While growing up, children all across America were told, “Remember, it is better to start while you’re young. ” including me. Does this include starting off obese when we are younger too? Many more times than I possibly could have imagined I have seen an obese child. While watching the documentary Fed Up, couldn’t help but think to myself, “Has the world really changed so much throughout the time of my Grandparents. ” I went and asked them if obesity even existed when they were my age. My grandpa’s response was, “Back there was the war to worry about. Kids worked on the farm before and after school.
There was no time to go and get a burger whenever we felt like. Time was money and we didn’t have very much of either. ” Ever since 1997, when George McGovern tried to help the people of America by having companies make healthier food, the government has tried many different ways to help the American people with obesity. Sugar is more of the cause for obesity than fat in currently and children all across the country are gaining weight at a faster and more alarming rate. These are the three main topics that should be covered when talking about obesity (Fed Up).
Before 1953, exercise was considered ‘taboo’. Studies were made to show that the more exercise a person does, the better shape that person will be in. This was the idea anyways. People began working out while eating right or working out while having a higher intake of calories. The amount of gym memberships skyrocketed along with the obesity levels. This just blows my mind. In the documentary Fed Up I repeatedly heard people say, “Nothing works. No matter what I do the weight keeps coming back. ” When I was around twelve years of age I was a very big kid.
I weighed over 180 pounds. Instead of sitting there pouting I decided to do something about it. I’m a better person today because of my decision to lose weight. I still have to watch what I eat. The schools lunch makes things hard. Even with Michelle Obama helping make the National School Lunch Act, companies found ways around that. Shwann’s is accountable for over 70% of the school’s pizza across the country. They decided that pizza was considered a vegetable because of the ‘tomato paste’. I audibly said, “What the hell? ” when I heard that on the video.
School lunches are absolutely terribly at the school I attend. Pizza is an option everyday as well as ice cream. School lunches used to be amazing. That was efore the government took away 2. 4 billion dollars away from the schools each year for food. Schools were forced to find their own way. I believe the government needs to put more money into schools for our kids who are our future instead of all the money to prisons. There was an experiment done a while back that I saw where they exchanged the food at a prison and a local school.
The inmates thought the food was terrible while the kids thought the food was great. This is unacceptable in my opinion. Nowadays it is almost impossible to find food in a grocery store that doesn’t have extra sugars added to help make the aste better. Taste is more important than the health of the American people. Companies like Kellogs were told to make foods with less fat. Foods with less fat ‘taste like cardboard’ and don’t taste well at all. Sugar is added to help those foods taste palatable. American’s have doubled their intake of daily sugars.
In Fed Up Wesley Randal was having his daily meal. He thought he was eating well. He was having 2. 5 times more sugar that what is recommended for kids his age. When they told me that I never realized how much more sugars reduced fat products had. All this time that I have been trying to eat healthy, some of he products are just as bad as the normal ones. After watching Fed Up I realized how hard it really is to diet. To go completely sugar free would be an almost impossible task. Going sugar free works. Bradey Kluge and his family all lost over 30 pounds on a sugar free diet.
At the end of the documentary it said, “Bradey gained all his weight back shortly after this was filmed. ” Dieting is hard. The companies that work their way around all the acts that the government has passed to make more money have lost all approval from me. One thing that caught my attention in the video was T. O. F. I. T. O. F. I. means Thin on the Outside and Fat on the Inside. There are plenty of kids at my school alone who would fit into this category. They aren’t overly strong because those people don’t work on their muscles enough.
Kids are targeted as future customers by food corporations. Companies know that nowadays kids watch TV more than ever. Commercials are the way to get though to them. Laws have even been passed to help lesson the effects of these commercials. At the time where kids watch TV the most, companies weren’t allowed to show their ads then. The food still go through to them (Fed Up). Fast food estaurants like McDonald’s were forced to offer fruits to help kids make good choices.
In Huffington Post’s article “So This Is Why Children Are Craving That Fast Food Burger. it says that “kids aren’t choosing healthier options instead of unhealthy ones – they’re finagling for both. ” (n. p. ) If kids are choosing both of these it just adds to the amount of sugars they have each day. Kids like Wesley gained more and more weight no matter what they tried because of things like this. I wish society would do more to help. No matter what anybody thinks, these kids are the future of America. Our country is third in the world in besity and we continue to climb up that list. By 2050, 1/3 of all kids in america will have diabetes.
When I was growing up diabetes were for the elderly folk that happen to have a few extra pounds. Now kids who are less than 15 years old are getting diabetes. In Fed Up one of the doctors said that treating kids for diabetes is completely different than teaching a 50 year old. This causes health problems. Kids are getting so big that Weight Watchers is a viable option for them. I hope someday the world will realize what these major food corporations are doing to the great country of the United States of America (Fed Up).
Is it better to start young when we are talking about the beginning of the end? Is it better to start young when kids are weighing just as much as full grown adults at the age of twelve? I firmly believe that the world is going down the wrong path and will end up like the people from the movie Wall-E. Corporations are doing their best to get past the laws the government has laid to help make America healthier. Sugars are even worse than fat is for our kids and they can’t seem to be able to lose weight no matter what they do. Someday the world will realize things need to change.
