Putting an End to Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity is a problem that has been ongoing for at least the past half a century. It began as an aftermath of the introduction of fast food restaurants and processed foods. Of course, fast food chains didn’t become a real problem until perhaps the 70s when more two-income families began to evolve. Though two-income families had begun the transition in the late 50s to early 60s, most mothers still continued to work only during the time their children were in school thus still allowing them time to prepare a hot and nutritious meal for their family. When mothers began to return to the workforce full-time during the late 60s and early 70s, fast food and processed foods began to replace good home-cooked meals.

The fast food and processed foods on their own would not be a problem if those same parents were to serve healthy snacks to their children. The problem is that in addition to quick meals, parents have gotten away from the habit of buying fresh fruits and vegetables. Sadly it takes no more time to cut up an orange for a child then it does to scoop up some ice cream or cut a slice of cake. Even canned fruit packed in natural juices would be preferable to high-sugar sweets. Parents are often complaining about budgetary constraint as the reason they don’t buy fresh fruit, but since when do we put the health of our children behind budgets? You find a way to overcome the problem in order to provide nutritious food for your children. One way to do that is learn to visit produce stands and farmer’s markets instead of paying higher prices in the grocery stores.

If we put the effort forth, there are many ways we can overcome the problem of serving foods that are higher in fat and cholesterol instead of cooking home-cooked meals for the children. One way is to learn to do a great deal of your food preparation and cooking on the days you are off and freeze them. Instead of using the microwave for those processed foods, you will be heating meals you loving prepared for your family. Slow cookers and crock pots are other ways to prepare healthy meals without spending a great deal of time when you arrive home from work. There is always a way to overcome the difficult task of making home-cooked meals if you take the time to learn how to prepare meals ahead of time.

Snacks are a bigger issue to overcome once a child becomes used to high calorie sweet snacks. Work with your child’s school to obtain vending products that are healthy and nutritious—encourage the schools to remove soda machines from student access. Healthy Student Vending and School Healthy Vending are two vending companies that work to provide healthy snacks in their vending machines. If you add this to what YoNaturals is already doing to overcome childhood obesity, and we may see some improvements over the next couple of decades.

Author: Brenda Coxe

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