The statistics are scary. Over 1 in 4 of kids age 2 to 17 are overweight or obese. Since 1979, overweight and obesity in kids doubled in 6 to 17 year olds, and obesity tripled among adolescents age 12 to 17. And this is despite the fact that kids are eating less fat and roughly the same or fewer calories than they were three decades ago, according to the Nutrition Journal, which looked at the data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Other studies show that overweight and obese kids are eating about the same number of calories as their slimmer counterparts.
There is no longer any question that there is a link between obesity, metabolic syndrome, type-two diabetes and heart disease. These problems used to be something that middle-aged to older adults had to contend with, but now children at strikingly young ages are being diagnosed with these diseases. It is said that this generation of children will not live as long as their parents, due to their staggeringly poor health.
With epidemiological evidence from a variety of sources showing that there is no relationship between saturated fat consumption and obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease (Between 1920 and 1970, saturated fat consumption dropped by 21% and has continued to fall since then according to food consumption data, yet during that same time period rates of heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes have skyrocketed), one is left asking two questions. Why the continued pressure from health pundits to eat less saturated fat in particular, and secondly - and more pressing - if fat and calories don't get to the heart of the problem, why are our kids (and adults) getting so fat?
Possibly the answer to the first question is that most doctors are not yet aware of the above facts, and because the low-fat dogma is so pervasive in our culture they give out the only message they know. And besides, without having a different message to deliver doctors are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
And if most doctors are not up to date with respect to healthy eating, how in the world can we expect the average family to know what to do? Most parents have also been indoctrinated in the low-fat mantra, and so it would be no surprise if parents of overweight kids go out of their way to buy low-fat, processed foods like skim milk, no-fat yogurt, low-fat breakfast cereals like Rice Krispies or Cheerios etc. for weight control. They are probably finding that low-fat foods don't work, but yet they keep going down this path because it is the one the health authorities are telling them to follow.
The problem with low-fat processed foods is that by reducing the fat in the product the ratio of carbohydrate goes up. Furthermore food companies usually replace the fat with some form of processed sugar which increases the carbohydrate count even more. (Carbohydrate is a fancy word for sugar). This sugar hits the bloodstream quickly and unless one is very active and the sugar is burned off as fuel, insulin will be secreted in order to store the sugar in the blood as fat. If a diet is regularly filled with processed, refined carbohydrates in the form of sugar, fructose, or flour products, one will probably get fat, and over time insulin will stop working well, and one would be on the way to type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
And that is exactly what the epidemiological data shows. Unlike our saturated fat intake which has been falling, our consumption of sugar and refined, high-glycemic carbohydrates such as flour products and processed cereals has steadily increased alongside the increases in rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. We moved from unprocessed grains to processed grains, and from minimal sugar to extreme amounts of sugar in the last 100 years. (You can get food consumption data from Stats Canada. I am unable to post a link for you unfortunately).
Foods labelled as "low fat" are not the only problem - processed food in general wreaks havoc with our health as it usually has very little nutrition, along with a list of ingredients a four year old can't pronounce and an adult can't define. And the body doesn't know what to do with those unpronounceable ingredients either, so best avoid them altogether. Processed foods may be convenient and cheap, but the money saved on food is paid on medications later. And as can be seen in children today, it may not be much later ...
The biggest thing one can do to stop the obesity crisis is to feed kids real foods from both plant and animal sources in their least processed forms, as the body has expertly handled real food since the beginning of humanity. What is real food? Food that existed before the industrial revolution. Food that you can pick, pull out of the ground, you have to chase after to obtain, or that comes from the ocean. Farms or farmers' markets are wonderful places to find real food. If you are unsure if a food product is healthy, ask yourself if you would have been able to find the food in its current form somewhere in the world in the year 1800. If the answer is yes, it is healthy. If not, avoid it. (Other than olive, coconut and palm oil, no plant oils existed before 1910, so no, canola oil, soy oil, corn oil, grape seed oil etc. are not part of a healthy diet.)
Choose fresh, organic veggies, but if that isn't possible, frozen is a good alternative. Feed kids (and yourself) unprocessed grass-fed meats, free-range chickens, wild fish - animals that ate their natural diet. No problem eating the fat from grass-fed, free-range animals, and kids, especially girls, do very well on a diet that includes quality saturated fats. Eat brown rice rather than white rice. Add a generous dollop of organic butter to make it more appealing to kids. Eat all grains whole rather than ground into flour. (Whole grains look like a seed you can plant.) Give kids whole fruit rather than store-bought juice, as juice is just a pot full of sugar and is not a healthy beverage at all. Feed kids full-fat, natural yogurt, and add fresh fruit to it to make it appealing, rather than buying those small sweetened yogurt packs. Offer water rather than soda pop to drink. (The most problematic food product tied to the child obesity epidemic right now? Soft drinks.) If you can access grass-fed raw milk, that is an excellent beverage for kids. Bottom line is to curb the children's obesity crisis, families are going to have to find the kitchen and learn how to cook from scratch again.
The sooner the medical community embraces the research that is suggesting hands down that we have been chasing the wrong villain in our search for a cure for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease, the sooner doctors will give a more appropriate message to parents that are trying to help their overweight and obese children. Getting away from sugar and processed foods and returning to a diet of real food including the saturated fat it may contain is the dietary advice that needs to be disseminated if we want the kids of today to lead healthy, productive lives.
Other critically important factors influencing the child obesity crisis such as genetic factors, the lack of physical activity, socio-economic factors, processed food advertising directed at kids, and over exposure to artificial light late at night are topics for another day.
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