[Nedusa]

What chance do children have these days to stay thin ? Not much chance is the overwhelming reply. Lets leave to one side the proportion of children who carry the fat gene or have medical issues that result in a higher weight than normal, lets look at how the odds are stacked against the vast proportion of children when it comes to staying slim.

First diet, with the current climate of cheap fast food loaded with carbs and saturated fat , many families on modest or low incomes simply cannot afford to provide more expensive Balanced meals and invariably resort to fast food. Couple this with the addictive nature of this food then fast food eventually becomes the norm together with takeaway food and delivered cooked food. Throw in the TV dinner climate we live in now and the high percentage of single parent families then meals around the table really are a thing of the past.

Then there is exercise or should I say the lack of it, children used to be out and about in parks playing sport now they are carried everywhere in cars and elect to play computer games for hours in their bedrooms again with no exercise potential except of course their thumbs.

A combination of these two main societal changes has certainly resulted in a far higher obesity percentage and the problem is only going to get worse as these children grow up to develop related health issues and pass their bad habits to their children.

A further factor in this is the lack of any real effort by the Govt to regulate advertising by fast food companies, rather letting them sponsor major sporting events like the Olympics thus give respectability to this very unhealthy food.

I guess when the Healthcare bill finally exceeds the Tax from these companies and tax from a whole range of unhealthy foods then we might finally see some progress in this very worrying situation.