American Youth Overweight and Diabetic

American Youth Obese and Diabetic
David Kleiman
DeVry University

INDEX
PAGE1: Title page with author and Date of creation
Page 2.; Index
Pages 3-4: Outline
Page 5: Thesis Statement in the first paragraph
Pages 5-7: Body
Page 8: First graph depicting: Calories Available Per Capita Per day (This chart shows the difference in caloric consumption daily for the period 1970-2010).
Page 9: Second Graph depicting: Calories Available Per Capita Per day (This chart shows the difference in caloric consumption daily for the period 1970-2010 but breaks the information down into the specific food groups in which the calories came from.).
Page 10: Chart 3 depicting: The Proportion of overweight children ages 6-19 for the period 1963-2010
Pages 11-12: Body
Page 12: Conclusion Call To Action
Page 13 References

OUTLINE I. Thesis Statement:There is neither a stable nutrition plan nor an established physical fitness regime in our youth’s curriculum and this lack is greatly affecting our youth’s quality of life and even killing some. Bringing back good nutritional education, along with structured recesses and imposing a physical fitness requirement through grade 12 needs to be reestablished in the public school system. A. .Positive reason: One of the main reasons for good nutrition not being taught in our schools anymore, is simply that we as a nation are unable to come to an agreement as to what good nutrition actually is. B. Positive Solution : We must come together as a Nation and make a decision as to what is acceptable. If we cannot come to agreement as a nation concerned about the rising rates of childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes and we do not take a stand against this, then how can we expect our public schools to enforce it in the curriculum? C. Positive reason: The public schools used to have televisions in almost every classroom and often would show the science channels that discussed good health and good nutrition. Slowly but steadily these shows began creating such a controversy that confusion was being instilled amongst the students and teachers D. Debates on nutrition and physical fitness were on the rise in Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meetings. Bickering became violent outburst and nasty fights The schools were left with no other recourse than to withdraw nutritional education entirely. II. Indecision is leaving our children to face a cruel and horrible future. A. Negative problem: “For many people, the subject of good nutrition is a maze of conflicting advice. Even the experts can’t agree on much, which leads many people to simply give up and eat whatever they like”.(Berndin03/13/2013) B. Negative solution: It is no wonder they are dying, their being left to supply their own nutrition. Often they are met with the attitude that proclaims if they want to be active let them join a sports team it is not the public schools problems anymore. These kids are our children and the future of this world; they most certainly are everyone’s problem including the public school system. C. Negative problem: There has been a steady rise in the amount of juvenile diabetes cases and deaths as a result of complications from extreme obesity related ailments and disorders in the past 40 years
.
D. Call to action: While writing this paper three things substantially stood out that we as a nation of concerned parents can do that will make a drastic change in the future of our kids and our nation
1. The parents must first be aware there are problems of epidemic proportions and that there are also some solutions.
2.The parents must get involved actively in the solutions available and fight as if their children’s lives depend on it because they do.
3.You must speak up and be heard. You must attend meeting and vote affirmatively when available and always as often as permitted

.
American Youth Obese and Diabetic
There is neither a stable nutrition plan nor an established physical fitness regime in our youth’s curriculum and this lack is greatly affecting our youth’s quality of life and even killing some. Bringing back good nutritional education, along with structured recesses and imposing a physical fitness requirement through grade 12 needs to be reestablished in the public school system.
One of the main reasons for good nutrition not being taught in our schools anymore, is simply that we as a nation are unable to come to an agreement as to what good nutrition actually is. In an article titled This Just In: Practitioners Can’t agree on Nutrition-and Other Impressions from Exchange 2011, Dr. John Gannage MD states ”Nutrition has been debated since at least 8000BC and it will be debated for the next 10,000 years”. Dr. Gannage was at a meeting where the general audience was made up mainly of top health nutritionist and leading doctors of health science. Upon the surmise of the meeting Dr. Gannage states “The Audience of PRACTITIONERS was left fired up, some dazed and confused-imagine how the public must feel”. (Gannage 2011)
If we cannot come to agreement as a nation concerned about the rising rates of childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes and we do not take a stand against this, then how can we expect our public schools to enforce it in the curriculum? Our government is not going to want to invest in the time or effort it is going to take to re-insert something back into the education system that is both showing to be unstable and undecided. Our children are growing obese at record numbers and this is triggering long term diabetes to people who have only begun to live their lives.
These young kids now will spend the rest of their lives with a disease that will rob and steal from them every single day that they are alive.
In the past our public school system made big strides to ensure the health of our kids. It was not until the past 10 years that the public school system retracted their obligation to assume the role and shut down almost to extinction public health instructors and athletic coaches in elementary schools. With the nuisances of major debates as to what is good health and nutrition being on the hot seat everywhere, indecision is seen in almost every home on a daily basis. The public schools used to have televisions in almost every classroom and often would show the science channels that discussed good health and good nutrition. Slowly but steadily these shows began creating such a controversy that confusion was being instilled amongst the students and teachers. This confusion was partially responsible for creating far too many negatives in our public school system. Debates on nutrition and physical fitness were on the rise in Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meetings. Bickering became violent outburst and nasty fights The schools were left with no other recourse than to withdraw nutritional education entirely.
Indecision is leaving our children to face a cruel and horrible future. A young nutritionist named Alendra Berlin earned her degree in Dietetics and Humane Nutrition from McGill University has written such a profound statement that it simply needs to be heard. “For many people, the subject of good nutrition is a maze of conflicting advice. Even the experts can’t agree on much, which leads many people to simply give up and eat whatever they like”.(Berndin 03/13/2013). It is this very attitude seen right here that is responsible for public schools partially contributing to the killing our young kids and pre-adolescents. It is no wonder they are dying, their being left to supply their own nutrition. Often they are met with the attitude that proclaims if they want to be active let them join a sports team it is not the public schools problems anymore. These kids are our children and the future of this world; they most certainly are everyone’s problem including the public school system.
While using DeVry’s Online Library, I found an an article on EBSCO-host that had this to say” There is plenty of evidence that physical activity helps children to learn better, but
I am not confident that this evidence is enough to turn educational policy around. One reason is that, at least in the United States, the federal No Child Left Behind Act does not require students to meet minimum physical-fitness standards, as it does for reading and mathematics.
Children’s lack of fitness today is a big issue today. Presently our schools’ physical-education programs provide inadequate amounts of physical activity for good health, and more kids rely on motorized transport rather than walking or biking to school. If incidence of childhood obesity and diabetes continues to increase, as some dire predictions suggest, then significant numbers of tomorrow’s working-age adults will not be fit and will have limited ability to become fit”.( Harris,K.W. Jan/Feb 2009 )

The American Heart Association/The American Stroke Administration reported in a recent study” Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Approximately one out of every six children and adolescents ages six to 19 are obese”.(AHA/ASA 2013) There has been a steady rise in the amount of juvenile diabetes cases and deaths as a result of complications from extreme obesity related ailments and disorders in the past 40 years. The American Heart Association list one of the main contributors to this rise is the amount of calories the average American consumes on a daily basis has increased drastically as evidenced by the chart below.

+Marc R. aka Mental Masala http://www.ethicurean.com/2008/08/10/usda-calorie-data/
The Ethicurean chew the right thing 10 August 2008

This chart below also shows the average human being has been steadily increasing the amount of calories they consume per capita per day. This chart though it is similar in concept, breaks the calories down in to food groups so you can specifically see what types of foods are actually contributing to diabetes the most. It is this increase in calories coupled with a decrease in structure physical activity, that produces the conditions of both obesity and its off shoot inherit condition diabetes.

+Marc R. aka Mental Masala http://www.ethicurean.com/2008/08/10/usda-calorie-data/
The Ethicurean chew the right thing 10 August 2008

Examine if you will the basic consumption of the same foods 40 years ago as depicted in the chart above, we did not eat different foods we simply ate healthier amounts. In 1970’s you could see a food pyramid chart in almost every public elementary school. Food nutrition was taught often and continually and school cafeterias served an approved healthy meal under strict government rules that were scrutinized with heavy penalties for failure to comply. School days in the 70’s were generally 8 hours long and broke down as follows. After two hours of classroom time a 15 minute recess was required that emphasized the students engaging in physical activity. At approximately two more hours pass or around12:00 noon an affordable meal that met the predetermined healthy guidelines was served. Around 1:30 pm or 2:00 depending on your grade in school, a one hour physical fitness class was both required and mandatory. The physical fitness was supervised by a coach who ensured each and every student participated in at least 1 hour of calisthenics (exercise) and usually some sports game activity such as softball, basketball, soccer, or kickball.

The chart below shows statistics that this type of activity resulted in far fewer cases of obesity. Since obesity and inactivity go hand in hand we can presume that we also had less adolescent diabetes cases as well. It also shows that a lack of physical activity has been partially responsible for an increase in epidemic obesity proportions which we now know greatly contribute to adolescent diabetes.

The Role of Media –in- Childhood Obesity http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/The-Role-of-Media-in-Children.

‘As these children grow older, they have a much greater risk than their healthy weight peers of developing and dying from chronic diseases in their adulthood”(AHA/ASA 2013)

By now after reading up to this point if you were not already aware of the fact that cases of childhood obesity and adolescent diabetes have grown to epidemic proportions you should realize this now. There is a way to greatly slow this epidemic down but it requires parents getting involved. This is in no way an on-looker sidelines solution. It took time to turn this problem into an epidemic catastrophe and it will take time to reverse it back to where our children have healthier brighter fuller lives. While writing this paper three things substantially stood out that we as a nation of concerned parents can do that will make a drastic change in the future of our kids and our nation. 1. The parents must first be aware there are problems of epidemic proportions and that there are also some solutions. 2. The parents must get involved actively in the solutions available and fight as if their children’s lives depend on it because they do. 3. You must speak up and be heard. You must attend meeting and vote affirmatively when available and always as often as permitted
.
Our First Lady Michelle Obama started a program known as Let’s Move Back. The program is focused on bringing back good nutrition and physical fitness in every school in our nation. Here are just a few of her statements. “
“When we are talking about the health and well-being of our children, when we’re talking about our children’s futures, we have to be ambitious about it. We don 't have a choice.”(Obama 2012)
“And we’re beginning to better understand the magnitude of this crisis. We’re seeing it all over. Everyone is talking about it now. And we know the threat that it poses to the health of our children. So it’s simply not enough to solve this problem halfway or to do it incrementally. This is a national problem and it’s affecting every single child in every single community in this country.”(Obama 2012)
“There are 31 million American children who participate in the federal school lunch program; 11 million are part of the school breakfast program. So many of these kids consume up to half of their daily calories while at school. The nutrition education they get at schools sometimes might be the only guidance they get on making healthy decisions about what they eat”(Obama 2012).
This article was absolutely incredible so here is the link if you are interested in seeing all of it.
. http://www.letsmove.gov/blog/2010/09/08/lets-move-back-school As big as the epidemics of obesity and diabetes are: there is another even faster growing epidemic: “the solution’. Far too many to list are the groups and organizations dedicated fulltime towards stopping this run away epidemic right in its tracks. In an effort to get you started and maybe get you up off the couch and involved here’s some good ones:
The Healthier U.S. Schools Challenge, Let’s Move Back, The American Heart Association, The Center for Disease Control, The National Dairy Council, SDSU The School of Exercise &Nutritional Science
My favorite is this site because it really has so many ways to get both parents and students actively involved. CANFIT Active8 this is an 8 step program you can download and use to get your kids and your community happy active and healthy. We have been shown some evidence of what happens when nobody does anything including our school system. Some of us may even be able to observe this problem firsthand. It is not just going to go away. Some of our officials seem to think it is not worth investing our nation’s funds on this problem. The public school system is where most of our children spend a minimum of 6-8 hours daily. We all know that most childhood activities these days involves primarily thumb exercises so on every fat child you should be able to find thin thumbs. Let’s face it you may have just had a little laugh but people this is no laughing matter. Our kids are showing up in hospitals, pharmacies, and yes even in graves faster than ever before. In the past school was where kids and young adults got most of their physical activity. Now that schools no longer provide for this our kids do not get enough of it and it is killing them plain and simple. Bring back Physical Fitness and good healthy nutrition classes incorporate a structured healthy nutritional meal program and watch us as a Nation reclaim our healthy kids.

REFERENCES

Facts Learning For Life Physical Education In Public Schools
The American Heart association/The American stroke Administration

http://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@adv/documents/downloadable/ucm_304865.pdf
AHA/HPFS /2/2012
American Heart Association. (Feb, 2012). Facts learning for life physical education in public schools. Retrieved from http://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@adv/documents/downloadable/ucm_304865.pdf
This Just In: Practitioners Can 't Agree on Nutrition - and Other Impressions from Exchange2011 by Dr. John Gannage, MD http://www.integrative-medicine.ca/1/post/2011/11/this-just-in-practitioners-cant-agree-on-nutrition-and-other-impressions-from-exchange2011.html Bernrdin, A. Nutrition Myths You Need to Stop Believing by (03/13/2013), http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/PrinterFriendly.aspx?ID=985&lang=EN Marc,R. Chew the right thing. The Ethicurean (10 August 2008)
Marc R. aka Mental Masala http://www.ethicurean.com/2008/08/10/usda-calorie-data/

The Role of Media –in- Childhood Obesity http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/The-Role-of-Media-in-Children

Harris,K.W. (Jan?Feb 2009). Why Education Must Get Physical. The Futurist 43/1 30-32 3p.
2 Black and White Photographs ( found using EBSCO host through DeVry Library Online source).

References: A. Negative problem: “For many people, the subject of good nutrition is a maze of conflicting advice. Even the experts can’t agree on much, which leads many people to simply give up and eat whatever they like”.(Berndin03/13/2013) B Bernrdin, A. Nutrition Myths You Need to Stop Believing by (03/13/2013), http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/PrinterFriendly.aspx?ID=985&lang=EN Marc,R. Chew the right thing. The Ethicurean (10 August 2008) Marc R