Childhood obesity and what overweight adults are doing about it.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

This morning’s Plain Dealer had a story detailing Michelle Obama’s program to fight childhood obesity in this country. Personally, I applaud the First ladies efforts. Statistically, one third of America’s children are considered overweight, which is a staggering amount. I don’t have the numbers at my fingertips – or know if they were even measured, but I was a child in the early to mid-60’s and feel comfortable saying that no more than one in ten of my classmates was overweight to the point we’d tease them (yeah – we were cruel, but it was certainly an indicator of who was heavy). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – we were thinner not because we had gym class (in fact we didn’t in parochial schools) or spent a lot of time in organized sports (there was only little league baseball in my town), it was because we were outside playing until it was too dark to see.

The article details some of the strategies under consideration including things like replacing junk food and high sugar drinks in school cafeterias with more fruits and vegetables, ending the practice of charging kids to play school sports and reintroducing more physical education into the school curriculums.  All worth doing, but really not the issue.

I’ve said this before, too. I had junk food available to me in the 60’s. We all did. Potato chips and soda (that’s what we called pop in New England) were already in existance and fully loaded with fat calories and sugar. None of that diet crap - saccharin hadn't been invented yet. My high school offered chocolate milk, Fritos and nutty buttys – I know because I had them every day for lunch. For the first 10 years or so of my school career though, I was packing a lunch from home so, if I was going to eat healthy, I had whatever mom and dad chose to stock in the pantry and refrigerator. Is it so different today? Can’t we, as parents, make the biggest difference in what our kids eat and how they spend their leisure time? Mrs. Obama says “we have the tools at our disposal to reverse it (childhood obesity). All we need is the motivation, the opportunity and the willpower to do what needs to be done.”  She ain’t wrong about that

If I’m not motivated to get myself in shape and eat smarter, what message am I sending to my kids? I find it inconsistent to tell Jack to get off the video games if I’m going to camp out in front of the boob tube all night. The schools can help and support our efforts, but the real solution and the rock solid foundation for a lifetime of health and fitness needs to start at home.

Okay…off the soap box. I went to the park for a planned long run. I’m trying to hit at least one hour of running every other day for the next couple of weeks as summer approaches. My plan is to get back to bike riding as the weather warms and the days get longer. I want to do some doubles – short runs and rides in the evenings. I also plan to get more time with the kayak and then add in some backpack time as climbing trips to the Adirondacks approach.

Anyway, I headed onto the bridle trails, avoiding the hiking paths, which were still under water. The run was easy and I actually noticed how I wasn’t as sore as I had been over the last couple of weeks. In fact, it stayed easy for 50 minutes, which is about the time that I found myself running on the road. I’ve been avoiding this like the Indians avoid having Cy Young pitchers on their staff because I think the hard pavement has led to the problems with my calf. I was only on it for about 8 minutes when I felt a twinge – in my achilles tendon! I backed off the pace and finished without incident with a total run of 62 minutes. Tomorrow…run with the studs. Yuk.

Run duration: 62 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140.

Calories burned during workout: 1050.