“Parents’ obesity, especially mom’s, tied to kids’ risk…NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Having two obese parents may substantially raise a child’s risk of becoming obese, with mom’s weight playing a particularly important role, a new study suggests.
The reasons for that finding are not certain, according to Wardle. However, she said, mothers may be relatively more important because their weight and diet during pregnancy affect fetal development — and may, research suggests, help set a child’s future appetite regulation and weight.
Mothers’ weight may also be a bigger factor than fathers’ because moms are typically the ones who take charge of the children’s diets, Wardle and her colleagues note.”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online April 7, 2010.
With all the buzz about our obese children you can’t help but pay attention. Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution sheds some particularly interesting light on what our children are eating and of course the food industry has infiltrated our grocery store shelves with every conceivable convenience food for the busy lives of parents. If you can call that food.
We can blame it on the food industry, we can blame it on the school lunches, but who is really responsible?
I don’t know about you but I take complete responsibility for everything that goes into my son’s body. I’m his mother, that’s my job. Everything he eats, every medicine he takes, everything he drinks, every chemical he is exposed to. I take it upon myself to educate myself about what is healthy for him and what is not. I also take it upon myself to make the best choices I can for him and hope that it rubs off when he is old enough to make choices for himself. I am not perfect but I make every effort to be better than average! If you take your two year old to a fast food restaurant twice a week, every week, you are responsible for the repercussions. If you don’t think there are any repercussions to letting a two year old eat fast food every week then you need to wake up and smell the chemicals.
What I am really hoping is that my son’s taste buds are going to be so trained to taste real food that any processed food he comes across at a cafeteria line is going to be disgusting to him. I can hope can’t I?
What we do or don’t do when it comes to our eating habits, our physical fitness and our self-worth is going to be reflected in our children.
I have struggled with my weight my entire life and let me tell you, pregnancy did not do me any favors in that department! What I have discovered is that I have a new impetus to take care of myself. I may not have found the drive in the past to take excellent care of myself, always assuming that nothing will ever happen to me. But since the birth of my son, that has all changed. I am acutely aware of everything in his life now that may cause harm later. I am also acutely aware that what I do with my own health now will determine how long I am around to see him grow up. Now that is a driving force to take care of me with the same effort that I take care of him.
The above article just reinforced that for me. If I don’t take care of myself now, it is going to be reflected in him. It is going to have a direct effect on him. The two cannot be separated. I want him to grow up not just knowing ‘lack of disease’ but knowing peak health and fitness. I want him to enjoy the endorphin rush of physical fitness and get addicted to that rather than the hundreds of other toxic addictions out there.
I think I’m going to work on finding that endorphin rush myself. How about you?
And by the way, a new study found that as little as 20 minutes of exercise a day has a big effect on your health. The key is to spend those 20 minutes alternating between high and low intensities. Short bursts of interval training for twenty minutes — not so bad, huh?
Twenty minutes for the health of our children.
More Resources for Childhood Health
- metro4twelve.com » Blog Archive » Grocery store shelves are littered with
- Eating in a Fast Food Restaurant – A Whole Family Choice? « imani2525828
- Our Favorite Convenience Food : It’s Not What You Think | Making This Home
