We made em fat-now we pay to make em thin.

[CoolBreeze]

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- West Virginia University is getting $4.7 million to fight childhood obesity.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is providing the funding over five years for prevention strategies as part of a national campaign against obesity.

Vice President for Research and Development Curt Peterson says the work can help improve children's lives and help them live longer.

Fifteen percent of the state's ninth- through 12th-graders are overweight, with another 17 percent considered obese. Chronic diseases once associated with adult obesity are now showing up in children.


Obesity, especially childhood obesity has to be placed squarely on ONE person: The mother.

There were very few fat kids in my day, now most of them are. Half of them are fat due to welfare, the other half due to stupidity. But both groups have the one problem that actually caused it: working mothers and welfare mothers.

Women used to prepare nutritious meals, but today, if it doesn't arrive by pizza delivery or MacDonald's, or come out of a box, the woman doesn't have a clue. Half of them DO have a clue, but they don't care because they'd rather WORK and use that money so that THEY DON'T HAVE TO COOK.

In the meantime, money is being taken out of my pocket to find ways to stop this childhood obesity. I'll tell you how to stop it: keep the damned women home long enough to COOK meals that are healthy instead of carbs, sugar and starches.

[amayo]

Forgive me this impudent answer, but that is a load of crap. The biggest reason kids are obese is that they don't MOVE! I never sat in front of a computer or had a TV remote, or had video games that caused me to look like Jabba The Hutt because I sat around all the time. I went outside and played until the sun went down. I went swimming every day in the summer. I actually played sandlot games with my friends. When is the last time you saw kids playing sandlot ANYTHING? I can't recall the last time I saw that happen. I have a beloved 12 year-old niece who is overweight but blazingly intelligent. The child does not move. She's not required to--there's no recess in school, she has no kids to play with in the neighborhood, and no one socializes anymore because they don't have to leave the house. If you want to blame anything, blame technology. My sister does not allow junk food in her home, and regulates what the girl eats even at school since she's a teacher. To blame mothers for not cooking is Bull.

[CoolBreeze]

Not completely true. I know lots of very fat people who move a LOT. But the movement cant keep up with the typical kitchen cabinet stocked with POP TARTS...SUGAR SMACKS...CANDY...POTATO CHIPS... HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP IN EVERYTHING...CAKES....and the list goes on and on and on!

Add the typical pre processed crap at most restaurants... and you have the recipe for the disaster that we're seeing today.

Again... if today's kids were as active as we were... they'd STILL BE FAT due to the CRAP in the typical home, that mom buys just to get them to shut the hell up.

We didn't have ANY snacks in our home. If a snack was to be had... it was maybe a Coke or two a WEEK.... not two a DAY. We bought a candy bar "maybe" twice a week if we were lucky. But non of this crap was actually stored IN the house!

So MOM is still the culprit.

[amayo]

Once again I call BS. I and most of my friends in the neighborhood had all of those things! I'm not saying it was a perfect world, but we had all the same stuff in mostly the same form. Again there's a difference. To get it I mowed lawns and rode my bike to get a candy bar. Once again I was MOVING--Exercising! I'm not in great shape now by any stretch of the imagination, but I know I was more healthy when I was working out each day. With any kid's metabolism, ANY exercise will burn some of that off. Drive around any suburban neighborhood in the summer, and count the number of kids you see outside playing with each other. I defy you to find five in any ten block area. When I was growing up we had enough kids to play 9 on 9 baseball. Not just on my street but from blocks around. How? We got out and met each other. No kids do that anymore. If I had direct TV, a laptop, and PS3 I would never have left the house either! BTW-It ain't the dark ages anymore either. Dad deserves as much blame as Mom if you are going to continue down that crooked road.
If you post this simply to provoke a response-which I suspect--congratulations. If you just put this crap up to rant and expect no one to challenge this dreck--sorry. Sometimes I can't resist a challenge.

[CoolBreeze]

The latest reports dispute the claim of "burning calories" as the key to weight loss. They say you would have to workout 3 hours to burn off a couple of donuts, and nobody can do that. No matter HOW much the kids play, even if they played like we did back in the day... it wouldn't help that much. As long as mom is satisfied to eat out, or have delivered, and feed sweetened cereal each morning as part of a "balanced breakfast"... the kids are doomed.

[jag]

Well, all things considered, a "couple of donuts" can provide quite a caloric wallop, after all, so there's no surprise, there. I mean, fried dough, sugar, possibly frosted and/or "creme" filled and then blinged out with sprinkles...yeah, that's a whole bunch of calories!

It takes roughly one mile of walking or running to burn about 100 calories. And, it really doesn't take long to walk a mile. I'm semi-old and have bad knees, and I can do it. Biking is another great way to (as Al suggests) move. Eco-friendly, too! The goal is not world-class athleticism, but we would all--young and not-so-young--benefit from moving more than we do.

Yes, it's important to eat to live and not live to eat, but we should also increase our relative activity levels, as well. Plus, it can be lots of fun!!

(Cool, would you care to cite those "latest reports" you mention? I'm not questioning your veracity, but I'd like to take a look at them for myself. Thanks!)

[weaver]

I remember eating Cocoa Krispies for breakfast, eating baloney sandwiches on white bread and drinking sugar-laden Kool-Aid as a young'un - like all my friends - but we didn't get fat because between meals we ran around outside. Sorry, but exercise is essential to weight loss or weight maintenance. It's not just a low-carb diet.