I was reading in another thread yesterday where someone had posted negative comments about obese people. I don't know why I read that drivel, but I am strangely drawn to it. I always hope to find some glimmer of compassion, but seldom find it. Anyway, as those things often do, the conversation turned to the whys which sadly led to finger pointing and the haters came out of the woodwork. Still it got me thinking about the whys - why are so many of us overweight and why is obesity, especially childhood obesity such a problem in this country?

Is it because we get so exasperated with our hyperactive children that we constantly tell them to sit down or sit still? I do think it's ironic that we encourage them to stand and walk and talk and a few months later we're telling them to sit down and be still/quiet. TV becomes the babysitter as we prepare dinner or clean the house becasue it just isn't safe to send them outside to play unsupervised.

Or maybe it's fast food. I went for a walk yesterday after work. I was planning on meeting my kids for dinner at Denny's but my granddaughter Kaylee has MyGym on Thursdays until 5. So hubs and I drove to the Denny's, parked the car and got out to walk for a while. I passed 8, yes 8 fast food eateries walking the perimeter of the lot where Denny's is located. In a bid to get business, they all have "value menus" which of course means you a pay little for a lot of junk - fat and sugar. Oh my.

Even the "healthy" fast-food choices are pretty bad. My son suggested we eat at a place called Baja Fresh. They're all about fresh and healthy food. So I looked them up since i'm logging all of my meals and had to tell him no. The majority of items are 1,000 calories or more, but even worse is the sodium content. Most items have more than the recommended daily allowance of sodium. So much for fresh and healthy.

I watch television and I am bombarded with commercials advertising one junk food after another. It's even worse during child appropriate programming. Fast-foods, sugary drinks, sugary cereals, sugary snacks...and it just goes on and on.

Nutritional guidelines for schools are pretty bad too. A "pizza" which is nothing more than a cardboard like piece of dough topped with some kind of ketchuppy "sauce" that passes for a vegetable and a sprinkle of that stuff they call cheese and a fatty "meat" (pepperoni bits) constitutes a nutritious lunch containing grains, vegetables, dairy and meat. Have you seen the ingreients on those Lunchables? The calories and the sodium(!!!) are outrageous.

Then there's portion sizes. I recently read an article that said portion sizes have grown so much over the last 30 years that the size of an "average" bagel has more than doubled! My college age kid just asked me the other day if I get full on my lunches of Lean Cuisine entrees and fruit. She was shocked when I said yes and told her those are true portion sizes. Admittedly the kid has an appetite, but then she expends so much energy she has to eat a lot to keep going. Still, some day she will slow down like the rest of us and have to learn to eat less.

I guess there are many reasons and no really good answers.