Wow...I just realized how long it's been since I last blogged. I've been very deeply ensconced in figuring out what is truly important in life, and somewhere, tripping merrily along (and sometimes not so merrily) I lost track of blogging. I've missed it though, and aim to return here, with some regularity.
For some reason, the issue of global (and especially childhood) obesity always gets my attention. Indeed, it is an "epidemic"--pandemic, if you ask me. It's not from lack of excericise. It's not from too much junk food or McDonald's. It's not from watching too much television or drinking too much coke. Well, indirectly I suppose it is, just as booze is indirectly the cause of alcoholism, or guns are the indirect cause of murders. It is all of these things in the hands of the users that get blamed on one level or another for a major problem. Alcoholism appeared to be a problem in the early part of the century, so the do-gooders decided that prohibition would be a good idea. Bad idea. Rising crime rates led another set of do-gooders to decided that gun control would be a good idea. I'll let you decide on that yourself, but as for me and my house, we like the Constitution. Now that the problem is FOOD ITSELF, what are we going to prohibit? Who are we going to punish?
I'd like to offer a suggestion. If mothers would choose to stay home with their kids, cook meals, take them to parks, read books to them regularly, teach them about healthy living, take them to church, teach them personal responsibility and global awareness, and love them with all they've got, then I wager that a major part of the problem will be improved. Is it the food that's the problem, or the emptiness inside that people are trying to fill with even emptier calories?
Oh, I know...I can already hear people jumping all over me saying, "what about the poor people, what about the people who HAVE to have two incomes, who don't have the time to eat with their kids? It's okay. I grew up in a single-parent, below-poverty income household. We lived on soups and stews and food that could stretch as far as we could make it stretch, but we sat down together every night, and my exhausted mom made us breakfast every morning, and taught us how to be healthy and use common sense when we ate. None of us is fat.
