Childhood Problem

I was watching a tv show the other night that totally bothered me. It was about the new children's health concern. We all know that childhood obesity and childhood diabetes are at an all time high but what the pediatrician's were saying on the show was that what they are seeing on a too frequent basis is abdominal problems. They said that the children of today are eating so much crap that it is constipating them and giving them so called "Stomach Flus" on an all too frequent basis.

If you are squeamish do not continue reading this!!! They went on to say that as adults when we are constipated we take some sort of laxative but the problem with children is the medication is too potent for their tiny organs that are still developing. So what is happening when they finally do have a BM is it tears up their rectum giving them hemorrhoids and fissures. They also went on to say that frequently when they get too constipated to "go" that the fecal bacteria starts going backwards giving them the nausea and stomach pains and when it gets bad from no relief children are starting to throw up and mixed in with stomach acid is fecal matter!

They continued on to say that children's diets these days are made up of chicken nuggets, French fries, pop, chips, pizza, fast foods etc.. they said vegetables if any.. consist of canned or frozen corn.. if fruit is part of their dietary diet it usually is one piece a day if even that much. When they were interviewing parents on why their children were not getting more fresh fruits and vegetables they were always getting the same 2 answers... 1. it costs too much and 2. the children don't like it.

They said the reason children don't like fresh produce is because it doesn't have fat, salt and preservatives in it that give it that oooey gooey taste kids have gotten accustomed to. They said how expensive is it to buy fresh produce compared to medications, laxatives, enemas, missed work due to doctor visits. They (the specialists) said the average family meal out costs 40-50 dollars and they showed fresh produce totaling that amount to show the parents what they actually could get for their money.

At the end of the show a panel of specialists went to elementary schools throughout the country to find out what children had in their lunch boxes (for those that took lunches to schools or had cafeterias) and it was almost unanimously starch, starch and more starch with almost no fresh produce or anything healthy. Drinks were supposedly fruit juice but when they checked the labels they found that over 97% of them started with "water as the first ingredient and then some sort of sugar fructose, sucrose, dextrose anything that ends in ose is a sugar"as the 2nd ingredient. They said don't get fooled into thinking that just because the labels says no sugar added that there isn't already a bunch of sugar in it to begin with.

I was blown away by the show. Completely blown away.