Unhealthy dietary influences are a great factor in the growth of childhood obesity. Portion sizes of food and soft drinks served at fast food restaurants are somewhat at fault for this epidemic. Portion sizes have greatly expanded; McDonald’s French fries were originally sold in two-ounce portions. Today’s “super size” fries are nearly seven ounces. Eight ounces was the original size of a vending machine Coke; this has expanded to twenty ounces (Mrdjenovic, Gordana, “Nutritional and energetic consequences of sweetened drink consuming in 6 to 13 year-old children,” The Journal of Pediatrics, 2003, p. 605).

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Steroids and our children are becoming tightly linked through our sports and recreation programs. This is not to say that all programs promote and participate in this venue but the facts are starting to come out and more and more children from Middle School to High School age are experimenting with steroids. We can look the other way as a society or we can do what some of the professional sports leagues have taken on. Educating the victims, yes the victims. Athletes at all levels suffer from the kid next store or the top ranked individual they must target to replace. Pro sports teams are moving in an educational training direction and our schools can

benefit from lessons learned here to implement similar programs perhaps. Start administering education in the classroom. Think about it, if we took 15 minutes of each gym period for our children and discussed a topic like the effects of steroids on the body we might just turn this category of a nightmare into a success story. Our children, thanks in large part to the 24 hour media society we now live in, are constantly reminded of the polished professional athlete. We market to them constantly as we show off the top performing individuals and colleges. In my area we even promote the local area High School Sports on their own television show. So the kids are in constant reminder of who the best athletes are and how this one and that one are going to USC, CAL, Ohio State etc. There is a price to pay here folks and we can do something about it.

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A couple of years ago I realized that my weight kept gradually going up.

I didn t really know what to do about it. All I knew was I didn t want it to keep going up.

It alarmed me.

I thought about what I would like to weigh. What was my ideal weight? I wasn t sure, and I m still not, but I remembered thinking that I wanted to weigh what it said on my driver s license. Though it wasn t my true weight, it was what I wished I weighed!

Like you, I had heard of different diets, what you should eat, what you shouldn t eat, the ultimate exercise programs, etc.

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Regular physical activity provides greater protection from disease and disability than anything medical science has to offer. If exercise was a pill, it would be the most widely prescribed drug with the most varied benefits upon all aspects of health. –Dr. Walter Bortz, Stanford Medical School

If you don t make the time for physical activity you will be making time for sickness and disease. Dottie Drake, R.N. has created an exercise program geared specifically for folks over 40. It s called The Miracles Program and it s amazingly simple. Dottie doesn t offer an elaborate diet plan. Rather, here is her philosophy about eating: don t eat so much. Whatever

grows in the ground, eat as much as you want. For everything else, cut your portions in half. Dottie s exercise program is equally simple. There are six movements we must do daily to make sure we re getting the full benefit of a decent workout. All good physical exercise programs are basically the same: cardiovascular exercise to warm up the body, and then strengthening through weight training.

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Regular physical activity provides greater protection from disease and disability than anything medical science has to offer. If exercise was a pill, it would be the most widely prescribed drug with the most varied benefits upon all aspects of health. –Dr. Walter Bortz, Stanford Medical School

If you don t make the time for physical activity you will be making time for sickness and disease. Dottie Drake, R.N. has created an exercise program geared specifically for folks over 40. It s called The Miracles Program and it s amazingly simple. Dottie doesn t offer an elaborate diet plan. Rather, here is her philosophy about eating: don t eat so much. Whatever

grows in the ground, eat as much as you want. For everything else, cut your portions in half. Dottie s exercise program is equally simple. There are six movements we must do daily to make sure we re getting the full benefit of a decent workout. All good physical exercise programs are basically the same: cardiovascular exercise to warm up the body, and then strengthening through weight training.

(more…)