The ongoing debate and crisis that we have with childhood obesity rages on, and there’s yet another piece to add to this discouraging story of how our youth is being plagued by inactivity in a day and age of parents sitting their kids in front of the tv for hours instead of having them go outside and play, and kids getting glued to the television playing games for hours on end instead of the “good old days” when kids used to have no other viable entertainment options than going outside and blowing off steam (and hence burning calories) for hours and hours, until dusk many times as when I was a kid.

Well, it seems that children of immigrants are even worse off when it comes to inactivity when it comes to getting in their physical fitness daily, than American-born children, which is worrisome of course as well because these children are also more apt to become part of the bad side of the childhood obesity epidemic.

Another reason to blame for the childhoor obesity epidemic is not just inactivity and lack of true exercise of the body, but also a high amount of processed, fatty and sugary foods being substituted for healthier, fresh options like fruits and veggies, because of the convenience aspect of processed and packaged foods.

Not only do children of immigrants get much less normal activity in during the week, they also participate drastically less than US born kids in organized sports and physical activities or clubs, making it even more unlikely they will be getting the exercise they need to burn calories and have a healthy, lean body that so many active children enjoy.

I think it’s horrible that kids are experiencing these problems so young now, especially since a child’s likelihood of wanting to exercise more as they reach adulthood is slim, since scientists have proven that children have an in-born tendency to be more active and want to be more active when younger, and it is only in teen years that yearning goes away, so the window of opportunity for true activity and wanting of physical activity goes away in a narrow time frame, considering how long we are here on earth.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Health and Fitness News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.