| The latest thing on obesity among children is that their parents are convinced that if the schools would serve less caloric and healthier food for lunch their children would weigh a lot less and it would make a major contribution to eliminating overweight and obesity. The one thing the parents don’t talk about is what they serve the kids at home. Or even more importantly, if the parents give their children less caloric food why aren’t their children skinny? If you have kids, or if your friends do, you will find that just trying to change kids’ diets or what or how much they eat isn’t going to make your kids skinny. Do you know many children who used to be fat and are now thin? Probably not. Attempting to change what the schools serve your kids for lunch will have no long term effect on what your kids are going to weigh. Why? Because you are focusing on the food and not why your kids eat what, and as much as, they do. You are missing the whole point. The issue is NOT the food. Have you ever asked yourself – or your kids – why the kids got fat in the first place? You know what healthy and less caloric foods are and you probably tried to get your kids to eat them or to eat less. You may have even banned soft drinks, the current whipping boy for obesity. It didn’t have much effect, did it? So you decided to blame the schools or the fast food restaurants or the size of the portions. You did this because you didn’t know what else to do. The last thing you ever want to think about, let alone admit, is that your kids are eating for emotional reasons or that they have some emotional problem. You will never do that because that would reflect on you. The last thing you want, or could handle, is the responsibility for your kids being fat. Could it be your fault, or the way you live or how your kids deal with pressure, that your kids are fat? Not a chance. You are model parents. Sure you are. You have always done the right thing. Sure you did. Therefore, it must be someone else’s fault. (Don’t forget that not all kids are fat!) That’s why you are so desperately looking around for someone to blame. One day, probably soon, everyone will come to realize that food isn’t the problem. Then they will have to look into the real problem. That’s when they will learn how to solve the problem. |
