Way bigger contributing factors to obesity in kids is lack of exercise, too many video games, cell phones, ipads, lack of physical activity such as recess and pe, way too many kids in day care due to necessity of 2 working parents, crappy quality of food served at school for breakfast and lunch. AMs theory about corporate America is way down the list.

This is just a generalization, but it's one that is formed based on many, many years of being on this planet...you don't often see an obese kid with a skinny sister and two skinny parents...the family that eats together gets fat together, often.

Lack of education? Maybe. Compensating for something else in their life? Probably. Flat out don't care? Who knows?

I do know this, though...all of my friends who are in at least decent shape have kids that are at least in decent shape, too.

The obsegen concept is interesting...but it's even more interesting that if it's the cause of all the fat people in the USA, that it somehow manages to infect whole families, and not the whole family next door.

Fish on...

Todd

America doesn't have a weight problem, America has a lack of exercise problem.
When I was a younger athletic type, I could eat as much as I wanted, and never gain a pound.
Then I got older and stopped playing sports and my weight started to climb.
Long story short, so did my blood pressure, now through diet and exercise, I've lost most of it.
Kids today just sit on their butts way to much.

There's something to the info Aunty posted, which is why I included a short anti-corporation rant in my earlier post. However, the dominant cause of overweight and obesity in the US is overeating, followed by its associate, lack of exercise.

Unless you buy exclusively organic food, which is pretty hard to do and still have an interesting diet, you're going to regularly ingest some nasty chemicals, including the kind Aunty is describing. My kids had no weight problems, primarily because their parents were also thin due to high metabolism as young people. They also were fed as healthy a diet as we could provide. My house has never had much in the way of processed food beyond canned or frozen veggies, etc. No chips, no soda; my oldest daughter wouldn't drink a sip of coke the first few times she was exposed to it. They grew up drinking water, milk, and fruit juices (no sugar added). Advertising wasn't much of an issue as we had no TV in the house, which probably eliminated 90% of the junk in American life. I never bought them video games, but we had baseball gloves, basketballs, and tennis balls and rackets, and running shoes. From this horribly deprived childhood they became adults who still aren't overweight and still play organized sports.

It's not that corporations are totally to blame. The primary responsibility is with parents. But corporations don't make the job any easier, and they do deliberately make it harder because money is more important than America to them. Pretty simple.

Sg

Typo.


Nobody gets fat eating lettuce.

Sorry,I was a little harsh in that reply. Just pointing out what parents are up against in our product pushing society. Your comment on handing out the credit card pushed my hot button. I don't use credit cards and my kids hate the mall.

Is that really the best America can do? Take away a heavy kid and put him in a foster family. What's the states' excuse gonna be if the kid gets killed by his new dad? "Oh well we didn't know the dad was a psycho". Sorry Charlie, you're too fat to live with your parents. Unbeleivable. I can hardly believe tax dollars pay for that.

I could have chosen my words better as I was not trying to make a statement towards you but making just a general statement. I wish I could say the same thing about my daughter and the mall but she is learning that sometimes you can buy more with $50 dollars if you don't shop at the Gap or Buckle.

You tried eating kitty litter?

Genetics may play a much larger part in it then most of you think. When I was young I could run and almost never stop. Only two or three of my close freinds were in better shape then me. My two best freinds both weighed close to 60 pounds less then me growing up. The one in the best shape took each of us on bike trips to mount rainier park. He took the skinney freind on the first trip and it took 9 hours. Despite protests, he insisted it would take us longer. We made it in less than 4 hours up and then turned around and rode back. Despite running the rest of my freinds in to the ground, I was always heavy than them. My family just has weight problems.

On the flip side, my wife's family has always been fairly thin. My kids can out eat me and are the skinniest kids around, while I still stuggle with weight.

So many factors involved it's just ridiculous the state could justify what they did.

Something that pisses me off is these local news sites like KOMO putting up a snippet of some article that leaves out 90% of the info which really distorts the whole story. I'm not going to defend what happened one way or the other but there is a lot to consider that was left out of the originally posted article.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/28/an-obese-boy-is-placed-in-foster-care-can-it-help/

An honor roll kid being taken away from his endearing parents for being ovrweight. Completely ridiculous. That is homegrown terrorism.

You can just as easily call it "terrorism" as you can "child abuse"...

Fish on...

Todd

You know what sugar causes?

Cavities.

I'm betting a lawyer is going to make a bundle on this bungle. Kidnapped by the State for eating too much? Beautiful!

my nephew is 7 now and maybe 55 pounds...cant get him to eat anything but he eats...i think he is heathy but i dont think he eats super heathly...my sister doesnt eat much anymore either she had a surgery where they cut out 60% of her stomach...i think she lost 100 lbs...i know she watches what her son is eating but i think he will be just like his dad..his dad every once in a while will actually try to gain weight...some kids are just lucky they wont be fat

on the other hand he has a freind Kira who has decided on her own since she was 3 that she was going to be a vegitarian...i was surprised cause her parents eat meat...i think she is 8 now and still a vegitarian...her parents played along with it in the beggining ...i think they had to pay attention to what thier very heathy child was eating way more than any one of us would...hey she knows what she wants to eat...i was just surprised a kid that young would make a decision that has lasted this long..but they also take her to the doctors and make sure she is getting the right food

when i was younger i was in competitive swimming, and swam 7 hrs a day if i wasnt doing weight training...i could eat whatever i wanted and loved carbs...now i still love carbs but my problem is beer....my doc just cut me off hahahaha...sometimes i wish i had the cash to go to mexico and have the same surgery my sister had...but i just like beer too much

i think its sad that they are split up..but it may be for the best if the mother cant feed him correctly...she may be able to learn and get him back...either way it is a wake up call...maybe she wouldnt act on his weight issues or thought it wasnt that bad...thats not good