From Your Health Journal…..”I had to promote a wonderful article written by Marci Warhaft-Nadler of The Huffington Post entitled Child Obesity Is Not the Problem. In a day and age where obesity is being thrown in our faces, and children are being ‘frightened’ into staying thin, this article was quite refreshing to read. The author states that obesity is a real issue, but we should focus on healthier lifestyle instead. The plain truth is so many children today are leading a poor, unhealthy lifestyle. Their environment is different than it was 25 years ago, so when times change, so must our actions. Obesity related illness is on the rise such as heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, asthma, and weaker joints. So yes, a change is needed to help children be healthier by changing their lifestyle. There is nothing wrong with focusing on the obesity epidemic, as education is the key to improvement, but let’s also focus on the child’s environment, and what changes need to be made. Please visit the Huffington Post web site (link provided below) to read the complete article.”

From the article…..

There, I said it. And I’ll say it again: Childhood obesity is not the problem.

While it’s become nearly impossible to turn on a TV or read a newspaper without hearing about the obesity epidemic and it seems like there are anti-obesity campaigns popping up everywhere, I believe we are focusing our energy on the wrong problem.

Is obesity a serious issue? Yes. But obesity is just one symptom of the real issue which is unhealthy living. By focusing solely on obesity, we are turning a “lifestyle” issue into a “fat” one and are completely missing out on giving people the information they need to be truly healthy.

The dangerous part about this is that instead of encouraging people to get healthy we are demanding that they get skinny and the truth is, skinny is not always synonymous with healthy.

Our “war on obesity” is creating a generation of kids who are terrified of being overweight and because of our society’s obsession with thinness, they don’t even know what being overweight truly looks like! Watching TV or reading magazines and being inundated with unrealistic images of unattainable physiques can have most kids feeling inadequate within minutes. When the media is telling them that they need to be skinny to be beautiful and anti-obesity campaigns are telling them they need to be skinny to be healthy, the only message they’re hearing is: YOU NEED TO BE SKINNY!

Here’s a shocker: You can’t always tell how fit or unfit a person is simply by what they look like. Being a little overweight and active is healthier than skinny and sedentary. Weight is not the ONLY factor in a person’s overall health.

To read the full article…..Click here