I just read this article that talked about kids and their snacking habits. It's easy for me to say that there is a problem now that I'm 27 and at high risk for heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes and hypertension, but kids need to change their eating habits. As recently as a four years ago, I ate like complete crap and as a result I got fat. Not obviously fat like I was morbidly obese, but in retrospect, I have no idea how I got so fat. Right now I weigh 155 and I'm arguably the healthiest/fittest I've ever been. 4 years ago I weighed an astonishing 184. I can't imagine 30 pounds on me right now, especially since I still have fat to burn.
Here's what happened...In middle school and high school, I ate like crap. I mean crap. My mom didn't pack me a lunch and my school didn't provide a healthy option for me (or any option for that matter - we had no hot lunch despite me running for Student Council on a mission to get hot lunch) so I ate whatever I wanted. Generally this constituted a couple bags of chips, a couple sodas and a Big Texas. This was lunch probably 3 times a week and the other 2 days was pizza day. This continued until my senior year of high school when we finally got rid of the guy who brought in crusty sandwiches and overpriced milk (his name was literally The Sandwich Man) and replaced him with a local mexican restaurant once a week, Subway twice a week and pizza twice a week. This bad eating continued into college and finally when I started drinking my metabolism slowed down and fat started creeping in. I was 125 lbs when I graduated high school and 130 when I turned 21. Beer and late night food quickly turned that into 150 and years and a lack of basketball or any real excercise slowly turned that into 184. I was a beast. But then Other Guy and a few friends that are as close as brothers called me out on being fat and I started running and quickly lost 20 pounds and hovered around 165 for a few years until this last year when I was training for my half marathon and dropped to 148. Ive worked my way back up to 150 but I now run, eat right (though I do have my days of complete indulgence like this Sunday when Mark Twain and I will probably eat an entire cake while watching the Oscars) and I've maintained a solid 155.
My point is this, kids need to learn to eat right at school. I loved vegetables as a kid and if the option were there for something tasty and healthy, I would have happily eaten it. Kids need to eat better and schools shouldn't provide any option of things that are unhealthy. They should have juice and milk and water and fruit at school and not cookies and Coke. Obesity is an epidemic and needs to be stopped while it's still somewhat unacceptable to be fat, but the more people that get fat and lazy, the closer we get to Wall-e being the future.
Go big or go home. Get out your running shoes...
-M, p, z & shredder
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