Are Kids Down for the Count? Kids Health in 2022
January 08, 2022
1 in 5
1 in 5 Kids are Obese (that's 20%).
By the time they reach adulthood, those numbers are much worse - as you probably know, by looking around at the US adult population.
In a recent report by the CDC, they highlight how Obesity has been one of the greatest risk factors for kids hospitalized for Covid-19 (as it has been with adults too).
I cannot emphasize enough… how important it is to support our children through all stages of life and learning – mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, environmentally, academically, and yes of course physically.
Should we stigmatize children who battle with obesity, no.
Should we stigmatize adults, no.
Should we feel compelled to help them thrive and flourish to live a long and happy life, ABSOLUTELY. So why don’t we?
Why do we line up our kids in front of screens and screens, outsourcing our responsibilities for hysterical media, movies, music, and more which further promote mental health issues as well as sedentary lifestyles.
The news, sports, and pharmaceutical companies that show us ads on TV sure don’t help anything when it comes to highlighting healthy foods, do they?
1 in 3
1 in 3 kiddos today is expected to experience some degree of diabetes within their lifetime
Salt, Sugar, Colors, Alcohol, Sweets. Ultra-processed food products with ingredients often banned in countries around the world. We feed our children plastics and petroleum.
I’m not kidding or joking and I’m not lying – but I wish I was.
This is no laughing matter.
The sugary beverages, the fanciful sugary cereal characters, the sports professionals getting paid millions to line up next to sweets and desserts they themselves would never touch to remain at their high level of professional performance… while millions of more kiddos continue to associate terrible food products with money, success, fitness, social class, race, power, wealth, creativity, and other facades and pseudonyms.
Do we really expect our kids to live happy healthy lives when we have the apathetic audacity to let their lives dwindle and crumble right in front of us? I’m not asking you to be worried or to gasp that ever so common much needed breath of fresh air, I’m just asking you to care enough to say no and to stand up for what we know to be true.
The issues behind what leads to obesity are many, and I’m not suggesting obesity is the problem; obesity is just an external sign of physiological dysfunctions within the human body and how it interacts in its environments. For example, more screen time = poor sleep and poor mental health = poor emotional health = poor physical health. I could go on and on, but I’m sure you understand.
Lifestyle is the key, and it is also the cause for concern.
Kids Mental Health | Stability | Support
I've said it once, I'll say it again.
We need to stick up and speak up for our kiddos.
Declaration of a National Emergency in Child and Adolescent Mental Health - link
The pandemic has intensified this crisis: across the country we have witnessed dramatic increases in Emergency Department visits for all mental health emergencies including suspected suicide attempts.
We are caring for young people with soaring rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, loneliness, and suicidality that will have lasting impacts on them, their families, and their communities.
As a society, we often throw in the towel once we open our eyes to downstream effects far too late in the game. Can we not rise up to wake up and throw our arms a bit upstream to promote prevention and health before things get out of hand?
I beg you to take a chance – on yourself first of all and on your family and on your kids.
Our current ties of fright and fear will come and go, but issues that lead to poor health and despair will not.
The signs are clear that over the last 2 years, people’s health has substantially worsened, which is understandable considering the situations people have been given.
Stuck at home, left to their own devices alongside highly available, highly addictive, ultra-processed foods and other substances that encourage abuse, misuse, and distract us from the beautiful creatures of creation we were designed to be.
Your health is in your hands and no one else’s. Your health is yours for the taking. Our kiddos on the other hand, have to depend on us – their little hands literally have to depend on our hands to help them get to where they need to go in life, to help show them the way at the very least.
If the last 2 years have taught us anything it is how quickly and how easily can something ruse our population and humanity towards complete deconstruction of the human design and the sacredness of the family structure. My friends, it’s time to wake up from our slumber.
Kids deserve a fighting chance and they don’t often have a clue about how the world works, how they are being manipulated, marketed to, and taken advantage of by others. And if you’re not willing to wake up and speak up on behalf of our kids, then I guess they are a lost cause and will continue to lead lives less healthy than their parents, living sicker, with more illness and disease than we already are faced with.
Clearly we have a problem on our hands, yet people in powerful seats often encourage the use of technological solutions, limiting social engagements, time in nature, and freedoms to develop naturally as a natural human being and beautiful creation on this planet.
I for one believe kids deserve a chance to learn how to live a naturally beautiful and thriving life. It’s okay if you disagree with me. I’m not here to argue with anyone, I’m only here to help fight for solutions and help shine a light on conversations we don’t often get enough time to talk about together.
So, tell me what you think. What does your family do to stay healthy, to limit screen time, to showcase and highlight the beauty of the great outdoors, to promote healthy eating, sleeping, moving, and connecting with others?
Obesity is just outward sign of a life misaligned. Many people, including kids are also very unhealthy and battling sickness and disease at “normal” weights and BMIs.
Kids mental health issues of depression, anxiety, thoughts of self-harm and even suicide among many other conditions and difficult experiences are simply symptoms of larger, deeper issues that spawn once a body, brain and biology are misaligned from their intentional design.
Would you use a baseball on the tennis court?
How about a football on the baseball field?
Would you use a straw to eat spaghetti?
Would you use a spoon to eat pizza?
Would you put your reading glasses over your big toes to help you see?
There are certainly specific things in our world that would seem absurd enough for us to stop doing or stand up to say “hey, this isn’t the best way for us to do this,” yet it seems at many times we shy away from speaking up maybe due in part to what we know to be the common bystander effect.
Bystander Effect - the inhibiting influence of the presence of others on a person’s willingness to help someone in need.
You know the old story of how no one steps in to help the poor man on the street because NO ONE else steps in to help the poor man on the street.
Don’t you think it’s time for us to have a voice instead of the stunning silence and shunning sheer apathetic apologies we are bound to endure in coming years?
My point is not to focus solely on obesity or mental health in my account today, but rather to help us realize something deeper and much more meaningful we should stand up for and believe in – that is each other.
When I meet with kids and family members, the signs are often very similar - misaligned brain, body, biology at home, school, and play and thus issues always arise. How ‘bout we do something for prevention instead of waiting for poor childhood mental or physical health to lead to insomnia, adolescent substance use, misuse, and often overt abuse as well as drug addictions, further concerns for self-harm, shame, guilt, and loss of quality of life years.
I’m tired of silence over issues that should matter more to us, so I needed to give us time and space to have this conversation, thank you for bearing with us through this difficult to face topic. I send you out with courage, encouragement, and enticement to prod your own inclinations for indignations that I believe are sacred values we should stand for as a people, a community, and a species overall for goodness sakes, let alone the moral case for these concerns.
May God Bless You and Lead You in Your Happiest, Healthiest, most well-supported futures full of love and grace, freedom and opportunities to thrive and flourish with those you care about most.
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Clips and Clippings for additional reading and watching and listening:
Kids are back in school — and struggling with mental health issues - NPR story
Declaration of a National Emergency in Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Children’s Health and Covid Hospitalizations - CDC document
Is Obesity to Blame? News Brief - video
Coca-Cola Company 2020 BESG reports - PDF
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