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Can Childhood Obesity Affect Us All?

By now, everybody has probably heard of how childhood obesity is spiraling out of control, at least here in the US. There’s always fuss going on about who needs to be at the receiving end of the pointed finger, and what they need to do about it. I recently noticed that some companies are paying attention to the obesity issue.

Yesterday was the first day of school for the San Marcos school district. Last week I took my sons shopping for back to school clothes. Both of my boys have the same frame as their dad, except for the fact they every morning they seem to be a little taller than me compared to the previous day. And I’m not shrinking. My oldest son was searching the racks for 32/34 jeans- 32 inch waist, 34 inch inseam. Had he been looking for 34/32 or 44/32 we’d have been in and out of the store a whole lot sooner. My younger son didn’t have it that much easier. A boy’s size 14 would fit, if Michael Jackson was still alive and brought flood water pants back in style. So the solution was to find size 16 pants that had adjustable waist bands, since my son doesn’t like using a belt. As we were going through stacks of pants I was noticing that other than size 8, the choices were regular or husky. No slims for the older kids. If my boys were about 10 or 15 pounds thicker in the gut they’d of had more choices.

It makes me wonder, with all the pressures being put on restaurants, food manufacturers and schools to cut calories, fat, and sugar are other companies taking on the mindset that over fat kids are the majority and are here to stay? Do they know something the rest of us don’t?

Video games are no longer designing all their heroes with physiques of Greek gods. Some look like they’ve spent all their time exercising only their thumbs on a game controller. Is this so the obese gamer can relate?

Theme parks are installing rides with over-sized seats to accommodate larger patrons. Is this an incentive to buy more junk from the concession stand?

Now it seems clothing designers are mass producing larger size clothes and fewer smaller sizes. Have they forgotten that there are still children that have healthy BMI’s?

So what’s your opinion? Do you think some companies are delivering an unhealthy message when they make special accommodations for certain levels of obesity? Has anyone else noticed stores carrying more husky size clothes compared to slimmer sizes? Or do you think the store over anticipated the number of heavier shoppers and underestimated the number of slimmer shoppers? Comments and opinions are welcome.

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• Overweight Children

Tags: Childhood Obesity, Obesity

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