Along with diabetes, overweight children are more likely to suffer bone and Diabetes complications can include blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, …
http://educationnewsorg/when-fundraising-threatens-kidshtm
Parents Advocating School Accountability
When fundraising threatens kids health
By Holley Wysong, RD, CDE
In another era, kids peddled stuff door to door for Scouts and school
fundraisers Nowadays, safety concerns have scuttled that practice
Responsible fundraisers caution kids never to go out soliciting
unsupervised
But the recognition that childrens well-being is more important than money
hasnt extended to fundraising by selling unhealthy snacks With childrens
obesity increasing by 30 percent over the past decade - and still rising
fast, along with related devastating health consequences - its time to
sound the alarm
As one ominous example: Type II diabetes used to be called adult-onset
Now the disease, which is closely linked with obesity, appears in children
as young as 5
A list of the health problems afflicting 21st-century childhood makes it
clear: Those campus Coke machines that help pay for football uniforms, and
even Moms bake-sale brownies, are as risky as sending a 7-year-old out to
peddle raffle tickets around the neighborhood
Along with diabetes, overweight children are more likely to suffer bone and
joint
problems, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, insulin resistance,
asthma, sleep apnea, and psychological problems
We are seeing kids as young as 6 years old with diabetes, hypertension,
kidney involvement and liver involvement, Dr Naznin Dixit, an Arizona
pediatric endocrinologist, told the Tucson, Ariz, Citizen Its like a 6-
year-old going on 60
Diabetes complications can include blindness, heart disease, kidney
failure, stroke and amputations If a child becomes diabetic at age 15,
then theres a good chance, if its not controlled properly, that before
age 40 there will be damage to the kidneys and the eyes, Vincent Poitout,
a scientist at the Pacific Northwest Research Institute in Seattle, told
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Obesity is a much greater problem, and takes a greater health toll, in
minority communities, according to the national Centers for Disease
Control
The reasons for increased obesity arent hard to spot Supersizing, fast
foods and inactivity factor in And soft drinks make up almost one quarter
of the caloric intake of kids ages 2 to 19, the American Journal of Public
Health reports The average teenage boy drinks the equivalent of 868 cans
of soda a year, adds
the Academy of General Dentistry
Yes, kids need more exercise too But obesity can make exercise difficult,
uncomfortable and embarrassing Drinking soda may also increase young
peoples risk of breaking bones when theyre active, according to a Harvard
School of Public Health study
The proliferation of school soda machines to fundraise for sports teams
raises a particularly touchy question: Should the health of the entire
student body be jeopardized to raise money for the relatively few kids in
team sports?
If money is the issue, fundraising with junk food costs dearly in the long
run From 1979 to 2000, the annual price of treating obesity-related
conditions in children ages 6 to 17 soared from 35 million to 127 million
in 2001 dollars
There are more reasons why kids health advocates have soured on sweets as
fundraisers:
— Obese people are significantly more likely to die of cancer, a
major new study confirms Obesity may account for 14 percent of cancer
deaths in men and 20 percent in women
– High blood pressure now afflicts children as young as 6
– Obese kids give their quality of life as low a rating as do children on
chemotherapy
– Sweets — including the sugar and
acid in soda
– contribute to tooth decay And the 20-ounce screw-top bottles found in
many school vending machines encourage kids to carry sodas around, sipping
for a prolonged period, which is worse for teeth than gulping in one
sitting
– Snacks and sodas displace healthy foods from kids diets In the 1970s,
teens consumed far more milk than soft drinks By the 1990s, teens were
drinking twice as much soda as milk
Kids pay the price for the sweets and soda that surround them not just in a
couple of cavities or a few pounds Its likely to be a lifetime of obesity
and chronic disease - and a shorter lifetime, at that As Dr Ranveig
Elvebakk, a San Francisco physician specializing in obesity puts it: The
younger you are, and the more obese you are, the more years of life you
lose at the end
Its time to lobby for adequate school funding, and to find other ways to
raise extra money When we fundraise by pushing snacks and sodas, our kids
pay too high a price
Holley Wysong is a registered dietitian, a certified diabetes educator and
a San Francisco public school parent For more information on school food
issues and for a free downloadable guide to improving the food at your
childs school,
go to wwwpasasforg
Source:tri-ade.org
