A Weighty Issue

Yesterday evening, while waiting for a friend at a convenience store, I saw a rotund woman with an equally rotund 10-year-old boy. That brought to mind a newspaper or magazine article I read some time ago (probably several years) that stated New Mexicans, on average, are the thinnest U.S. citizens.

Wow! If that's true, I feel sorry for the rest of the country. I see plenty of overweight people in New Mexico. Obviously, the mother and son aren't going hungry. Nor am I, for that matter, but I am far from round, and I am working to slim down. (I wonder what Alaskans eat.)

The son in particular is an excellent example of the increasing occurrence of childhood obesity in the U.S. When I was a child, there was no more than one "fat kid" in the grade. Now there are a lot of overweight kids, or at least the media say so.

I see three contributing factors. 1) Parents indulge their children's wishes. 2) There are snack machines in schools. 3) Children sit and play video games rather than go outside to play kickball, Wiffle ball, or touch football (the three most popular games in my neighborhood) with their friends.

Here are my explanations.
1) Parents spoil their children by purchasing what their offspring see on commercials, and also by allowing the children to consume in excess, or by being absent and not monitoring the child's behavior (latchkey kids).
2) When I was growing up, the only snack machines in schools were the ice cream dispensers in the high school cafeteria, and teenagers ate the ice cream only for dessert after lunch. Then, when I entered high school, there was commotion about the proposed drink vending machine. The concession (pun!) was that it was stocked with only Hi-C (supposedly nutritious, and not soda), and it was locked in an office and made accessible only before and after school hours. (Since my bus didn't drop me off at school until minutes before homeroom, and after school I had to scramble not to miss the bus or to get to band practice, I didn't understand how other kids had the time to buy a Hi-C in the first place.)
3) Granted, home video games just came out in my youth (Pong, then the Atari 2600), so one could argue that we ran around because we had to, but just because video games exist doesn't mean that you have to buy them. (Plenty of people don't buy books, and they've been around for centuries.)

Here are my solutions.
1) Buy your children everything they need, but only some of what they want. Then stick around to teach them proper habits and to oversee those habits.
2) Take the machines out of the schools, period. School systems (or food service contractors) have been providing nutritious, well-balanced lunches for decades. Don't screw that up.
3) Balance your child's time between work and play, and balance the types of play (exercise, reading, board games, video games, etc.).

Who am I, a single man with no children, to tell others what to do? I am an independent, unbiased, dispassionate observer. I can see and analyze multiple viewpoints -- exactly because I have no children. (Although, if my friend who is a high school principal, and has been an elementary and jr. high school principal as well, sees this, I'd love for him to contribute the educator's perspective.)

Let's save solving the rest of our country's problems for another day.