Why kids are fat & obese

[kebaldwin]

I forgot why ...

[Pebbbles]

Tell me about it. My 15 year old son is naturally slim and muscular, thank goodness, but the meals offered at his elementary school (before this year) were brought in from fast food restaurants. He goes to Catholic school, I don't know how public is. Monday would be Taco Bell, Tuesday McDonalds, Wed- Subway (much more healthy), Thursday - Pizza Hut, Friday was a choice of chicken nuggets or a rice bowl. So....only the rice bowl and subway were healthy. No fruit offered either.

At his new high school, also a Catholic School. the cafeteria pretty much sells what the kids want. Burritos, pizza, tacos, etc. They do offer salads, but most do not choose that. Also, Vending machines filled with coke and candy are all over the school!!!!!

All I can do is force him to take the hand full of vitamins in the morning and control his dinner and breakfast.

[kickflip]

I remember our school lunches were nothing but junk and full of calories and carbs. We had lunches in elementary school much like kebaldwin's son has. In middle school we had the regular cafeteria food and aslo they had a snack lunch line with burgers, fries, pizza hut on Mondays, Wensdays, and Fridays also
egg rolls, corn dogs, hotdogs etc, and other al la carte junk food. In high school(9 and 10 grade school) l we had the same as middle school and had local fast food places bring in lunch also
Modays-Pizza Hut or Popeyes
Tuesdays-Taco Bell
Wednesdays-Pizza Hut
Thursdays-Subway
Fridays-Pizza Hut.

Pizza Hut offered, Cheese, Sausage, or Pepperoni 3 times a week, breadsticks and wings twice a month
Popeyes offered, Chiken, Biscuits, Fries, Reds Beans and Rice, Mashed Poptatoes.
Taco Bell offered-Burritos, Beaf Burritos, Chili Cheese Burritos, Tacos, And regular Nachos.
Subway-Sandwiches

And in Senior High School, we had off campus lunch and they also had school lunch too for thoose who stay thier for lunch. I loved the off campus lunch, and for the first 6 weeks of 11th grade I ate out everday. I did, start to go home lot for lunch.

So basically school lunch is nothng but crap. Too many, calories, sugar, carbs, etc........ and not enough pe classes. No wonder so many kids are obesed and overwieght. And in middle school and up we had coke and snack machines too.

I can tell you so many ways you can get out your PE credits for high school in Texas.

[Dieselbud]

Re: Why kids are fat & obese

I've been posting a lot of news stories about all these million $ studies to figure out why kids are fat / obese. Let me give you my analysis for free. (okay everyone that reads this needs to mail me a low carb cookie).

I went to school today to have lunch with my kids and the menu was: hamburger with bun, potatoes, peas, milk, and cookie.

Let's see how many carbs that is:

hamburger - 40 grams of carbs
potatoes - 30 grams of carbs
peas - 12 grams
milk - I read it off the carton -- chocolate milk is 25 grams of sugar (same as most juice boxes)
cookie - 20 grams of carbs

So one meal is 127 grams of carbohydrates.

Assuming that an average elementary school kid is 50 pounds, and I weigh 250 pounds, that is like me eating 5 times that many carbohydrates or 635 grams of carbohydrates for one meal! :yikes

Multiply that times three meals, add in two snacks that is the equivalent of 2,300 grams of carbohydrates (NOT calories) per day.

(127 carbs per meal * 3 meals) + (45 carbs per snack * 2 snacks) = 470 grams of carbohydrates per day. If the average kid weighs 50 pounds then multiply that times 5 = over 2,300 carbs.

So a little elementary school kid that weighs 50 pounds eating 470 grams of carbs per day is like me eating 2,300 carbs per day.

Adults only needs about 50 grams of carbohydrates. So little kids probably need half that? I think it is safe to say that little kids are eating at least 10 times the amount of carbs they need per day -- probably more like 20 times.

A McDonald's double quarter pounder with cheese, large fries, and large sweet ice tea is only 136 grams of carbs. So I got fat eating the equivalent of 136 grams of carbohydrates per meal but the schools are feeding kids the equivalent (based on weight) of 4 TIMES THAT! :yikes

But the schools won't let me bring McDonald's into the school! They say it is unhealthy!!!

But not one multi-million $ study as even suggested this might be the problem. See why I am so :sarcasm ?

:::rint
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:clapping :bang :clapping :bang :clapping :bang :clapping :bang

[Desertthorn]

And then, lets not have our kids do any mandatory PE because that costs to much for us to fund. They can sit in a chair all day.

I live in Japan and yesterday morning I went out and saw the Japanese exercising before they started to work. It was all of them and they were doing it together. I can imagine trying to get my company to go for mandatory PE before we started work.

[kickflip]

Good points, here an interesting article I found

http://kidshealth.org/parent/nutrition_fit/nutrition/overweight_obesity_p4.html

This makes so much sense.

If your kids don't like traditional sports or don't make a team. Get them involed into actions sports like, skateboarding, bmxing, snowboarding, wakeboarding and aggressive inline skating. I both skateboard and do aggressive inline my self. Aggressive inline, is much more different form rec inline skating. First the skates are different. The wheels are smaller and flatter just like skae boards wheels are. It gives you a lower sense of gravity and is easier to balance. The skates are made with much better ankle support, more padding, plastic parts called grind plates or soul plates. The frames hold up better, allowing you to jump of stuff, and grind on rails, ledges etc...

I seen to many kids, break ankles and arms using rec skates or inline hockey skates at skateparks, b/c lack of support and design. Same goes for skateboards and bmx bikes. Don't buy them skateboards from walmart, target etc.....as they are more dangerous then buying from a skate shop or bike shop. So buy the right equipment. I work at a skate shop, so if you need help in buying kids skateboards, bikes or aggressive skates let me know.