Healthy Eating Support Group

This article puts all the blame on the parents. I don't think the parents are completely to blame. To me the #1 problem is our modern food supply. Processed foods and food additives. Food manufactures are adding food additives that cause people to eat more and they know it. Science hardly understands everything that leads to overeating. Right now they just no what mice and rats tell them. They have not proven anything in people.

Our busy lifestyle has made it where people grab all the wrong foods that are easy. Nothing is fresh anymore unless you have lots of time.

Yes, sadly I do agree with you. Still, I also think it's our entire culture that contributes to it. I never like to lay blame on people but we are all likely to blame as a culture. I didn't take my health seriously for many years. I have come to understand how important it is and try to live my life in a healthy way. I'm not perfect but I'm trying. I know that I have been subject to ridicule or at least "rolled eyes" by coworkers & even my ex-best friend when I don't eat the daily donuts in the office or other unhealthy things. I do not make a show of it but people still seem to get defensive by my choice to eat healthy. My ex-best friend of 35 years didn't understand my dedication to living my life in a healthy way. I'm sure kids are not rewarded for being healthy in school. Their peers likely ridicule them if they try to be healthy. Of course, kids will be vicious to kids who are overweight but I bet kids who try to be healthy are bullied also. Anyway, it's a very sad and interesting topic. I'm sure others have thoughts also but unfortunately the solutions are likely complex and difficult. As usual, Cinnamint had a good perspective on the matter.

Actually, the first thing it says is that we as a society have created an environment where, according to the CDC, the current generation of children will NOT outlive their parents!

Then it urges parents to do something about it.
Parents are not to blame for the food choices on the shelves or all the ads in cartoons on Saturday morning, but they are certainly the ones who give in to children's cries for junk foods, and opt for the easy box of cold cereal laden with sugar and a stop at McD's on the way home instead of fixing a good meal.

Parents can certainly see when their children are getting fat and do something about it.

When I was 3 years old I was FAT! My mother noticed this! She put me on a diet! It wasn't hard for me, she just gave me better food choices than the ones my taste buds were making, she would give me grapefruit instead of that second helping potatoes and gravy.

By the time I was in 1st grade, my weight was normal and although I was never skinny, I was no longer fat.

My mom did that for me! And moms all over America can take a look at their fat children and do something loving about it. Teach them better ways to eat! Do you really think fat children like being the brunt of jokes?

Scientists know a lot more than hardly. I recently read a study where Rats were fed chocolate pudding. One group got pudding with sugar added, the other go pudding with srtificial sweetener added.

After their diets were stabilized, the scientists fed each group an afternoon snack of pudding. Both ate it. When dinner time came they fed them again. The rats getting sugar were full and didn't eat dinner. The rats on artificial sweetener ate their dinner.

The body is not fooled by artificial sweeteners, it still wants the real thing and will continue to eat trying to get it. ...even to the point of obesity.

When I was only 18, I learned that most of the food fit to buy in the grocery store was around the perimeter, in the produce and meat sections. I learned to avoid processed foods and quick meals. I fed my children good food, along with a few junk foods to keep them happy but not obese.

There is plenty of information out there, one simply has to start looking and asking.

I'm plenty busy! Besides running my own business I also maintain a 3000 sq ft home and a 4000 sq ft garden including raspberry beds and fruit trees. I fix good food and keep it in the refrigerator for quick meals. Fruit smoothies, salads, low fat/low sugar homemade cookies, homemade soymilk. Green drinks. We keep bins of washed salad greens, lots of side fixings. We eat lots of green salads. Right now we are enjoying the last of the garden harvest, and I make tomato soup or sauce almost every night. Last night it was spaghetti squash with sauce and steamed broccoli and a large green salad. We have a drawer full of organic apples. We have two refrigerators, and there are just two of us and 2 dogs. ;-) I keep gallon containers of washed fruits and veggies in the fridge for quick meals.

So I skip the frozen food section and the pizzas made with white flour and fat laden pepperoni and sausage, and enjoy produce, as God intended. It's the Garden of Good Eatin!

You made some excellent points in your reply also. Yes, I was lucky to have a parent who told me the truth when I first started having a weight problem. I didn't have it as a kid because my Mother taught me good habits. Unfortunately, when I moved out & started making my own choices, I let it get out of hand. Anyway, she was always my mother first and was not the "best friend" which apparently is in vogue now. I'm so thankful for my mother who taught me many good lessons (God rest her soul). I don't have children so I cannot judge other parents. I'm sure it very hard but it sounds like you are doing right by your kids. There are issues of genetics at play also so I'm not an expert on that either.

There is another part to this too. Genetics does play a huge role. At my TOPS meeting this week we got three new members. Two where obese kids and the Mother that had to be 500 lbs. It was good to see them there.

I know more about good nutrition than most people but I do have the fat gene. I have been eating better for years than all the skinny people I know. I was a skinny kid. My weight did not come on until I was a adult like the rest of my family. My sister is over 350 pounds but was also a twig as a kid. As kids we ate like everyone else but didn't gain a pound. When I got married at 23 I was 5"10 and 128 lbs.

How many people know that drinking milk, dairy or beef can cause a eating binge that last 3 days. Most moms think kids should drink there milk, yogurt, and eat there meat.

Skinny people have a different metabolism that fat people. They respond to foods differently. Even exercise. Exercise on a skinny person cuts appetite. Fat people do not have that benefit. There brain is sending messages to there body that they are starving. It called Leptin resistance. No wonder they don't have any will power. Nobody has will power over our hormones.

Unfortunately there is tons of ignorance when it comes to obesity that puts way to much blame on the obese person. A skinny person has no idea what it is like to feel staved all the time. Lepin works for them, and hunger is shut off after eating.

You make some good arguments Cinnamint. What I hear you telling me is that there is a fat gene. I googled it and found this.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/healt...

It is true that it is not completely the fault of parents. But the fact is that good nutrition begins at home. My offspring will mention things like "at so and so (house, function, whatever) the food choices were so unhealthy, I couldn't hardly find anything worthwhile to eat there."
Luckily, they went to charter schools and packed their own lunches 90% of the time. In middle school, the "school lunch" was a salad bar that the kids took turns working on. Only healthy choices. I was really outraged at the school lunch system portrayed in "Supersize Me" - I think if my kids had been part of the public school system I would have been packing their lunches for sure - but that does not mean they would not have "snuck" and bought the junk food offered as well. Which brings me back to my original point - good nutrition - which begins with knowledge and awareness - begins at home.

As much as I would like to think I will find the answer to my obesity problem with diet and exercise, I am starting to believe the answer will be in medication. I have never taken a diet pill but I do think diets don't work for 98 percent of all people. Those 2% might not have had a real weight problem to begin with.

I have read that they have found more than one fat gene. I sure there is much they don't understand how it works yet. In this article it says. "It is really important people understand there is a genetic predisposition to obesity and that might help people to be less prejudiced towards the obese."

It is thought the flaw affects the ability of another gene to regulate appetite and energy expenditure, journal Nature Genetics reports.

If you have the fat gene and you become fat then it becomes a trap you can't get out of. You have a lot more hunger hormones in ever fat cell. Thats when insulin and leptin resistance hits.

I have one skinny daughter 5'10 and 105lbs 28 years old. And one fat daughter 5'5 and her weight varies from 180 to 190 and 30 years old. They both live at home. The skinny daughter is the mother to my grandson. My skinny daughter gets no exercise. My oldest daughter works out at the gym everyday but seems to be stuck with the higher numbers on the scale. We have never had chips bad snacks in the house all there life. I even made my own baby food that I grew. But back when they where young I did bake bread. I thought I was doing the healthy thing to not buy store bought bread. We have no bread in the house now. I have always done what I knew best at the time. But things change. What is healthy today might not be so healthy tomorrow. I will say there school growing up had nothing but fast food as choices to eat for lunch.

I believe I worked hard when I had gained my weight this last time but I also had 6 years of chronic stress. Worst years in my life. I was a horse breeder. I trained and showed horses. I had 29 horses that I worked everyday, feeding and cleaning all myself. Farm work is hard work. I have RA now so I have cut back but I am still taking care of a lot of animals and a lot of land. I don't believe that I am lazy.

I saw that movie, Supersize Me, it was revealing. The Future of Food is also a must watch.

Thanks I will check into The Future of Food. I also would like to see Food, Inc.