So much of our health is determined by our daily habits, both good and bad, and those routines begin when we are very very young. “Comb your hair, brush your teeth, be polite” – you remember. It’s one thing not to take great care of yourself, but most of us would never want anything less than the best for our children. Yet we see more and more of our young people heading rapidly down the wrong path, with danger signs everywhere.
Every recent study and survey documents that our children are slower, fatter, and weaker than prior generations. If you consider risk factors for certain diseases, you can even say that they are ‘sicker’. 15 to 25% are overweight and the number of kids considered morbidly obese has risen dramatically. Those early excess pounds usually become a lifetime challenge. Three out of four overweight teenagers will become overweight adults. “Generation XL”, here they come. There are also more and more children with diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other coronary heart disease risk factors. They are much less active, more sedentary, spending much more time in front of the TV, video games and the computer than at the playground or on the ball field. Daily physical education is no longer mandated in most schools. A recent study in California showed that nearly 1 million children (75% of students in grades 5, 7, and 9) failed to meet 6 basic fitness standards and over 30% of children in each grade had an unhealthy amount of body fat.
