childhood obesity - real or hype?

An article on a science site, questions whether the "childhood obesity epidemic" isn't just a bunch of hype:

http://www.sirc.org/obesity/obesity_and_the_facts.shtml

I'm not surprised. I haven't seen any greater numbers of obese children in the schools but on the contrary, I've seen many more children whom I would call, painfully slim, in the schools.

Another article from a country outside of the USA, tells us of the alarmingly rapid rise in eating disorders seen in kids including vomiting, anorexia, overexercising and more.

The models given to these kids are NOT of normal sized people - they are of underweight and airbrushed models. And then we wonder WHY kids are uptight about food, weight and all that other stuff.

Perhaps the parents being uptight is a contributing factor. At any given time in the USA, 80 percent of women are dieting but the figure may actually be as high as 95 percent.

Somehow to see a child who is super slim already, worry about the simple pleasure of eating a candy bar seems utterly sad. Children now, are more prone to chew on plastic foods with little to no calories or nutrasweet laced chewing gum in a pathetic attempt to "fool" mother nature into thinking they are eating something.

More teens are starting to smoke now than in the 1960's before all the dangers of cigarettes were known. They mostly do it to help control their weight. And most teens, regardless of size, think they are fat. If you don't believe me, read their surveys on myspace.com sometime. Pretty shocking.

I will agree that things like fast food (like MickeyD's) are unhealthy to the point of almost being non foods but whether they even make kids fat if they do not have the genetics, is questionable. The answer to the unhealthy qualities of fast foods is NOT to make kids afraid of eating ANYTHING but to encourage kids to eat their fill of more healthy stuff.

Somehow, a 9 year old who already knows the calories in everything she eats, is not "the look".

They tell us that this generation of kids will be the first to NOT outlive their parents. If that is really so, it won't be because of obesity but because our mental mind rape of these kids (and their parents) through the media will have made them afraid of ALL food including the healthy foods which would make them grow well.