For our kids

My cycling adventure to benefit Children’s Hospital in Colorado has made me think a lot about health and exercise.  On the plane home I had the difficult experience of having to raise the arm rest to share a quarter of my seat with the person sitting next to me because their own seat was too small.  Everyday we are all reminded in little ways about how important it is to keep ourselves active and our food intake sane.  Oddly enough technology, that giver of economic growth and life saving power, also presents the greatest obstacle to maintaining a healthy, active lifestyle.  Instant gratification, a tool for every task that minimizes our physical work plus that mesmerizing flow of information and games at our finger tips all conspire to undercut our efforts to keep our bodies healthy.  I feel the pull constantly myself as my son (waiting to go on a bike ride with me) groans…”Mom!  not another e-mail!”  I know it is a tall order, but we must overcome that pull for ourselves and even more important, for our children.

Last year, The First Lady launched her “Let’s Move” campaign to raise awareness about childhood obesity with really good information and recommendations to start working to stave off obesity and get back on a healthy track that you can access at:   http://www.letsmove.gov/about .  

At Idaho Voices for Children, we are taking up childhood obesity as one of our top priorities.  I’ll keep you posted on our efforts, but just to start you thinking…did you know:

·         One in three children in America is overweight or obese

·         Evidence indicates that there is a correlation between childhood obesity and family obesity. If both parents are overweight, a child’s likelihood of being overweight increases by 60-80 percent. The chance of an obese child growing into an obese adult is about 70 percent.

·         The New England Journal of Medicine tracked thousands of children through childhood and found the heaviest youngsters were more than twice as likely to die prematurely, before age 55, of illness or a self-inflicted injury.

·         Data from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry shows the indirect costs of obesity, such as days missed from work and future earnings loss, are estimated at more than $56 billion annually. Children treated for obesity are nearly three times more expensive for the health care system than children of normal weight. And it is a fact that severely overweight people spend more on health care than smokers.

Shocking, sad, upsetting and criminal.  Think about what you can do to make a difference in your community and make it a priority to at least influence one life.  We need everyone to help solve this massive problem.