Supermarket check-outs & childhood obesity

I’m reading this article about efforts in Florida, and US-wide, to make children’s lunches more nutritious and (hopefully) reduce obesity. Well it sure doesn’t hurt, even if it’s not working that well.

It got me thinking, though, about kids whose moms or dads take them grocery shopping. Supermarket checkouts all have candy, gum, and chocolate bars from the floor to about 4 feet up — SMACK DAB in the reach of children’s hands. Even if parents try to raise their kids without candy and nasty chocolate bars, what’s to stop them from getting them with their allowance on the way home, or at friends’ places, or at school? (I remember spending $15 one month on a Reese peanut butter cup addiction in high school.) Anyway, it’s pretty easy for a kid, bored, waiting there for mom to finish up to just grab something and say “Pleaaaase can I have this?” or just put it right on the belt if they’re tall enough. If mom is distracted by the tabloids and magazines, she might just brush it off and say “mhm,” or maybe she’s not concerned about it at all. Maybe it’ll keep the kid occupied while she loads everything into the car.

Honestly, one potentially successful prong of attack against childhood obesity would be to remove all those shelves of sugar at the checkout and replace it with, say, little packages of roasted nuts, fruit, unsalted sunflower seeds and low-sugar granola bars. During the Stongs/Hearts/IGA era of what is now the local SuperValu in my neighbourhood growing up, there was a MASSIVE like 3-story shelving unit FULL of hard candy. Kerr’s and stuff like that. I think I had a dream about shoplifting that stuff, once. It was right near the checkout, ready for grabby hands and aching mouths. Mom said no a lot, but I remember getting Tic Tacs as a kid. (They just don’t make ’em the same anymore.) Even now, I’m sometimes tempted by chocolate bars, Tic Tacs and the deliciously green packaging of Doublemint spearmint gum that is so cheap at Wal-Mart. I have a pretty strong sense of self-control when it comes to sweets in the store, though (nice, alliteration), but kids… well… do they?

I was proud as a kid to grow up on proper cereal. (I just noticed, however, that our favourite, Cranberry Almond Crunch, only has 1 gram of fibre per 3/4 cup, and 2 grams of protein. Pretty pathetic on the fibre side, even though it’s got at least 2% of every vitamin & mineral once you add milk.) I didn’t eat Lucky Charms, Froot Loops (yuck), Mini Wheats, or Frosted Flakes, except on the odd occasion like a birthday party where my braces hindered the Lucky Charms intake, or outdoor school (Halloween Lucky Charms eaten in March… yeah, that’s real good quality there). I enjoyed Special K (with sugar, of course), Cheerios, Just Right, Honey Bunches of Oats, Fruit & FIber, and Shredded Wheat (again, with sugar). I had good stuff for breakfast, and I think it made a difference.

I think there are two other ways to make a dent in the obesity epidemic (17% of American children are overweight!). One: parents need to raise their kids on good food and say NO to junk. If they don’t know about it, or are denied it if they ask, then they won’t develop a taste for it (ideally). Two: companies that manufacture and market kids’ food need to wake up and smell the problem. There is TOO MUCH SUGAR and not enough of what is good. Even the crap cereal we got a few times recently said most Canadians aren’t getting enough whole grains.

Do you want this trend to continue?

By any health measure, today’s children are in crisis. Seventeen percent of American children are overweight, and increasing numbers of children are developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes, which, until a few years ago, was a condition seen almost only in adults. The obesity rate of adolescents has tripled since 1980 and shows no sign of slowing down. Today’s children have the dubious honor of belonging to the first cohort in history that may have a lower life expectancy than their parents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has predicted that 30 to 40 percent of today’s children will have diabetes in their lifetimes if current trends continue.

While we’re hailing the drugs and therapies that are making North Americans live longer, what’s our quality of life? How long will the next generation live if 17% of them already are overweight? What will they teach their kids? If parents don’t eat well, chances are the kids won’t either, then the trend will just continue.

Let’s do something about this.