If you are consistent, you will soon notice one of the first advantages of aerobic exercise, an overall boost in energy level. Typical cardio exercise causes this to happen because the body will adapt to cope with the added strenuous physical activity. You will be gratified to see that you will tire less and at the exact same time, you are able to expend far more physical effort.

Aaaaagh!

My little Johnny is fat, lazy, and stupid.

It must be the fault of (pick one):

A) the teachers
B) the government
C) his environment
D) my parents
E) my wife's parents
F) all of you
G) the FDA
H) Frito Lay
I) Pepsico

Who, oh who, shall I sue?

It is a simple equation: Kids sit on thier butts and play video games or do other work on the PC, and they will get fat regardless of diet. Add a lousy diet, and they will get obese.

Next question?

Not that I do not feel two factors are parents & schools, but everyone should consider other factors as well. Very rarely is anything in life so simple and there is no magic bullet. You may have good choices to eat at home & your children do know better, but then they go to a friend's house after school when you are home or perhaps when you are still at work and they eat with their friends eat. (Think that pizza puff commercial!) What are the choices at the mall general food area? What are the choices at the movie theater, pool ETC!

Think of what is cheap to feed your family. I remember someone once comparing the poor in America to other countries. The poor here are obese and the poor elsewhere are certainly not. Why is this? Because what is cheap is boxes of Ramen noodles, Mac & Cheese, cheeseburgers from various fast foods! How much is a can of pop vs a bottle of water if you just run to get one quickly? Thihnk about the "value meals" if you do go fast good. You either have to pay more for less food or you get a value meal which is cheaper but you get more food, so your options are to eat it, not good for you, or you waste it if you don't and this is not good either considering so many are hungry on our planet and waste areas etc!!!

Next, make sure that everyone checks your whole family for Vitamin D deficiency. 3/4 are low, even children. It is not just something you should wait until you get some broken bonese or muscle tears. It reduces your energy. Now wonder why they do not want to go outside and play? See, as they play more video games they are outside less so then less D. In addition, it may have nothing to do with how much they are outside or how much milk they drink. There are many other factors which can reduce the metabolism of vitmain D. There are just unique individual ranges where people do not metabolize like "the norm" and quite frankly with the normal range being between 30-80, doctors are just "you are in normal range" when maybe you need to be up in higher normal range!

I've already had someone come back to me telling me their 14 yr old has osteomalacia (softening of the bones) from low D after getting her family checked after I mentioned it. Adults after treatment are losing quite a bit of weight & say they have not felt this good in 10 yrs. Well, ya you have more energy and don't hurt when you work out. And as you know as you workout you get more energy, sleep better, muscles are stronger so they don't tear etc. We say we want to bottle kids energy...well it may be as simple as raising your vitamin D. No, this is not an infomercial! HA!

If you have obese children and you try to get them to go out and play and they say, "I'm tired" or "I hurt" well it certainly can be from not being active for quite sometime, but it also may be their Vitamin D is low (B-12 is another!). Their muscles may spasm or get knots or swell because they do not have the energy. They may get just even stress fractures which can still be quite painful, as anyone who has gotten one will know. They may not be sleeping well so then their energy is going to be a problem. Hmmm, then how well will they be listening in school or energy to do homework????

What makes it worse is the doctors are not up to speed on it. Every doctor knows some pieces about it. D2 is not as soluable as D3. Vitamin D effects everything...allergies, diabetes, migraines, sleep etc. It also influences your Calcium and Magnesium levels! Do your research because many of the docs don't do it! It is starting to be part of some doctor's routine yearly wellness tests, but not all. And we know not all children in America get to see a doctor each year for a wellness check. Please pass this along also, it is amazing how much you can make an impact on someone's life!!

As a shareholder in several fast food corporations and food processors. Children should eat even more, the bottom line needs to look healthy.

Just returned from a long trip.

What I observed were parents giving obese kids sodas and donuts, pre or post fast food for meals.

Why not allow insurance companies to bill more for obese customers? Oh I forgot, everyone is a victim. In this case it is the kids that are the victims of the parents.

Maybe the new, unelected, national health board appointed by the President will draft rules (laws that aren't voted on by Congress) that will require medical workers to inspect our homes and kids to hold down national health costs.

Anonymous on August 17, 2010 8:28 PM:

What an absolutely FUN idea! I have never heard of geocaching until your post. I went to the website and checked it out and showed it to my husband. We're going to give it a shot. Thanks for the tip!

Schools should be providing healthier lunches, at least in those schools that have hot lunches or free bag lunches for the kids who qualify. Otherwise it is the parents' responsibility to feed their kids healthier foods. We have to stop buying so many packaged foods and provide more fresh fruits and vegetables for our kids.

Parents should also take time to be more active with their kids: go on bike rides, hike through a forest preserve or state park, play catch. In this day and age, it is not as easy to just send your kid outside to play in the summer in some neighborhoods. So we have to be involved in the activity with them.

One thing we enjoy doing with our kids is geocaching (www.geocaching.com). As a family, we can hunt out these hidden containers with our kids using our GPS. (Trust me it helps sometimes to have someone along who is a bit lower to the ground to find some of them.) We often download the coordinates and then bike ride to find them. Sometimes we drive to a park that has a bunch and spend the day hunting them through the park. We have even done this in other states while on vacation. It is much easier to get the kids willing to hike if they know they can have a little friendly competition to see who can find the geocache first. It has also taken us to some parks and neighborhoods we might not have explored or ever visited otherwise. One we went to in Mokena was a blast. The park had paddle boats to rent and we ended up spending some time out on the pond in those while we were there. We NEVER would have gone to that park had there not been a geocache there on our way to visit family downstate.

It is a problem that needs to be spearheaded by parents. Parents are the ones who should be intervening in every kid issue.