Alright, first I'm going to preface this post with the fact that this will probably not be well organized - or have lots of backed up facts as I go, and also that I'm NOT the healthiest person in the world - nor am I the persona of a great, athletic figure. However, the information is out there, I just can't take the time right now to list every article, study, documentary....what have you, that supports the facts that something super, serious is going on. First, read this:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57474619-10391704/obesity-pill-qsymia-gains-fda-approval/
Read it? Great! Okay....now what the heck?!
How has our health and nutrition mentality gotten SO SO incredibly messed up? I will give a little information about how I was raised in the 90's, and then mirror it with how I "hope" I feed and raise my children someday down the road, and then look at what seems to be happening with the rest of the country.
Let me just say, I was and AM a junk food kid. I crave french fries, rich cheeses, chocolate, pizza, anything dairy, pasta....whatever it is that is covered in grease or fat, I'm all up on that, buddy. My parents did NOT feed my sister and I organically or focus on raw foods and minerals. They did not feed us as vegetarians. They were NOT rich, and could not afford to have a cook that made everything healthy taste fantastic. My mother and father cooked all of the food we ate. It was not always from scratch, but most of the time we ate a meal that had three different food groups, and didn't make us hyper or sick before we went to bed. We're talking casseroles, leaner meats with rice or noodles, mac and cheese, hamburger based noodle-nonsense, sides of canned green beans or corn, sliced bread with butter.....Midwestern, middle class food. I wouldn't say my parents enforced portion control, but simply put - as little girls, we ate about as much as my mother ate. We had sandwiches at lunch, and if we wanted to eat a bunch of chips we could. If we wanted one ice cream cone at night, that was fine. We were never limited at holidays or special events to the amount of helpings we could have.
That being said, my parents also would say things to my younger sister and I such as, "Didn't you just have an ice cream sandwich a couple of hours ago?" or "I thought we just bought this bag of Cheetos, why is it empty already?" or "I think you've had enough of that, if you're hungry before dinner you can have carrots or an apple." And because my sister and I respected their knowledge, we obeyed. Not rocket science.
I played a lot outside as a child, but not any more than the rest of the kids in my age group at the park or pool. My sister and I were not very active in athletic sports, however we were both in dance classes and dabbled in having fun in a new activity here and there. And you know what? We were skinny little bean pole children. I'm serious. We couldn't have been thinner as kids. I really don't feel like this sort of lifestyle is difficult to follow. Is it?
Now the only thing I would change with my children (if I ever have them), is that I would probably not introduce them to much fast food until they were way older. This would be as a gift to them, because I know how hard it's been for me over the years to not be a total junkfoodaholic. I think, honestly, my parents did a pretty good job feeding my sister and I on the income they had, in the generation we grew up in, and without giving her and I any "I'm too fat" complexes.
Now when I read articles like the one above, I'm absolutely heartbroken. Is this really the point we are at? Obesity has become such an issue, that we have to spend radical amounts of money on finding a pill to burn fat? Whhhhhhhyyyy? Why are we at the point where children have a type of diabetes that most people haven't gotten until they are elderly? Why are school lunches and snacks comprised of the absolute WORST food ever? Why aren't parents taking this more seriously? Why is my gym totally empty almost ALL of the time other than the week before college spring break? I really don't understand any of this, I don't understand using pills like this to be a proverbial band-aid on a huge hole in the head. Why has our relationship with food, and with what our bodies REALLY need gotten so totally lost and mangled.
I'm not mad (well maybe a little mad), I'm just totally afraid and saddened for the generations of kids that seem to be living a life that is less healthy, active, comfortable, and happy than the ones their parents probably got to live.
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