Lately I seem to be preoccupied with fitness.  I have upped my workouts to 2 times a day, joined classes, love FIT TV, and now network tv is indulging me once again with the new tv show with Shaq and his challenge on childhood obesity. (Airs Tuesday).  When I taught 6th grade, there were many students who were considered overweight...the cafeteria was filled with chips, pizza, french fries...we had healthy options, but the kids never went for that.  I am really excited to see this show and hope that maybe it will inspire parents of overweight children to change their lifestyles.  Parents model healthy eating and healthy habits for their kids, my heart really goes out to these obese kids, I will be tuning in.

Since I’m not in the US right now I can’t see the show, but lemme share my own childhood experiences.

Growing up I wasn’t obese. I was always the awkward, skinny kid. My elementary school was fortunate to have a very large athletic field that we’d have the opportunity to have a nice long recess after lunch. And we also had PE twice a week. And I was able to participate in youth baseball and basketball. So to say the least I was very active.

At home I had what you could call a mixed diet. I ate a traditional Filipino diet, which is rich in fish, vegetable, and pork, with occasional beef. Sure I ate chips and junk food. And McDonalds or Burger King was just a once a week treat after Church on Sundays, or when I was sick.

The wheels came off the wagon I guess towards late high school, I was earning some of my own money so I could afford fast food more often. And instead of my parents packing my lunch, I’d just buy lunch at school (not the most healthy stuff). And in college, yeah, that’s when it really came off. And it wasn’t for lack of healthy options. Boston College, if any of you ever have a chance to visit the place, runs its own Dining & Concessions. It doesn’t delegate it to Aramarck or Marriott. So they have the chance to serve a wide variety of foods including a lot that’s healthy. I mean, what Northern school would you find serving grits occassionally? (Although 6 years later we ARE an ACC school). But my downfall was in portion size and fast food delivery. Oh boy.

But even then the mere fact that BC was a medium size campus, built on the side of a hill (Chestnut Hill, MA) allowed you to burn a lot of it off.

So habits and obesity formed in childhood really do affect you later in life, no doubt. But even for kids like me that ate ok and were very active, that doesn’t garuntee anything. The fact is, whether you were the skinny or the heavy kid, you still have to follow through later in life with good eating habits and being active.

Raf, that is a great point!!!  Luckily I just commuted in college and didn’t have to deal with the freshman 15...which nowdays I think has turned into the freshman 50.  I saw on Good Morning America that instead of clothes and music/movies, the American teen now spends most of his or her income on Dining Out.  Starbucks (who can blame em’?!) and Sushi round out the top 10 things....it spoke volumes to me.  I like you, only got fast food as a TREAT, whereas my nephews get it about 2-3 times a week!!  I am a true believer that in schools there should be a course on nutrition and fitness, starting off in Elementary schools.  Perhaps that would be a step in the right direction....that and sending their parents to MTM land. lol.

Here here Julie.

I hope to go into Pediatrics in my Post-Graduate Training, so hopefully in that position I’ll be able to influence kids & parents and do what I can to reverse this trend.

Should I not get into Peds, I’ll probably head into Internal Medicine and end up being, in the words of Scott, a “Motivator of Last Resort” Haha.

Seriously though, I’d much rather deal with sick kids & their worried parents than adults. Kids/Parents you can deal with, you just need to assuage the fears of the parents & explain clearly what needs to be done. 9 times out of 10, the parents will listen and there won’t be a recurrence. Adults, however, tend to be set in their ways unless they make the click. A sad example I ran into was the emphysema patient we had who I caught smoking in his hospital bed. (You can say I got really upset at him, especially since he was on high-flow oxygen and could have blown up that wing of the hospital. WITH ME IN IT!)

Hi Julie and Raf!  Glad you mentioned the show.  Did you watch it Julie?  I enjoyed it but was shocked at what I saw.  It made me want to protect my children and whip them into shape.  I guess that was the point of the show.

I watched it Carrie. It was shocking seeing how much those young kids weighted. Shaq is doing a great thing for them. I hope it helps the parents also. Exercise and playing sports is really important when you are a kid or a grown up.  Just by watching last night you can see what happens by sitting in front of the tv or a video game.

It was a great show. I have to say that I was very impressed with Shaq.

We’re already pretty good about emphasizing nutrition and exercise in our home, and this show reinforced that.

Any one catch this week’s show??? Really struck a cord on how all of us are just grown up versions (in varying degrees) of these kids, starting our journeys with fears and anxiety....look how we all pushed through that!!!!  It was really great to see how the kids bonded and accepted each other...WHAT A GREAT SHOW!!!!!!

I agree. I’m really liking this show a lot.