Following up on my previous blog, I wanted to stick with the food theme this week.
I came across this video a few weeks ago, thanks to my smart Facebook friends, and it was a good one. So good, I wanted to share it on my blog.
The video deals with sugar; how it's harming our health, why we should pay more attention to it, and explains why it's hidden in foods we never expect to see it in.
Well-worth watching!
"In only a few decades, there are now more obese people on the planet
than there are undernourished. When it comes to getting fat, we've come
to believe it's as simple as 'calories in' versus 'calories out' - if
you want to shed pounds, you need to burn more calories than you
consume. But not all calories are the same. Some people absorb
calories more efficiently and it matters what types of foods your
calories are coming from. Sugar is now being proposed by experts as
the new dietary villain that's making us fat and sick. Dr. Maryanne
Demasi investigates the bitter truth about the dangers of a sweet diet."
Not to be overly dramatic, but our youngest generation is in a little trouble.
Why else has seemingly every organization formed, or sponsored, their own 'let's get kids moving' program?
Thankfully, it's never too late to start chipping away at the problem, and inspire a change in culture.
From the NFL's Play 60, President Clinton's Alliance for a Healthier Generation, the NBA's Get Fit, to First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move program (and so on), powerful organizations and companies around the country (and world) have seen the writing on the wall.
Our children need an extra nudge to get moving.
And today (Thursday, Feb. 28th), Nike threw their hat into the ring by joining forces with the First Lady, and others, to back and promote Let's Move! Active Schools.
Five Extra Years
Generation of Sitters to Generation of Movers?
Schools are cutting PE classes. After school sports and activities are becoming less-attended, and less-occurring. Only 4% of elementary schools,
8% of middle schools and 2% of high schools currently offer daily PE,
and only nine states require recess in elementary schools.
Their play time isn't organized (at school). And their play time isn't spontaneous either ('pick-up').
Their 'play' time has become sitting. Studies show that kids are spending an average of seven-plus hours a day in front of one screen or another. And even though it's been shown that children need 60 minutes of physical
activity per day to stay healthy, only one in three kids are active on a
daily basis.
Kids' days are spent playing more and more video games, on the computer, and watching TV. Getting them moving has become a chore.
What has resulted is a generation expected to have a shorter lifespan than their parents, record high obesity rates among children, and a generally unhealthy lifestyle.
Food and nutrition is one thing (as you know, I strongly believe that our food supply/system has been just as harmful as inactivity). But depending on economic, and other factors, each child's access to high quality foods can vary a great deal.
Encouraging Activity = Encouraging Success
There's one thing, however, that does not discriminate: playing. Moving. Being active.
In addition to the health benefits of an active lifestyle, research
indicates that regular physical activity can improve test scores,
classroom behavior and attendance.
Given those potential widespread effects, Nike is making an investment in the future. In our future. Over the next five years, Nike will invest $50 million to help create active schools and physically active communities around the US.
The First Lady and Nike are joining forces with a few of those previously mentioned organizations, and others (a total of 70 'experts'), to spearhead an agenda to get this generation their five years back.
Michelle Obama & Nike kicking off Let's Move! Active Schools.
The program is aimed at providing simple steps and tools to help schools create an environment to get students moving again. Resources will be provided to parents, teachers and administrators that will enable communities to organize activities that will get kids moving before, during and after the school day.
This isn't about working out, or forcing kids to spend time in the gym. It's showing them, or reminding them, that moving, and playing, is fun.
AND healthy.
Not every child is destined to be a competitive athlete. But they can be active, and they can be healthy. And active, healthy children grow up to be active, healthy adults.
The Designed to Move/Let's Move! Active Schools agenda is focused on maximizing human potential. And shouldn't that start with kids?
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I've made my feelings on the US Food System fairly clear during my 15 months writing Sabrina's Crossing.
Unfortunately, the problems go beyond what we are putting on our plates for any one meal. And they go much deeper than any one individual.
Our system is broken at the core.
I recently watched the HBO documentary The Weight of the Nation,
a four-part series that explored the obesity 'epidemic' in the US, and
came away shaking my head.
Part 3, "Children in Crisis" (the full video is below), examined the steadily
rising obesity rates among America's children.
The marketing of foods
to children, the national school lunch program, and sugary drinks (soda and juices) were the prime focus.
While I don't have kids myself, I can't help but see that there's a problem. We should not be seeing a country of unhealthy children; struggling with their weight as youngsters, and living an overall unhealthy childhood. As the documentary notes this "will probably be the first
generation with a shorter life expectancy than their
parents."
Kids should not have to be on diets. They're kids! But with obesity rates tripling in just one generation, and rising chances of developing obesity-related cardio-medabolic disorders and side-effects (Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, asthma, etc), it's clear this is not just an isolated problem.
The Happy Meal. Sold by everyone's favorite ogre: Shrek.
Yes, problems lie on the home front as well.
But the blame cannot come down solely on parents. If it was just an
individual problem, we would not be seeing rising rates across the
board, throughout the country.
As cliche as it may sound: kids are our future. We should be doing all we can do to protect them, and set them up for successes, instead of allowing them to be exploited.
The problem lies in our system.
How Washington Has Gone Soft
Instead of making strides in policy in recent years, either by overhauling school lunch programs, regulating what foods are marketed to children, or even a 'soda-tax', the food and beverage
industry has won fight after fight at every level of government during the last decade.
There have been attempts to go healthy, but we've failed thus far.
In late-2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was signed into law by President Obama. The act instructed the USDA to develop higher nutrition standards based on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine. It was to invest more money than ever before into the school lunch program, and other food programs for children.
Pizza and fries. A common lunch at school.
The act would immediately increase the quantity of fruits and vegetables served, limit french fries to only be served two times per week, require grains served be whole grain, and reduce saturated fat and sodium in lunches.
But less than a year later, the bottom fell out. Remember the 'pizza as a vegetable' debacle last November?
Congress took huge steps backwards with a spending bill that essentially nullified the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. By keeping french fries on the daily menu, allowing pizza to be classified as a vegetable, and delaying the requirement of whole grains, Congress failed our children.
In 2011, there was an effort to develop one consistent set of nutrition standards regarding food marketing to children. Standards set by experts, not dictated by manufacturers and advertisers. Congress created the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children (IWG), which was made up of experts from the CDC, FDA, USDA, and FTC.
A healthier, more well-rounded lunch. What it should look like!
The IWG was tasked with improving the nutritional profile of children's diets. In July 2011, they proposed principles that would lower the levels of sugar, salt, and fat in the majority of foods marketed to children.
Once the food industry got wind of the healthier proposals, there was huge push back. A joint hearing was called in October 2011 where there were complaints of policies going too far, and 'declaring war on many healthy products'.
The food industry won out again. After the hearing, Congress declared that the IWG completely withdraw their recommendations, and 'conduct a study, and report the findings to Congress'. As of March 2012, no further progress has been made on the IWG study.
In 2010, First
Lady Michelle Obama's childhood-obesity campaign
went from criticizing food makers to only promoting exercise after
lobbyists weighed in with their opinions, and more-importantly, their
dollars.
Health experts have compared the tactics of the food industry to those used by Big Tobacco to fight stricter regulations. The most popular argument is to allow the food industry to regulate itself. The companies themselves decide what is, and what is not, healthy food.
I've talked about food labeling tactics before. Such as making health claims on sugary cereals. That comes from self-regulation.
The food industry's interests do NOT lie in protecting children, or our overall health.
$1.5 billion per year is spent by the food industry marketing food products to children. Young children don't understand what marketing is and how it works. They see a fun cartoon, or their favorite character, and want the related product. Essentially the food industry buys our children.
For example, the worst cereals nutritionally are the ones that are marketed most-aggressively to children.
This is not a new discussion. For 30 years, there has been an active debate in Washington over whether or not we should limit advertising to children.
In many European countries (you knew I was going there), where obesity and diet-related
disease rates are much lower, there are warning labels (France), food and beverage advertising to children bans (Sweden and Norway), and bans on TV ads, including celebrity endorsement, for candy and fast food (Ireland).
Who's responsible for getting us back on track?
What child doesn't want Cookie Crisp for breakfast?
Yes,
there is personal choice and personal responsibility. But there is also
such a thing as social responsibility.
We encountered the same strong push back and
roadblocks in regard to smoking, public health and the tobacco
industry. But look how regulation and tobacco/smoking is looked upon
now.
I see our food industry in the same light. And it's just as serious of a problem, if not more-so.
Here are two small examples of the quality of foods marketed to children: 1) In the breaded chicken and mozzarella Lunchable by Oscar Meyer, there are 80 ingredients listed. Shouldn't it be three: chicken, cheese, and bread? The other 77 ingredients accounts for processed junk.
And who eats Lunchables -- kids!
2) In strawberry fruit roll ups, the ingredient list doesn't even include actual strawberries. It's all chemicals, and it's all marketed to kids.
What do we do?
We need to hold industry leaders and our politicians accountable and demand that the lack of regulation
for the food industry be addressed. That we don't allow the big dollars influence school lunches. The health of the younger generation is too important.
In the past 15 years, the percentage of new cases of Type 2
diabetes (what used to be called adult-onset) among children has from three to 50 percent. Since 1980, obesity
prevalence among children and adolescents has tripled.
What's more, a 2006 USDA report states that the percentage of children who are
overweight has doubled and the percentage of adolescents who are
overweight has more than triple. This has nothing to do with looks, and everything to do with health.
Diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart
disease, what previously were 'adult-only' ailments, are now becoming more and more common in children and adolescents. These conditions arise primarily from poor diets and consumption of poor quality foods.
We need to fix our system. It's more than personal choice and responsibility. Our leaders must get tough on the corporations, and we must tell the food industry enough is enough.
In the meantime, exercise our right to make healthy choices. Educate ourselves about the food we put on the dinner table (and in the lunch box). We each can do more!
If you have the time, which I hope you do, watch "Children in Crisis", the third installment from HBO's The Weight of the Nation. And let me know your thoughts!
