I was listening to the radio this morning and there was an announcement made regarding the nation's childhood obesity. They stated that childhood obesity is the worst ever and that this could ultimately effect our national security. I found an article, although i'm not sure what the radio station's resource was since they gave a little more information: http://topnews.us/content/217644-retired-officials-tag-school-lunches-threat-national-security. This article specifically targets school lunches as being a culprit. According to the radion station, the correlation for childhood obesity and national security is that those who apply for the military may not be accepted by the military because they are too obese. I immediately was speechless, but then a number of things began floating through my brain:
1. The purpose of boot camp is to condition them to the standards of the military. So... get them in there and kick their butts!
2. My sister was in boot camp, and did her advanced training already, and I couldn't BELIEVE some of the things she said were on the menu, and how they wanted them to eat. Obviously, just like there needs to be in schools (http://www.jamieoliver.com/), there needs to be an abundance of nutritious choices in the military too! C'mon now, it can't all be about going cheap....
3. WE need to watch what WE are eating (Yes, i'm guility I had a cupcake this morning....) because if we overeat, overeat the wrong things, and continue to overeat that is what our children, family members, etc. are learning. I must admit that I love the Jamie Oliver show (link above) and his whole intention on recreating a better, healthy school lunch. He's trying to get us to stop eating so much fast food, and make food at home. (Thanks to Ms. Jen at Team Xtreme check out this website for some GREAT recipes: http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/) Granted, some of the things we may make at home CAN be just as bad, but these are choices that need to be made. You make the choice of if you eat the vegetables or if you consume fried fast foods; if you eat a piece of chicken or a fried piece of whatever meat; if you eat ice cream or yogurt.....
Obviously, i'm not saying that we need to always be perfect. If you exclude items from your diet that you find you crave certainly try to find the better solution and consume it moderately--just a bit, just one, etc. Try not to over-indulge. 3,500 calories does equal 1 pound of fat, but in order to get rid of it you need to revise, revisit, and refine your diet overall. :) Here's a short article from ACE http://www.acefitness.org/fitfacts/pdfs/fitfacts/itemid_2672.pdf
What are your thoughts, comments, suggestions, tips?
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