Basically they forgot that if they’re going to do stuff like adopt him they need to be his parents, not his grandparents, which means a lot less spoiling and they should feed him things that are actually nutritious for his body whether he likes them or not. At least his younger sister, my second child, may not share his fate. She’s more slender now at age four than he was at the same age. It’s something.

I don’t think it an accident that we have all these fat kids now and for the last thirty years the experts have been preaching low-fat/low-cal. Duh. You cut back your fat grams and you’ll need to get your energy from somewhere. Get it from carbs and you wind up with permanently elevated insulin that locks up your fat cells and keeps them from emptying.

It’s happened to my son, who is every bit as sedentary as I was at his age, but whose diet is at least five times worse than mine was. At least I wasn’t raised by vegans. Oy.

You aren’t going to get kids to go exercise by telling them to go do some verbs. It’s almost like the creators of the PSA never had a lick of english class in their lives.

Anyway, this post reminded me of that. I don’t particularly know why, but it did!

I believe that there are actually studies proving that sitting watching television burns fewer calories than just sitting quietly doing nothing, or doing something low-key like knitting or reading. This may be partly because we often remain almost entirely still while watching TV, and also because it’s mentally passive. Some sources indicate that the only activity that burns fewer calories than watching TV is *sleeping*!

I went looking for the actual study and found this:

http://www.trashyourtv.com/gooutside?PHPSESSID=8fcf46d554bef86f6445d783503be48a#obesestudy

Admittedly, it’s a biased site, but perhaps there’s something to it after all?

Of course, I think if I could watch TV while knitting while jogging, I think I’d *really* have it made! :)

I’ve been compulsively hitting the refresh button since this morning, I’m getting carpal tunnel syndrome.

Heh, kidding

I absolutely agree that a sedentary lifestyle is to blame, but I wonder how much of that is aided by TV and video games and such. When I was little I was always outside playing with my friends, roller skating, bike riding. My parents never set limits on my TV watching, I just liked to be outside even in the hot Arizona summer.

I feel like I know so many kids now who just sit there watching TV, playing video games, etc. I don’t think there’s one cause for this. Less emphasis on imagination in general. Too many latch key kids whose parents want them staying inside. Just wanting to play the latest video game. Who knows. But I think in general obesity and childhood obesity in particular have been aided by us as a society becoming progressively more sedentary.

Women used to knit as they walked in rural areas of Britain in the nineteenth century. I have seen “knitting sheaths” (don’t laugh) in museums, which held one needle steady against your hip, allowing you to knit one-handed as you went along. Presumably they were practised enough that they didn’t have to look at what they were doing too much.

I still don’t watch much TV, but the treadmills at the gym would be so much more fun if they had DVD players attached. I could bring my own stuff and watch Dr Who or Bleak House or LOTR or something. As it is, I have to watch Sky News. Not as good, people.