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Do you agree with recent 30-month studies showing that the cause of obesity in children is a lack Vitamin D and sunlight?
Results so far:
| Agree | 45% | 50 votes | Total: 110 votes | |
| Disagree | 55% | 60 votes |
Agree
by Tracy Lynn Smith
Created on: December 08, 2010
Vitamin D and Sunlight are good reasons why the children are becoming more obese. Having the proper amount of milk in an adult diet can help to loose weight. Not getting enough sunlight is the result of not going outside. If children are not going outside then they are not getting enough exercise.
What is even more concerning is looking at why children are not getting enough vitamin D and sunlight? It could be because our current economy is awful. Mothers and fathers both have to work and is barley making ends meet. It now takes two people working to pull in as much income as it used to take just the father working. People are getting paid less, but the cost of stuff keeps going up.
Vitamin D is found in milk products, fish, cereal grains, and sunlight. With the prices for milk and fish being high it can be hard for some families to afford. Milk is currently an average of $3.00 a gallon. It’s not easy for an average family of four to buy milk especially if both parents are working at minimum wage.
Children not getting enough sunlight are also the fault of the economy. Parents both have to work just to scrape buy. House payments are much higher then they used to be but the pay from jobs has stayed the same. The low pay causes the parents to leave children home alone for those who are old enough. Although they are old enough to stay home alone, it is not safe for the child to go outside. Therefore the children don’t get enough outside time that they need.
Children being home alone or even having very busy parents also posses more nutrient problems. The children don’t get the healthy home cooked meal that children use to get years ago when it was more common for only one parent to work. Now they are left at home to eat what they please or given a constant diet of fast food.
Children being overweight are not necessarily the parent’s fault however parents should be able to control what their children eat and teach them how to eat properly. There are nutrition classes for families. Learning to eat right can help the entire family.
Parents should try to allow around a half hour each day for the children to play outside, even if they have to force the children to go outside. Even if the child takes their MP3 or laptop outside, at least they will get some fresh air and sun. If parents can they should try to also go outside and play a game with the child. Playing outside will create wonderful memories for the child and make the whole family more healthy.
Children being overweight are a huge problem. It is hard to loose weight and its gets harder the older we get to loose weight because we have to retrain ourselves to eat correctly. It is much easier to teach the children to eat correctly from the get go.
Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D
Learn more about this author, Tracy Lynn Smith.
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Disagree
by Brianna Shain
Created on: December 14, 2010
The blame game. It’s a deadly practice that comes too easily to humans. This is exactly the game being played whenever the topic of childhood obesity comes up. Doctors and parents are trying to blame scientific things, such as lack of sunlight and Vitamin D, but it’s very simple. The causes are bad eating habits and lack of exercise. It could even be attributed to some children being anti-social, and parents not providing a solution.
A lot of parents don’t closely monitor the eating habits of their children. When a child begins to eat too much junk food and gains weight, parents don’t notice until it’s too late to stop the problem. Children eat all of the time without thinking. Kids are amazingly innocent; they don’t worry about their image as much as teens or adults. They eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus snacks at the movies, sleepovers and parties, after-school snacks, while sitting around the television with the family. Children look up to their parents and get all kinds of different habits from them. Why shouldn’t kids get eating habits from parents as well?
What if parents don’t want to cook dinner? The first thing they do is go out or order in. Mom comes home from a long day at work, doesn’t want to cook, and herds the family into the car for some McDonald’s or some Pizza Hut. Pretty soon, this becomes a weekly thing. The burden is taken off Mom’s shoulders because she found an easier way to feed the family. Kids need to be taught from an early age that you can eat junk food in moderation.
There are also kids who don’t exercise. Some kids are involved in team sports such as baseball or soccer. Others participate in contact sports like boxing. Some kids do nothing more than playing in the yard with their friends every day or running around at recess. These kids are being raised in the technology age. New video games and movies come out every day, and kids play those or sit on the couch all day. In fact, Rock Band 3 Came out at the end of October and sold 233,120 in the first week.
The lack of sunlight may only be to blame if you think that kids sit inside all day not getting any sun, but only to blame in that way. Don’t get me wrong! There are other factors beside parents: slow metabolism, family genes, etc. Parents need to face the fact that their overweight son or daughter is at least PARTLY their fault, and stop playing the blame game.
Learn more about this author, Brianna Shain.
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