Are American Kids Becoming Obese?

GoldenRivet · 06-17-09, 04:35 PM

to gain a grasp of the dietary trends in America one should watch the film "super size me"

one of the most disturbing parts of the film was the tour of the middle school cafeteria.

not only has PhysEd almost been completely eliminated from public school curriculum, but now they are saying crap like "ketchup counts as a required vegetable serving"

the most common lunch meal for kids "cheeseburger and french fries"

I remember when i was an elementary school kid in the early - mid 1980s

i looked forward to lunch - because it was healthy, we had a great mix of foods - green beans, mashed potatoes, vegetable soup, corn bread, beans, rice, okra, grilled chicken breast etc - - and it was like eating at home.

in an attempt to quench the public school systems thirst for funding i recall in high school our ISD signed a contract with coca cola worth a couple of million dollars to the school in "badly needed funds" - the contract stated that only coca-cola products would be made available at the school.

so your choices were water, milk... or nearly anything coca-cola made.

we had an entire hall which seemed to be dedicated only to vending machines, 10 or 15 of them... some kids would drink 6 or 7 sodas per day!

bringing quarters for the vending machine was almost a way of life

think of the sugar intake!

not only that but i remember when i was a little kid, Atari was getting to be old news... and Nintendo was "OK" but these video games were just good enough to inspire you to go outside after that got old.

we would play 20 - 30 minutes of baseball on nintendo and then resort to rounding up every kid on the neighborhood to play baseball in the vacant lot down the street.

sometimes - in my childhood we would dissapear for nearly an entire day, running around, playing army, riding bikes, playing football or baseball in some field somewhere and it would be near dark before mothers voices would echo through the neighborhood calling the various names of kids in the group. (no cell phones)

think of the calories burned!

by the end of the day i was worn out as a kid.

now the main source of entertainment is sitting on their asses playing online games for hours on end. - sometimes my 13 year old brother in law spends entire weekends of sitting around eating junk food playing CODWAW or something on XBOX Live - no showers no nothing... just friday from 4:00pm to Sunday around 10:00 pm - barely emerging from his room long enough to take a proper piss.

look at this week for example, he is on summer break, and has been visiting us.

today he came out of his room long enough to eat 6 or 7 slices of pizza... other than that he has been in there for the whole day playing around on the comptuer!

so im summation

1. shcool districts cutting PE

2. School districts cutting lunch budget resorting to high calorie high sugar diets

3. the enormous amounts of sugar and sodium in the drinks and snacks kids eat.

4. the lack of outdoor play in favor of indoor recreation like XBOX or PlayStation or PC games etc.

we have dawned onto the "garbage in = garbage out" generation

06-17-09, 04:35 PM	#25
GoldenRivet Subsim Aviator Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 8,726 Downloads: 146 Uploads: 0	to gain a grasp of the dietary trends in America one should watch the film "super size me" one of the most disturbing parts of the film was the tour of the middle school cafeteria. not only has PhysEd almost been completely eliminated from public school curriculum, but now they are saying crap like "ketchup counts as a required vegetable serving" the most common lunch meal for kids "cheeseburger and french fries" I remember when i was an elementary school kid in the early - mid 1980s i looked forward to lunch - because it was healthy, we had a great mix of foods - green beans, mashed potatoes, vegetable soup, corn bread, beans, rice, okra, grilled chicken breast etc - - and it was like eating at home. in an attempt to quench the public school systems thirst for funding i recall in high school our ISD signed a contract with coca cola worth a couple of million dollars to the school in "badly needed funds" - the contract stated that only coca-cola products would be made available at the school. so your choices were water, milk... or nearly anything coca-cola made. we had an entire hall which seemed to be dedicated only to vending machines, 10 or 15 of them... some kids would drink 6 or 7 sodas per day! bringing quarters for the vending machine was almost a way of life think of the sugar intake! not only that but i remember when i was a little kid, Atari was getting to be old news... and Nintendo was "OK" but these video games were just good enough to inspire you to go outside after that got old. we would play 20 - 30 minutes of baseball on nintendo and then resort to rounding up every kid on the neighborhood to play baseball in the vacant lot down the street. sometimes - in my childhood we would dissapear for nearly an entire day, running around, playing army, riding bikes, playing football or baseball in some field somewhere and it would be near dark before mothers voices would echo through the neighborhood calling the various names of kids in the group. (no cell phones) think of the calories burned! by the end of the day i was worn out as a kid. now the main source of entertainment is sitting on their asses playing online games for hours on end. - sometimes my 13 year old brother in law spends entire weekends of sitting around eating junk food playing CODWAW or something on XBOX Live - no showers no nothing... just friday from 4:00pm to Sunday around 10:00 pm - barely emerging from his room long enough to take a proper piss. look at this week for example, he is on summer break, and has been visiting us. today he came out of his room long enough to eat 6 or 7 slices of pizza... other than that he has been in there for the whole day playing around on the comptuer! so im summation 1. shcool districts cutting PE 2. School districts cutting lunch budget resorting to high calorie high sugar diets 3. the enormous amounts of sugar and sodium in the drinks and snacks kids eat. 4. the lack of outdoor play in favor of indoor recreation like XBOX or PlayStation or PC games etc. we have dawned onto the "garbage in = garbage out" generation __________________ Last edited by GoldenRivet; 06-17-09 at 04:47 PM.