Posted on 09/11/2009 7:47:39 AM PDT by laotzu
Experts from around the country meeting in San Antonio, say the problem of Latino childhood obesity is nothing less than a national security threat, and containing it will involve more than urging kids to eat fewer Twinkies, 1200 WOAI news reports.
"We're not just looking at individual behavior change, but how to we set up systems to encourage these individual changes," says Kip Gallion of the group Salud America, a unit of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The conference brought together educators, health officials, neighborhood groups, and officials like a former U.S. Surgeon General to the Gunter Hotel.
Gallion says while previous efforts have focused on individual changes, the problem is much more widespread, and will require societal adjustments. Among the suggestions...placing more parks in frequently densely-packed Latino majority neighborhoods so kids can have a place to get exercise.
Or mandating that specially trained physical education experts be in elementary schools.
Or even redoubling efforts to reduce neighborhood crime, so kids will feel safer walking to school. Just last week, a teenager was robbed at knife point walking to school at Edison High School, and a girl was raped last year while on her way to Churchill High School.
Gallion says incidents like this dissuade students from getting the basic exercise which comes from walking or bicycling to school.
"It is a family issue, it is a community issue, and you're not going to solve that problem just by focusing attention on the child," he said.
If we would relocate the schools next to the coal mines, the kids could sweat it off during recess,
and immediatly after school.
This would aid in the national security threats that are our energy problem, and fat latinos.
We wouldn't have to worry about our children playing in the streets,
and we could get rid of those pesky 20mph school zones.
Stop the unhealthy snacks and soda...and watch things change.
‘the problem of Latino childhood obesity’
The US has the most overweight ‘supposedly’ poor people in the world.
Yeah, stop giving them so much in food stamps. My ex-MIL knew someone who was getting $600 a month in food stamps for her plus one child. Add in free breakfast and lunch in schools. My “upper middle class” family has a limited food budget. Except for mom (me), who is still not obese, NONE of us are fat. My kids have always been thin.
I’m 51 years old. When I was a kid the “poor” were starving and didn’t have enough clothes to wear.
Now the “poor” are overweight and wear $100 sneakers.
Is this an improvement that we get credit for, a worsening that we should feel guilty for, or what?
Culturally Mexican parents use food to control, reward, and communicate with their children.
Good luck with that whole ‘eat healthy’ thing.
National security threat? Maybe there should be a panel to address drug use by members of panels talking about other people’s health issues.
I have sister who is a single mother, gets federal and state aid, free medical, works at McDonalds, eats like a hog and is over 400 pounds.
Seems like the government is one of the primary enablers of obesity.
Just Mexican parents? Where I live there are zero Mexicans and tons of fat kids. Adults around here are stuffing junk into kids 24/7. They can’t let their kids sit for an hour at church with out a box of Cheerios.
That girl actually lost all her excess weight, saw it Youtube.
That’s amazing! Good for her.
Cracker puh-leeze.
Only the 'down-trodden' warrant our compassion.
Ironically kids get fat when they don’t get enough animal fat in their diet. They stay hungry and store carbs as fat. Mexicans have been told to take manteca (lard) out of their diet and now they get fat and diabetic. Kids used to eat lots of fatty foods and stay skinny.
A pig farmer knows that pigs will fatten on skim milk, but not so much on whole milk.
I was responding to your “Culturally Mexican parents use food to control, reward, and communicate”. Culturally that’s not different than standard US adult behavior.
Yes liberals constantly live up to the cliché, “world ends tomorrow, women and minorities hardest hit”.
So I shouldn’t talk about Mexican culture without mentioning that it’s no worse than American culture?
Why, especially when the article is specifically about culturally Mexican latinos?
Didn’t they start adding Physical Education into school curriculum so in the even of war people would be in good enough shape to actually go and fight the wars?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.