Re: Children's Obesity Epidemic

NCM, your description of growing up practically mirrors what my experience was..... reading about your's sent me off on a "ahh, yes, brings back good memories" track of mind, during which two influences jumped out of my mind as significant differences in our culture between way back then and today; kids outdoor activity; indoor activity that has usurped, replaced and subsituted outdoor activity.....what many parents unwittingly promote and even genuinely think of as the "babysitter in a box", or what effectively equates to severe non-activity....AKA hours of Alpha... IE> TV.

Unfortunately, tv was an influence even way back in the 60s, it just had not yet become the ubiquitously dominate influence that it is today. Just like you described, activity for myself and most other kids in town started at O-light-thirty on a summer morning and zoomed all the way through to sundown, which of course was when it then became time for more outdoor activity under the lights. Another difference? Back then this was something that I and many other kids wanted to do.... looked forward to with zeal.... did not have to be tricked / bribed or coerced into doing.

February 05 I pulled the plug, so in my house there has been zero sparkle box activity since then.... but I still visit friends and family where the boob tube still thrives.... an interesting observation is that after having largely gotten away from direct influence of this beast for nearly two years, each time I visit a family or friend where I am guaranteed to be re-exposed for pretty much the duration of the visit, there is a recurring theme/observation that jumps out at me; the repetitive nature of content, especially advertising, as it relates to food (fast or even the so-called 'good-food served fast'). If I were a foreigner visiting an american household for the first time where the idiot box is always on and I got to see a glimpse of american life just based on their tv adverts, my first inclination would be to think that americans are obsessed with food and where their next meal may come from, sex, beer, automobiles, vanity and consumerism, especially purchase/consumption of hollow/empty/near-worthless junk and trinkets.

Take a child that from a young age is exposed and influenced constantly by this highly refined platform of electronics; think these excessive influences, whether the kid is actually paying concsious attention or is getting the influences subliminally, has a chance of creating a "must eat, gotta eat, need more food" zombified robot out of the average kid? Tweet