I almost raised my hand. 
Anyway, I read (heard?) that metabolism actually has relatively little effect on weight gain/loss. Everyone I know who is sedentary and eats too much is fat, and everyone I know who is active and eats properly is not fat.
There are, I hear, some rare exceptions.
Peace,
mangeorge
Oh, sure, that’s me, caridwen. I developed some bad habits as I got older and gained weight. But that’s my fault, not my parents, and I’m improving my eating habits now (as I’ve been doing slowly for a while).
And I’ve had to learn to start exercising on purpose; in college, I walked a few miles a day and never had a problem, but when I started working, I was suddenly spending 8 hours a day in a small space and getting no exercise at all. The result was headaches and weight gain. But I considered gyms to be alien territory, so it took a fairly major mental adjustment. I told the personal trainer, “I’m not a gym person.” Her answer, of course, was “Everyone is a gym person!” Now I enjoy going and working out, but it was totally new territory.
This is a hard thread to read. I was chunky but not truly fat and now I’m fat. I remember the name of the obese girl in elementary school, and I remember the first name of the obese boy. ONE of each in a fairly large school. They were tortured. No idea what became of him, she forced herself to exercise incessantly and by 9th grade ( end of Jr High back then ) she was thin as a rail.
I am well aware of a marked increase in very overweight kids of all ages. It’s brutal and I can’t even begin to list the reasons for it.
Cartooniverse
Well, the weight I gained as an adult (which, granted, wasn’t much, I’ve never technically been overweight) had little to do with slow metabolism. It had to do with my parents being responsible about developing my eating habits, and me getting to college and discovering you can drink pop with every meal and have donuts for breakfast. That has nothing to do with how my parents developed my eating habits - and everything to do with the choices I made as an adult.
And that follows through for everyone I know who was skinny as a kid and obese as an adult. It wasn’t their metabolism that changed - a slowed down metabolism makes you go from a size six to a size ten over seven years - when you say “I don’t want to be a twelve” and stop eating like you used to. The freshman fifteen - the post marriage thirty - isn’t your metabolism, its Big Macs.
I kinda think it’s strange that kids are getting fatter. They seem so busy all the time, with soccer, drama, flute lessons, etc. Even if you ignore the sports, just flitting around everywhere would seem to cut down on the vegging-in-front-of-the-TV time.
On the other hand…
I wonder if the increasing urbanization of places, coupled with the oversensalization of crime on TV, perpetuate the feeling that kids should stay indoors.
True, monstro, but it also increases the “dropping by Taco Bell for dinner on the way to class” time, and decreases the amount of time kids spend just running around outside. And only some parents can afford all those lessons–lots of other kids are watching TV alone all afternoon while their parents work, and are forbidden to go outside since it’s not safe alone.
But how do kids get to those activities? Mommy’s car, right?
Looking at American cities and suburbs, I’m not at all surprised kids (and adults) are getting fatter. It’s scary how little need (or opportunity) there is for walking. People even drive from one end of a strip mall to the other!
Neither, precisely - I’m going by how clothing fits. So I guess that’s measurements, but I can’t bear to measure until I see some progress in the clothing fit.
Yep. Did you know orange juice has nearly as much and many blended fruit juices have even more? An 8 ounce “serving” (2/3 of a can) of Coca-Cola or Minute Maid orange juice both have 27 grams of carbs per serving (24 of that sugar), an 8 ounce serving of Minute Maid Cranberry Grape juice has 39 carbs, 38 sugars! This is why we drink water for thirst, and juice only once in a while for a treat. Juice = pop in our house, and it’s not a common beverage.
That’s the problem, isn’t it? You can’t quit eating, or you’ll die. It’s much, much easier to quit something entirely than enjoy it in moderation, if you have an addictive process around it.
You quit smoking, that’s great (so did I)! Do you think you could have continued to smoke just three cigarettes a day forever and spend all your time around smokers and roll their cigarettes and light them for them? I couldn’t. I had to sever the tie completely, and only after a few weeks could I even sit next to a smoker smoking. Only after more than a year could I sit next to a smoker smoking and not want to rip it out of her hand and puff away. It’s a faulty analogy to food.
I’m dumbfounded they the crap they sell in schools.
I am dumbfounded by the crap we let them sell in schools.
That means I agree with you. 
Heck, I never went to a school with a “Cafeteria.” What luxury. In my schools you packed your lunch or you didn’t eat.
I never knew a single kid who was driven to school by a parent, either.
I was fat as a kid, and a fat adult until only a few years ago. I’m sure some of you know this (I’ve posted before and after pics and my ‘story’ before in MPSIMS). I was a single parent of my oldest until Dave and I married, and quite honestly I fed him whatever was quick and he’d eat after I’d been working all day. Of course I realized the error of this in hindsight as I watched him turn up his nose at healthy meals I finally had the time to prepare after becoming a stay-home mom. At thirteen he is learning to eat much better than he had previously, but he’ll still reach for ramen noodles given the choice.
My toddler, on the other hand, eats everything. I started feeding him a variety of foods right from the beginning, and the boy is a true omnivore. He dislikes some varieties of mushrooms and won’t eat olives, but that is it. At two years old, he likes to pull leaves off of the basil plant and snack on them, and is waiting very impatiently for our tomato plants to have ‘may-toes’ (his favourite food) on them. I’m pretty proud of this. I wish my parents had tried harder with my sister and I, because we were both obese adults (she still is). Both parents worked most of my childhood and as a result we had a lot of processed foods; I don’t cook them now unless there isn’t time for something from scratch.
It breaks my heart to see how some people will passively watch their children eat five or six cookies and drink three sodas and not recommend they take it easy. Or how many parents take their kids for fast food four or five times a week - last time I checked, a Happy Meal didn’t contain any vegetables. What are we teaching our children? I can only hope that my kids will take my example with them through life.
Learning to eat properly is something that everyone should learn as a child. I didn’t learn until I was in my 30s and 260 pounds and miserable.
How many kids are really like that, though? It’s a popular theme in books and tv shows, but I’ve worked with many many kids and none of them have activities like pop culture would lead us to believe are so ubiquitous. Maybe there are parts of the country were the little ones spend most afternoons playing soccer or taking lessons in instuments, but it sure isn’t around here.
Caridwen makes a solid point too. I thought that back when I was a kid in the 80s/90s, they was some sort of reform to make school lunches healthier; we weren’t even allowed to use the soda machines between 7am and 2:30pm. So why is it that there are schools with Pizzahut and Burger King kiosks right in their cafeterias?! The first time I ran across that in an essay I thought the kid was being sarcastic, but it’s come up over and over again in essays written all over the country, I realized it must be true. Fastfood in schools is doing the kids no favors.
We have a winner.
My kids do NOT play outside like I did, like my peers did. I have encouraged them to get out and PLAY but they do not do it as much. Now, as teenagers, they are rarely outside just to play or walk with their pals.
We ALWAYS hung out outside unless it was foul weather.
It’s not fear. The problem (I read somewhere) is in the way modern suburbs are designed. Kids come home from school and they are essentially trapped in their subdivision by multi-lane highways. Most suburbs don’t have common areas where kids can congregate and play. They don’t really want to go out and play anyway. Most are too engrossed in their X-Box/Playstation, Internet and HDTV with 500 cable channels. Such isolation and fantasy indulgence contributes not only contributes to the inactivity that leads to obesity, but can create psychological problems like depression and retardation of social development as well.
I agree that sedentary lifestyle is a crucial factor, together with diet.
When I was a child in the 70s children were allowed to roam the streets in a way that very few do these days. There is no way I would let my six-year old out in that way. Luckily we live in a large gated apartment complex so he can play outside unsupervised, and gets plenty of exercise compared to many of his peers, but leaving the ‘compound’ unaccompanied will not be an option until he is at least 10.
As a kid, I didn’t get FAT until my friend Carolyn moved away.
I spent afternoons (after school) and summer days at my grandma’s house since both my parents worked. Grandma didn’t care too much if I sat around all day. Carolyn’s (who lived a few houses down from her) family was different. They had 8 kids in a tiny 3 bedroom house. If it was remotely decent outside, all kids were kicked outside to play. In the summers, there were a few days where we could stay in the basement when it got too hot and humid (we’re talking above 98 degrees or so with so much humidity that it looked like a jungle) and we could go inside a few minutes at a time to get cold water, etc. But otherwise? OUT THE DOOR. Her parents’ policy extended to where they played, so if I wanted to play with my friend, we had to be outside. Sure, sometimes we just played with Barbies (and ants :)) in the shade, but we’d also randomly walk up and down the street, or ride bikes, or play hide and seek, or kick soccer balls around.
It is so incredibly easy to fall into a sedentary lifestyle. When you feel tired, the last thing you do is want to expend energy. I’ve made myself go to the gym and work out every single lunch hour at work for the past 6 weeks and I have so much freaking energy now, it’s not funny. I’m sitting here at my desk and just wishing I could go on a bike ride, or run a mile or two, or sneak off to the racquetball courts.
Before I did this? I just sat and was tired. I never wanted to do anything.
Kids can fall into the same traps, and the pity is that it’s setting up that lifestyle so early. If you grow up just sitting around the house and playing video games, you don’t really have a basis for comparison to how good actually being active is.
My last job had several very heavy people sigh and say, “God, I’d kill for D’s figure”. D had a smokin body (natural big boobs, flat stomach, nice but smaller hips, very fit). For some reason, they ALWAYS seemed to overlook the fact that D always watched what she ate and was a high school dance team coach, and did hardcore, very active dance routines for 2-3 hours, 4-5 days a week (and ALSO did additional training for that). Meanwhile, the heavier ladies never ever worked out, got Taco Bell or Wendy’s or similar for lunch and dinner every day, and sighed about being fat.
I feel like it’s almost certainly inactivity- fueled by a mix of bad urban planning and irrational fear. Kids rarely walk to school or go outside to play. How long before we give up and admit that our car-obsessed lifestyle is killing us and a good chunk of the planet as well?
I grew up poor (1 of 8 kids) and my parents had money for only the essentials. There was never a lot of junk food in the house. We lived in the country, so no access to fast food and, since the nearest store was over a mile’s walk away, it wasn’t that easy to come across candy, sodas, etc.
My family had gardens and chickens and pigs when I was younger. This meant I grew up eating mostly fresh, orgnic vegetables most of the year, and canned and frozen from the garden in the offseason. Meat was mostly fresh, frozen or homecured. I’ve always loved vegetables and I was never one of those sitcom kids who screwed up his nose at broccoli or spinach. Desserts and candy were an occasion treat.
I also got plenty of excercise because we, too, got kicked out of the house to go and play on any semi-decent days. Living in the country meant there were plenty of woods, ditches, swimming holes and wide open spaces to explore, as well as outdoor games, bike-riding, sports, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all perfect. I grew up eating a southern, soul food type diet, but I think we had a balance. I’ve always eaten that way and it wasn’t a matter of cajoling, being picky or having to adjusted my dietary habits. I learned to eat the way I eat because that was all we had.
I’m not perfect; I love ice cream and snickers bars. But because I love my main course more, I almost never have dessert. I haven’t eaten ice cream in almost two years – not because I’m denying myself. I just enjoy cooking good food and usually when I’ve had my entree, it’s enough. I also haven’t had soda in over 8 years. I haven’t had white bread or white rice in over ten years.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve made adjustments. I don’t eat as much red meat, only once a week (since I work out a lot, I think I need it). Also, I’ve decreased the portions of any lean meat or fish I have. Usually that portion is smaller than any vegetable portion I have on my plate. I also use some processed and prepared foods but in moderation. For instance, I keep a jar of Alfredo sauce (I know, I’m a heathen) handy for when I tired, but when I put it on my shrimp and/or pasta, I use just enough to coat and not to drown the food.
I also exercise regularly. In the gym (weights, cardio equipment, swimming) for “concentrated” workouts. Tennis and soccer for “fun” workouts.
As the question was asked, if I had kids, I’d bring them up living this way (not poor though) and hopefully they’ll benefit from it and pick up on it too.
Most of the kids in my childrens’ (mostly white, mostly middle-to-upper middle class) school are at healthy weights. This includes those who are bused in from less advantaged neighborhoods, so I’m hoping the school is doing something right. They have a reasonably healthy breakfast and lunch program. Kids who are dropped off before class time also have to participate in “running club”–i.e. walking or running around the track until the bell rings. They can choose to have their laps monitored and periodically get distance ribbons and popcicles as rewards. They also have a pretty good PE class and get recess twice a day. (3 times for kids in the afterschool program.)
However, even so, they recently had to send out a memo asking parents to send smaller, healthier snacks for the morning break. Apparently, some were sending multiple course snack food fiestas that took so long to eat the kids didn’t get any play time.
That’s one thing that’s been mentioned that is different from my school days/childhood. It seems like food is constantly being handed out to kids. When I was in school we had lunch and that was it, except for parties. There might be a small snack at home after school and then dinner. Now it seems that kids can’t be expected to make it through a half-hour trip to the grocery store with out something to eat or drink.