Growing Girls With Purpose
March 1st, 2010 — Fit Girl, early puberty
Jamie Oliver is a chef. As such he loves food.
Given one single wish, that he gets to make in front of the best and brightest people with all the resources in the world, he chose to confront the childhood obesity epidemic armed with information and education.
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February 19th, 2010 — early puberty
According to an article, Puberty gap: Obesity splits boys, girls on MSNBC.com, new studies have indicated that the current obesity epidemic among children is causing boys to hit puberty later than previous generations.
Girls appear to be hitting puberty one to two years earlier than previous generations.
Theories on what might cause late puberty in overweight boys center on hormones produced in fat cells. Obese males have higher levels of estradiol, a relative of estrogen that may interfere with the male hormone androgen, states the article.
One doctor also provides parents with the solution to early or late puberty in their children:
At a time when so many children are overweight, parents should be more concerned about obesity than puberty, said Dr. Laura K. Bachrach, a professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
“They should be worried about the food they’re putting on the table.”
Fit Girl Series: Whose Body Is It Anyway
Fit Girl Series: Accept Your Body
Fit Girl Series: Friends, Strangers With Candy
Fit Girl Series: Comparing Children
Fit Girl Series: Exercise Poll
Fit Girl Series: Eat This, Not That!
Fit Girl Series: BIG FAT LIARS!
Fit Girl Series: Obese Teens on Oprah
Fit Girl Series: Weight = Moral Failure
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February 2nd, 2010 — Fit Girl, early puberty
President Barack Obama announced that Michelle Obama, First Lady and mother of two First Daughters Sasha and Malia, will be taking on Childhood Obesity as her pet cause. In this MSNBC story Michelle Obama admits to a very similar story as the one I’ve told here on The Girl Revolution – the doctor says, “Hey your kids are in a risky place BMI-wise.”
I could not have been more thrilled. You know, Tribe, that I am very concerned with the negative consequences resulting from apathetically allowing obesity to consume our daughters: early puberty, higher insurance premiums, preexisting conditions like diabetes, higher risks of breast cancer, infertility, and those are just the gender-specific risks.
I recently read an article in The New Yorker about the fact that the military is having a problem finding youth who meet the physical requirements of enlisting to defend our country. It’s never happened before in the history of America.
I remind my own kids, “Did you get your hour of play today?”
From the MSNBC article, Michelle tells us how she handle the shocking news that her daughters were too high on the BMI charts,
‘Small changes, big results’
The first lady said that over the next few months she made some small changes that got her daughters back on track. No more weekday TV. More attention to portion sizes. Low-fat milk. Water bottles in the lunch boxes. Grapes on the breakfast table. Apple slices at lunch. Colorful vegetables on the dinner table. “It was really very minor stuff, but these small changes resulted in some really significant improvements, and I didn’t know it would,” Mrs. Obama said.
It’s true. Small changes do lead to big results. I know it from my own health, my kids’ health, my lifestyle changes. Small changes are easy and achievable and if you do them often enough you do get big lifestyle changes.
I am so happy children will have a champion for the very important cause of childhood obesity. There could not be a more visible champion.
There’s more to this childhood obesity epidemic than our kids are too lazy, we’re not good enough police about what goes in our kids mouths and our little people don’t get enough play and exercise though.
I just saw Food, Inc. on the Watch It Now feature on Netflix.
It really highlights facts like these: if all the animals we eat consume corn and they feed them corn to make them fatter faster . . . .does it surprise us then that we and our children are also fatter faster? Not to mention all the other products, around 80% of what’s in the grocery store, are made of . . . corn, corn syrup, and other corn sugars?
Food, Inc. does one thing well. Outline just how seriously our government is involved in what we’re eating – which flows into the rising costs in our inefficient health care system – and just how much influence a few Corporations have over our childhood obesity problem, our national obesity problem.
Happily, and the movie highlights this truth very well in the end: it is ultimately CONSUMERS (read parents who buy their kids’ foods) who decide what supermarkets carry, what farmers farm and what corporations sell.
If you’re feeling a little powerless as you fork over the extra dough for the healthier foods let me point out one tiny little trend which should raise your feelings of empowerment: When I began writing about the issue of early puberty the issue of hormones in the milk supply came up, non-hormone milk cost quite a bit more than milk from cows given growth hormones. It was worth it. Not just to me, but to enough people that Walmart – the biggest retailer in the world – doesn’t carry growth hormone milk anymore. They don’t even stock it.
We – PARENTS, CONSUMERS – stopped the practice of feeding growth hormones to milk cows by refusing to buy that milk.
That’s how capitalism works every.single.time.
Next on the chopping block – high fructose corn syrup, a product that’s probably in 80% of the food supply and that’s making us and our kids fatter faster.
Michelle said she plans to roll out her childhood obesity campaign over the next few weeks. I am sure she’ll be planting the garden in the spring too. I can’t wait!
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January 25th, 2010 — Fit Girl, early puberty
Listen, I took some slack for The Girl Revolution: Fit Girl Series I ran last year. Too obsessive, one reader said in her email.
The thing is, childhood obesity has very serious health consequences for our children. Especially for our daughters who reach puberty between 100 and 110 pounds, whether that happens at 6 or 12. Outward signs of puberty are beginning in some girls as early as 6 and still being considered medically normal.
You know, and I know, that we have listened to adult men claim they have a right to have sex with children because they look older than they are, “She looked like a grown up, look what she was wearing!” I’m ashamed to say which of my own friends and family members have said this about junior high girls.
We’ve listened to this disgusting and inexcusable line from men who have sex with 12-18 year olds.
These girls’ crimes? They grew breasts. Visible signs of “looking older.”
Nothing cultural has changed – men are still using this piss-poor excuse for inexcusable behavior, and we’re still letting them get away with it because the girls look “sexual” as soon as breasts appear on their bodies. But now girls are looking older earlier than ever before it’s time to decide whether we’ve heard enough “she looked older” B.S.
You tell me if it’s a serious concern that 8-year-olds develop breasts because they are gaining weight too fast. Think back: bra snapping, cat calls, harassment in school, older men asking if you “need a ride,” inappropriate touching, sexual name-calling, attempts to seduce, etc. Yeah, you were there.
Add to that the serious concerns about future breast cancer risks (increases if she starts her period early, doesn’t have a child before age 30 and doesn’t breast feed), diabetes, rising health care costs, pre-existing conditions of the health insurance industry (they’re blatantly rejecting obese children).
Tribe, we have a problem that needs serious addressing.
Visit the Obesity Thunder website to see all sorts of videos around the issue.
Fit Girl Series: Whose Body Is It Anyway
Fit Girl Series: Accept Your Body
Fit Girl Series: Friends, Strangers With Candy
Fit Girl Series: Comparing Children
Fit Girl Series: Exercise Poll
Fit Girl Series: Eat This, Not That!
Fit Girl Series: BIG FAT LIARS!
Fit Girl Series: Obese Teens on Oprah
Fit Girl Series: Weight = Moral Failure
Fan The Girl Revolution on Facebook.
January 4th, 2010 — Body Image & Self Esteem, Fit Girl, early puberty
I read all these stories that suggest Kate Moss should be burned at the stake for saying her motto is, “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” Sarah and the Goon Squad has a funny, light-hearted and compelling post about it. Instead of being outraged, I seriously considered adopting the motto, repeating it to my daughter as often as, “did you brush your teeth?” and taping it to my fridge to help my whole family stop rationalizing the junk food that goes into our mouths.
Here’s the thing: No one in this family is at risk for becoming Anorexic or Bulimic. In fact, to put the “fears” about our food issues into perspective: Only 1-3 percent of girls in this country suffer from anorexia nervosa and another 1 percent suffer from bulimia nervosa.
Conversely, 16 percent of girls are overweight and another 15 percent are tipping the scales in high risk weight categories (meaning one or two more “yeses” to the stop at McDonalds will push them into the next category up.) There is an Obesity Epidemic in this country. There is a Childhood Obesity Epidemic in this country. This is a serious personal concern as well as a national concern for the well-being of one-third of our children. Not to mention the future of America as these children join the approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese. That’s 64.5 percent of U.S. adults, age 20 years and older, who are overweight and 30.5 percent of us are obese.
My thinking is that if the motto, “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels” is effective, (and judging by the size of Kate Moss, it just might be) it wouldn’t kill America to adapt it as our National Freaking Motto.
The 2-4 percent of us who fall victim to becoming too thin and suffering from anorexia and bulimia should obviously seek treatment for those tragic diseases. Why shouldn’t the majority of Americans, who face the opposite eating disorder, yet just as damaging and far more expensive (health insurance and national health cost crisis, anyone?) seek treatment ? Or at least not have a hissy fit over the motto of a skinny girl as we ask our children to “pass the Cheetos?”
It’s a little like never letting our kids go outside to play so we can keep them “safe,” even though there is only 1 in a million chances that something terrible and irreversible will ever happen to them. One in a Million. All the while, saddling them with an obesity problem they’ll have to combat for the rest of their lives, not to mention the higher health insurance premiums they’ll have to pay.
* Statistics from American Obesity Association, and here.
** Image
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