health food store or even shopping only the "perimeter" of the grocery store (ie, where the freshest foods are) is too expensive. It doubles my food budget. And I make a pretty decent living for where I work. Not poor, but I'm not middle class, either. And then there is the factor of time. I'm single with no kids. And it's still time-consuming to eat this way; to always be preparing meals. Doable, though, if the money was there.
What about nobody knowing how to cook anymore? How many people actually, honest-to-goodness, could do the kind of shopping and cooking needed to eat "healthy"? Not very many, I don't think. I grew up eating fairly decently. Although I've never like veggies. Well, not since I was a toddler. Up until then my mom says I ate anything. Learned to cook early on. But my recipes are limited.
But who has the money or time to take cooking classes? Not very many of us. I think these are some valuable life skills we just don't have anymore. Why not teach this in school? Make nutrition part of English, Math, Science curriculums, through all the grades. Link it all together. Make it
easy. Make it part of
every day life. Make it so natural it's like breathing.
How about dealing with those food packaging issues? You know, like realistic portion sizes and understandable labels. Although if we can tie in food and what it's made of into school, we'd know what those ingredients are. Or be able to figure it out. We'd realize that ingredients ending in "ose" just might be sugar. We'd get the fact that high fructose corn syrup might be okay in moderation, but
we can't get it in moderation because it's in everything!!!!! Even
bread. Has anyone ever taken a look at the ingredient list for, oh, say,
yogurt? Supposedly healthy. Yeah, right. What about all those juices that are "better" than soda. Absolutely ridiculous.
And there's hardly any Phys Ed in school any more. No time, no money. Not that I was a fan of Phys Ed growing up. I suck at all sports. No exaggeration. I so dreaded those classes. It's hard to come up with free activities to keep moving and healthy. Especially in winter. I try with my little sister. It costs money. Everything costs money. It's hard when you don't have any, which is where I see her family at. Granted, they can do alot better with what they have. But who ever taught them? No one. They are clueless about food, money, budgets. The parents too. The kids, not so much now due to my lecturing. The 22 year old is very overweight and bounces from fad diet to fad diet. The 19 year old has decided to become a vegetarian, and thinks all she has to do is just eat veggies.
It's a struggle for my 14 yr old Little because in spite of the fact that she has some phys ed at school, and we are back to rock-climbing 2x week, her mom still does fast food for most dinners (cheap & easy). Even when they cook at home, it's not low cal, low fat by any means. Because the lean, healthy foods cost twice as much.
Frankly, it isn't going away. We have a mobile, fast-paced, instant-gratification, think now not later mentality. And I don't see how that will really change. Not until enough of us have died. Really. We don't change easily.
But starting to look at babies that young and think in terms of obesity...I can see how we're going to have a generation of kids with self-esteem issues tied to body image and weight by the time they're in kindergarten. Not to mention the health issues from being underfed, undernourished. Too many parents don't know how to eat healthy for themselves, much less for their young kids. Give me a break. This is why we have this problem to begin with in my opinion!
