A Nation of petite Fatties
Some years ago my mum in law, who grew up in North Dakota on a farm during the depression, back when "Happy Meal" meant pie for dessert, made a surprising comment. She used the expression "little fatty" to characterize her grandchild. My wife Bette and I were a petite shocked, but also bemused at the retro-ness of the expression. Not anymore. After teaching school and parenting, I see nothing funny about childhood obesity --nor adult obesity for that matter. It's epidemic. I'm also deeply disturbed at how nutritionless food is marketed to children.
As a child, I remember going into hamburger joints. Back then they beyond doubt crowed about having sold so many "Millions" of hamburgers. They would say 2 million sold, and then update it occasionally. Seeing back, it seems sort of like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers talking about a extorting "million dollars" like it was a great number of money. Now they just say billions and billions sold.
The point I'm production is that back then eating out was occasional -- not daily. Additionally, the burgers were small, the french fries were small, and if you got cola, it was 8 ounces, and no refills. I kid you not. Who'd ever eat their now? Back then fast food was a luxury. Now it's the nation's feedlot. It's the cheapest meal around, it's huge, and you get free refills. It's also approximately three to four times the calories of the old meals. Newt Gingrich famously said," America has the fattest poor population in the world." By choice, or by necessity? Fast food is beyond doubt cheap.
I beyond doubt don't blame fast food places for this. They naturally are following America's new food pyramid consisting of: Fat, salt, and sugar - high fructose corn syrup to be exact. It's what we want. Our biology wants us to hoard fat; be tranquilized by sugar: and flavor it all with a lot of salt. By the way, it's killing us, and production us hate ourselves for being fat, even children. If you've ever witnessed a child with an eating disorder like I have twice, it's heart breaking. Could it be that happy meals and the like ultimately lead to self loathing obese children? Or eating disorders?
There are many factors at work. We have teachers in my family. Schools have ended up being places of unending "bottom time" for children. Sit on your butt all day every day. In school's desperate attempt at passing mandatory tests, and holding order in the hallways and playgrounds, they have virtually eliminated corporal activity from the daily routine. Fifteen minutes, maybe, for the playground, 20 minutes to eat lunch, 3 minutes in the middle of classes, no or occasional phy-ed. Are you Seeing a pattern? May the most lethargic win this race. May the wiggly and active boys be thought about "sick" and be subdued with ritalin and the like.
If grade school were a job, it would violate labor standards which mandates a 30 petite lunch and two 15 petite breaks daily. We have decided as a enterprise to try to fight childhood obesity and have made it part of our mission to bring activity back to schools in the hopes that more active children will be happier, healthier, and feel great about themselves.
We have donated units to two school systems and are proud to say in one innovative classroom kids are studying and exercising at the same time. Our devices are silent and handheld. We hope this will become a trend in the not so distant future.
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