Should Very Obese Kids Be Taken Away from Parents

I'm curious what your definition of "right to socialism" is.

There are certain socialist ideas that are concretely espoused by none other than the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.

 

Seared tuna...yum

It's quick and easy to make, inexpensive and easily taken to work, school, etc. I don't pretend that it is a gourmet dish, but as someone who was eating out way too much because of work, it has been a life saver. Depending on your tastes you can change it up all you want. Throw a little mustard in there (they even have salt free mustard folks!) or sub out spinach for arugula.

Like I said, not the greatest dish in the world, but it amazes me when I hear people say it is impossible to have a fast and inexpensive lunch unless you go to a fast food place.

Kids will adapt their diet to what their parents make them eat. My mother didn't eat vegetables. I didn't grow up eating vegetables. Dinner at my house was my mother telling me to make myself macaroni and cheese or hamburger helper. Guess what? She was overweight and I ended up overweight.

You can save a kid's long term health and their short term self-esteem by giving them good food. And good food doesn't have to be organic, farm raised, grass fed, etc. If you can afford all of that, great! But there are steps between McDonalds and Whole Foods.

Parents too often don't want to be parents and when it comes to food they resort to the easiest things to make. Cereal, mac & cheese, hamburger helper, fast food, etc. They can whine about how expensive food is all they want, but it's a lot less expensive to buy a plastic container of arugula then it is to buy a xxl shirt at Casual Male.

 

I find it amusing that some of you guys are arguing that the problem is with how unhealthy, overly-processed food is too cheaply and readily available, while others seem to think that the issue is with families being too lazy/uneducated to prepare their own meals with fresh ingredients while on a budget. It's almost as if you don't realize that you're both right.

Consider that roughly 30 million Americans rely on food stamps every year as a primary source of nutrition. A typical foodstamp allotment is $21 a person per week. Break that down to $1 a meal per day, or $4 per meal for a family of four. Consider that most "ready-to-eat" meals from the supermarket are packed with sodium, sugar and fat, and I don't think I have to get into the nutritional value/lack thereof of fast food. There is a reason why poor people tend to be more obese, and it's not just because they're too fat/lazy/stupid/whatever to prepare their own food.

But it's also true that plenty of middle/upper class people are getting fatter too, simply because a lot of people are woefully uneducated when it comes to cooking and feeding themselves. That's obviously a huge problem. It doesn't help that you have products on supermarket shelves like "fat free half-and-half", which is just skim milk thickened with corn syrup.

Then there's the whole sedentary life style thing, which crosses all income/social divides.

Those are the major issues. Unhealthy, processed food has been made way too cheaply and readily available, without people knowing just how bad for them it really is. A lot of people simply have no idea how to cook for themselves from scratch, and often lack the time or motivation to do so. And most people don't exercise enough, viewing it was a hobby rather than a way of life. For us to REALISTICALLY become healthier as a society, all three of those issues need to be addressed.

I don't think it's gonna happen though. Even with the whole chef/foodie movement, and with cooking shows becoming more and more popular, we're still getting fatter. I don't think that's going to change. But guys, do your part and teach your kids how to cook, the importance of family meals, and, you know, physical activity.

EDIT: There's also the issue that most "kid food" is horribly unhealthy, and a lot of kids are developing a palate for overly sweet/salty/fried food from an early age. The fast food industry is kind of like the tobacco industry in that respect, when you think about it.

 

What did the kids eat in the 40s 50s?

 

There was less processed food, no?

 

Of course, but you don't have feed you kid that right? What I mean is they should just feed their kids what their grand parents ate when they were kids.

 

Kids in the 40's and 50's probably didn't stay indoors all day to play video games.

 

DHA, I agree with you. It just bothers me that too many politically minded people want to limit the obesity issue to the poor. Look around folks! Obesity isn't only the poor man's burden.

 

Dirt.

 

Most kids in the 40s and 50s could afford to have one parent (good ol' mom) stay at home and prepare meals. Not so anymore.

Yeah, it's multiple issues - it's economic (and advertising) issues as well as our current culture, as well as parents who either don't know, don't care, or simply don't have the time.

It's also biological - fatty, sweet, and/or calorie-rich foods were hard to come by when our human biology developed in the neolithic, and eating those foods both helped you survive periods of scarcity and it usually meant that you were doing well (so, psychologically-biological as well). That's one of the reasons we crave unhealthy food. Also, manufacturers understood these drives (without necessarily attributing them to biology) and have since focused their manufacturing systems on making products they could make the most profit on - foods they could produce the most cheaply, sell at a price that would make them affordable, and would have a built-in demand. These same manufacturers often specifically target children and lower-income groups in their advertisements.

Advertisements for fitness and fitness products also play a role - many people associate fitness with a particular body type and particular activities. People who aren't genetically capable of having taut glutes and hypertrophied abdominal muscles often get deterred because they see fitness in these absolute terms and they know they can't meet that standard. This is because of both the faults of advertisers and the faults of individuals who are too stupid and/or lazy and/or ignorant to conceive of things in anything but the simplest, black-and-white, most absolute terms.

It's much less expensive, in terms of time (if you work a low-wage job, you're exhausted at the end of the day and you're still pretty much broke) as well as cost-per-calorie, to eat unhealthy food. Also, parents who are themselves obese likely don't have the wherewithal to change their own habits - and if they can't or won't change their own habits, they can't change the habits of their children. If your parents were fat, and your grandparents, then being fat is no big deal.

And, as another poster mentioned (and as I referred to as biology), fatty, sweet, and calorie-rich foods provide comfort to people who may, often, find little comfort in life otherwise. In addition, eating a lot signifies abundance and abundance signifies well-being. (note: there are a number of issues like this among the poor - drugs being one in particular. People don't usually get poor because they do drugs. They often do drugs because they can't afford a real vacation. In addition, living in world that constantly reaffirms the fact that you're of low status means you'll have a greater need for these sorts of comforts, and helps you justify your own self-destructive behaviors, food or otherwise).

Also our sedentary culture doesn't help reduce obesity.

There's no point it blaming it on one issue. Like most things, this issue is systemic. We blame many things like this on multiple single issues that, in reality, do not actually exist separately. Our society, our economy, our culture, our parenting styles, and so forth do not all exist as discrete entities in isolation from one another. We separate them into those categories because it makes the world easier to deal with - easier to understand, easier to work on, and easier to feel comfortable in. Only our concepts are separate, not the society/culture/whatever, but we've also helped create a society that reflects these otherwise-fictional separations.

The only real way to deal with an issue like this (if it's even really possible) is to find a predominate factor in it that cuts across all of our categories. In this case, I'd say it's "lack" - lack of well-being, lack of time, lack of money, lack of education, lack of motivation. We won't ever get all of it, but we might get some of it.