Today is Blog Action Day 2011. This year’s topic is food. In America, people have a huge addiction to take-out food, which creates quite a trash issue.  Paper or plastic bags, wrapped plastic silverware, straws, paper cups, plastic or Styrofoam containers and more trash, makes take-out food, not so very eco-friendly. Plus, most of this trash is not easy to recycle and this stuff is not going to decompose. It’ll just sit and sit in the landfill.

The best thing to do is cut back on fast food and take-out. Seriously, I know people who eat take-out or fast food every single day (no joke). In fact, I know people who give fast food to their kids every single day (yikes). Not only does this create large amounts of trash, but most of the time, take-out and fast food is terribly unhealthy, which in turn equals negative health problems and consumer issues. Not to mention, almost zero take-out is organic. So cutting back is seriously helpful for the planet and your own health.

That said, I’d be insane to assume I can get people to quit eating fast food and other take-out altogether, so there are some other things you can do to lower your take out foot-print.

• Take your own reusable bag, cardboard box lid, or even a reusable lunch bag and have the food establishment put your food in it vs. a plastic or paper bag. This will work better if you skip the drive through or call ahead. If you go through a drive through, you’re going to have a hard time convincing the restaurant to skip the disposables.

• With the above in mind, skip the drive through. Get out of your car and go inside. Don’t sit for 20 minutes idling in a line of cars.

• Take your own food containers. Some restaurants won’t fill your reusable containers due to health regulations or general restaurant policy, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. To-Go Ware makes many creative options for hot and cold food storage that would work well for take out, such as their To-Go Ware 3 Tier Stainless Steel Food Carrier.

• Skip the drink in total. There is no reason to get a drink, in a paper or Styrofoam cup, plus the lid and straw, when I know you’ve got drinks at home.

• Just say no to utensils and paper napkins. Since you’re going home, use your own silverware and cloth napkins vs. disposables.

• Forget the extras. Tiny little packets of ketchup, other sauces, salt, pepper and butter add up to a whole lot of trash. If you’ve got condiments at home, use them.

• Talk to your fave take out place about going more green with their take out packaging. The Green Restaurant Association has a handy go green suggestion letter you can give to your favorite take-out place.

How do you keep your take out green?

+ Blog Action Day 2010 – Water

In the last post I told you about the food challenges at my house. However, we also do very well in some areas. For example…

Organic and minimally processed – we buy most food in organic form and avoid junk like high fructose corn syrup and other additives in foods as much as possible. We also buy foods closer to real form than not – i.e. whole organic oats vs. oats with added sugar and spices.

Dave and the kids

Label reading – we’re big time label readers at my house. We read labels before we buy and compare labels to see which food is the healthier choice if there is a choice.

Bulk buying – bulk purchases save on packaging and we buy a fair amount of stuff in bulk, using reusable bags and containers. ALTHOUGH when we get busy we’re worse about this (see prepacked issue above)

Whole grains – we never eat white bread at our house. We always choose whole grain, whole wheat breads, rice, crackers and other grain-based items. The one exception is tortillas – we eat white flour tortillas because we haven’t found a whole grain tortilla we all like.

We don’t eat much meat – we do eat fish and poultry, but rarely and we’ve discussed going total vegetarian again. I was a vegetarian for 15 years, Cedar for 7 and Dave for about 15 too I believe. As it is we eat many meatless meals which is both greener and healthier than meat meals.

Fruits & veggies – at bare minimum everyone in my house should be eating 2 full cups of veggies per day and 2.5 cups of fruit, although personally I think that’s slim and also requirements are different for everyone. Dave, Cedar and me all get above and beyond our daily produce servings. We eat fruits or veggies with every single meal to an excess. Cedar is a produce freak and will even order veggies or fruits as side dishes if we go out to eat with no urging from the adults. I seriously doubt Dave’s girls are meeting their vegetable and fruit requirements on a daily basis, but we’re working on it when they’re here so overall our produce intake is a success.

Cedar gets a healthy lunch – Cedar’s school is small and there’s no school lunch program in place, but that’s fine with us. His school voted to ban high fructose corn syrup and his packed-by-me and him lunches usually include two veggies, fruits, a whole grain sandwich, muffin or roll, some whole grain crackers and water.

We drink tap water - we never buy bottled water for the house.

Eating together - we almost always eat at the table as a family vs. in front of the TV or apart. This has more positive impacts on your family’s eating habits then you might think.

Soda-free – for years I didn’t drink soda. When I met Dave he did drink soda and I started drinking soda again – but it’s not all his fault. It’s not like I don’t have freedom of choice. Soda is REALLY bad for you. Basically, we decided to quit drinking soda at home a few months ago. I will buy organic root beer to make root beer ice pops, but overall we’ve been good about keeping the house soda free for a while now.

Our biggest success – is likely Dave’s kids, especially his oldest daughter. As noted above we’re dealing with breaking some really bad food habits. They’re not used to eating healthy foods. However, Dave’s older daughter has been fairly receptive to healthier food. Not at first – trust me it’s taken a lot of time. However, we serve huge amounts of vegetables and fruits at most meals so she’s getting used to it. Now she’ll eat most, if not all of the vegetables and fruit on her plate.

If I make a snack of whole grain crackers and fruit for my son, I make enough for all three of them and Dave’s kids eat the snack too now. Also, the girls are not automatically asking for chips, soda and fast food anymore.

The girls eat school lunches but since they’re not here for school it’s hard to control that – but I’ve heard horror stories about them from the girls and Dave’s youngest daughter tells me, “I want to choose something that looks healthy, but the school doesn’t serve anything that is…” That’s depressing BUT on a good note it shows she’s thinking about what she’s eating which rocks. Overall, Dave’s kids are slowly coming around which has been an interesting process because I’m used to Cedar who does like vegetables. I’ve had zero experience with kids who never eat vegetables. To see them come around is really cool – It shows that it’s never too late to teach kids to eat better.

You tell me – what are some of the food successes at your house?

In my opinion there’s a direct link between eco-friendly eating and a healthy fit body. If you truly eat green and healthy plus live green (i.e. get outside into nature and get moving) I think you and your whole family will be healthier.

At my house:

Today I was talking to my boyfriend Dave about his kids; well, more about his kids’ mom who makes extremely poor nutrition choices for the kids in my opinion. It’s been hard to convince the kids to eat healthy when they’re not being encouraged to make smart choices at their other house. I think all parents need to be on board.

The issues we have here, which I’ll go into more later, along with all the other chubby kids I see (like my son’s peers), kids at the store, etc combined with the fact that childhood obesity leads to all sorts of issues can be so hyper frustrating at times that I lose it.

Today while Dave and I were discussing these issues, I said, “Not teaching your kids to eat healthy, giving them nothing but crap to eat and putting their long-term health at risk is like child abuse!”

But is it? Is it really, technically child abuse? Dave disagreed with me and so I’ve been thinking about it.

Poor nutrition, overweight kids and child abuse – is there a connection:

Legally, kids have been taken away from their kids due to obesity. It’s happened in the UK and even here in the United States, so someone else is thinking that child abuse may mean feeding kids poorly. One article at USA Today notes:

Ron Jones, a corporate wellness expert, uses the phrase “child obesity is child abuse” in his promotional materials and says the nation has turned its head the other way when it comes to accepting that concept. “If you gave your child a drug, you’d be held in the court. But if you kill them with food, that seems to be acceptable,” he says.

A quick look around the web will show you that many well respected health experts feel that yes, making a child obese is indeed child abuse.

Do negative food and exercise issues really abuse kids?

We choose this meal - the meal doesn't choose us.

Poor food choices on the part of parents and a lack of exercise because parents don’t encourage kids to be active can actually help to kill a child. Whether that’s certified child abuse is another issue, but here are some facts about the health risks…

• The Surgeon General and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are now using the terms “epidemic” and “crisis” to describe how fat kids in this country are – these are words that aren’t tossed around by big groups unless there’s a very real reason to do so.
• Pseudotumor cerebri (or in easy terms, head tumors) are on the rise among children and researchers say rising rates of obesity may be to blame.
• Children who eat three or more burgers a week may be at a higher risk of asthma, but a healthy diet rich in fruit and fish seems to stave off the risk.
• According to the WHO, being overweight can cause debilitating health problems such as respiratory difficulties, chronic musculoskeletal problems, skin problems and infertility. The more life-threatening problems fall into four main areas: CVD problems; conditions associated with insulin resistance such as type 2 diabetes; certain types of cancers, especially the hormonally related and large-bowel cancers; and gallbladder disease. Raised BMI also increases the risks of cancer of the breast, colon, prostate, endometroium, kidney and gallbladder. Being overweight and obesity also contribute significantly to osteoarthritis, a major cause of disability in adults.
• Type 2 has been confined to older adults for most of the 20th century, but now affects obese children even before puberty.
• The cumulative effect of obesity is that our kids belong to the first generation ever with a predicted shorter life span than their parents. “A 2005 analysis by a team of scientists forecast a two- to five-year drop in life expectancy unless aggressive action manages to reverse obesity rates. Since then, children have only gotten fatter.“

So yes, in all truthfulness, poor diet choices and a lack of exercise can seriously hurt you and in many instances kill you. As parents we choose how our kids eat when they’re young, and our choices directly influence how our kids will make food and exercise choices later on. Since, it’s our fault when kids eat bad and don’t get exercise maybe it could be considered child abuse.

The slippery slope of calling parent choices child abuse

Your kids in 15 years? Or not...

After thinking it over I’m going to withdraw my earlier statement about poor food choices and child abuse. I don’t think I want to go down the child abuse road.

• Waste of time & cash. For one thing, prosecuting cases like this would be a waste of time and money. Child abuse means a child’s health is in imminent danger – and most dangers of food don’t affect health for a while. Lawyers on the parent’s side would have a field day. Obesity, although of course dangerous doesn’t really put a kid in 100%  immediate danger.
• It’s a slippery slope for sure. If we allow others to make choices concerning weight for us, where will it end. Will home birth be  outlawed? Will co-sleeping be banned? Will you get arrested if you don’t recycle? Will kids with a specific IQ be taken away because parents didn’t “Make them smarter?” I know some people who hate that my son attends a Free School and know homeschooler who have been accused of child abuse simply because they homeschool. Where’s the line and who is smart enough to make the call of what’s too fat vs. not? It’s a door we may not want opened.
• Child abuse is serious. I came from a questionable home environment. My siblings and I were kicked out of said home in our early teens but as kids no one helped us out. Maybe state child workers were too busy. Maybe they just didn’t care. However to see state child resources used for overweight kids vs. actual kids with serious abuse issues would irk me to no end. Weight is easy to control with help, child abuse less so and kids being abused need the resources.

That said, after I posted the above I talked to Dave again who said, “Maybe it is child abuse.” Really? He’s on board, he’s not… I think it’s a hard decision. Dave noted, “It’s like smoking, if you gave your kids a cigarette they could be taken away, so why should you be allowed to feed your kids nothing but junk?” Which is an argument I’ve thought of before. It’s not incorrect and both drugs of choice – bad food or ciggs would result in a slow death so…?

Because this obesity epidemic is a growing crisis plenty of organization are trying to combat it. We’ve got Michelle Obama with her Let’s Move campaign against childhood obesity. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former President Bill Clinton have held obesity summits. We’ve got folks on board for a fat tax. And of course as noted above kids are being taken from their parents in extreme cases – although some schools are sending home notes first.

The problem I see with most programs and government bans and regulation is that one, they punish unhealthy behavior instead of encourage healthy behavior.  Taking things away doesn’t help people gain an understanding of how to take responsibility for their own health. It’s like when counties place fees on folks who don’t recycle. It probally doesn’t make them like recycling anymore, they’re just being forced into it.

Maybe we’re smarter than that. I think there’s a learning curve to healthy eating but I’m pretty sure that with help anyone can learn it. Of course you have to want to learn it, but what’s the alternative? Do we go back to the child abuse argument?

What to do?

Since I’m not sure I can be on board with the obesity epidemic being child abuse and I’m sure people can, when motivated, think for themselves, what should we do in order to keep our own kids, and our friends kids healthy? Maybe we should aim for practical and positive solutions like…

• Admit (REALLY admit) to your own family’s food challenges and successes – try to work on the challenges you have.
• Educate parents about their influence on kids and teach them what concepts like a healthy weight and proper healthy meals really mean.
• Help your close friends and family to eat better and exercise – recent research shows that obesity is catching.
• Ignore myths. Teach families to not believe the, “My kid will starve without chips” myth. Also ignore the DNA myth. A common argument is, “My body is just made to be fat,” or “I think my kids have a thyroid issue.” There are reasons beyond poor eating and a lack of exercise as to why someone might be overweight, but they’re actually far and few.
• Help kids (and parents) who hate being outside.
• Get schools on board with healthy eating and exercise. Kids who eat school lunches are more likely to be overweight than kids who don’t.
• Increase funding for after-school sports programs and gym classes. An “athletic identity” has been closely associated with better health.
• Show people that healthy meals do not have to be more expensive than junk food meals.
• Make healthy green eating easier not more complicated.

Above all else – we need to take responsibility! We’re an overweight country. But we’re also not a country with a gun to our head. Some people argue that mass media is that gun, but the fact remains that as a human you have a brain and you are the main agents in your own life. The actions you choose, good or bad, have consequences.

Coming up I’ll post some ideas for the solutions above. Such as how to afford healthy food, how to avoid the fat myths and how to get kids outside. I’ll even post the food challenges going on at my house.

Tell me what you think? It’s clear that childhood obesity is a staggering problem but is it child abuse?

In a previous post about fast food toys being banned I said I’d be back with more on healthy eating and the obesity issue. First I thought I should point out some of the connections between obesity and green living…

There are some pretty out-there reports that say things like, “People who are overweight are creating climate problems.” Without more solid research I wouldn’t go that far myself, but I do think green living is directly related to healthy living and part of healthy living is healthy eating and exercise both of which in turn, result in fewer incidences of unhealthy, overweight kids. It’s all connected.

Unhealthy food choices impact the environment and your health…

Food waste is a big issue: According to a BBC report, the continuing trend to eat out more and the rise of convenience food has increased the amount of food being grown and transported. Since markets over plan to over meet demand, a whopping 30-40% of all food in the UK is never eaten and the amount tossed is £20 billion pounds of food overall. The USA is no better by the way. The Environmental Protection Agency recently estimated that Americans generate roughly 30 million tons of food waste each year. Food grown and not eaten means more pesticides used unnecessarily to grow said food, energy to process, food packaging to contend with, gas to transport, and rotting food sitting in landfills (very little is composted) releases loads of methane, the most potent greenhouse gas.

Food waste is also a major water issue. According to Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), “Reducing food wastage by 50% – including post-harvest losses, losses in transport and handling, and losses in the household – might vastly reduce or even negate the need for additional water to grow more food, which will ensure sufficient water is available for food in the future.”

Meat: You might think meat eaters weigh more in general than vegetarians but most research says nope (although I swear I was continually five pounds slimmer as a vegetarian). Some research shows that meat does make it easier to become overweight though, especially if you eat a lot of the wrong kind of meat. Fatty meats can result in quite a bit of excess body fat and even an early death. Even if you stay slim on a meat diet, meat is still a poor choice in many respects for your health. For example, red meats and processed meats are linked to health issues like hypertension and high cholesterol which can lead to weight related issues because of health complications that make it hard to exercise.

Meat is also a major downer for the planet. Meat production results in extensive water use. SIWI notes that agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater by far – about 70% of all freshwater withdrawals go to irrigated agriculture and part of the current pressure on water resources comes from increasing demands for animal feed. Meat production requires 8-10 times more water than cereal production. Shockingly SIWI also notes that producing 1 kg of meat requires as much water as an average domestic household uses in over 10 months. Meat creates so many other eco-problems that it would take me pages here to cover it all, so if you’re interested check out Sustainable Table.

Green eating is healthy eating:  To me the basics of green eating include..

• Fewer processed foods.
• Eating foods closer to the earth and lower on the food chain such as fresh organic produce and brown rice or beans from the bulk food section.
• Cooking more from scratch; including treats.
• Buying seasonal and local food.
• Not eating fast food that comes with plastic toys and wasteful packaging galore.
• Eating very little to no meat.
• Buying foods that have labels I understand – i.e. not ingredients that sound like they were made by mad scientists in some crazy lab.

All of the above are ways you can eat green and in turn eat healthy. It’s healthy to skip fast food, healthy to eat more grains and veggies than meat, healthy to cook and avoid chemicals. All of this is not only green but helpful if you’d like to maintain a healthy weight.

Unhealthy activity choices impact the environment and your health…

Transportation is at an all-time high: Many years ago people walked, or walked more for sure, both helping their health and the planet. In the United States alone, three-quarters of carbon monoxide (CO) emissions come from cars and trucks and partially from non-road engines (such as boats and construction equipment). While legal control measures have helped to reduce emissions per vehicle the EPA notes that the number of cars and trucks on the road and the miles they are driven have doubled in the past 20 years. Even with better emission standards driving everywhere still creates massive pollution problems.

It cycles right back to us too. As people decrease their physical activity due to the conveniences of cars they can gain weight. As people gain weight exercise become harder, resulting in more sedentary behavior, which in turns increases the need for a car to get places vs. say a bike or your legs. Sadly, CO even at low levels may cause chest pain and reduce your ability to exercise – pollution from cars and trucks is a serious and cycling health and eco-issue. Biking, walking and even public transportation (at least some of the time) are healthier and greener transportation choices.

Nature – green, healthy and won’t make you fat:

Nature is a little too ignored for my liking as a green issue. Getting kids outside and active is not only amazingly healthy but helps them form their early opinions about nature – hopefully that nature is worth conserving. When kids are overweight they don’t get to enjoy nature as easily. I’ve seen overweight kids try to hike or even just run at the park and it’s harder for them and they don’t seem to enjoy it as much as the fit kids I see in the same situation.

Of all the families I know, none who make a point of taking their kids out into nature or green spaces often and from an early age have overweight kids. Is there a connection? I can’t prove it but I believe it. Making sure kids get fresh air, exercise and plenty of playtime outside is green and healthy.

Do you think that the obesity epidemic is related to environmental issues? How so?

[graph image via NRDC]

As you may have heard, Santa Clara County just decided to ban those little plastic junk toys that come in kid-sized meals from fast food restaurants, if said meal doesn’t meet specific nutritional standards. The specific nutritional standards that meals must meet are based on federal standards and recommendations from the Institute of Medicine and the new rules will apply to all fast-food restaurants who want to give toys away in meals.

I’m thrilled to know that the landfills will have fewer crappy little plastic toys tossed into them each year, but overall, from a nutritional standpoint, I think this is one of the lamest ideas I’ve heard in a good long while. Banning one minor issue that skirts around the food issue is not a productive use of time and it makes it seem like we don’t have any self control or choice in the matter – we can say no to fast food.

Facts: Kids in this country are more overweight and more unhealthy then ever. The World Health Organization notes that an estimated 22 million children under five are estimated to be overweight worldwide. The US Surgeon General says that in the USA alone the number of overweight children has doubled and the number of overweight adolescents has tripled since 1980.

Complications of childhood obesity are many. Kids are at risk for Type 2 diabetes, sleep disorders,  a higher risk for stroke and heart attack later in life, asthma, hormone imbalances  plus a slew of combination issues such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol and excess abdominal fat which can result in heart disease.

Not to mention all the emotional issues that can come along with being overweight or obese such as low self esteem, depression, behavioral issues and learning problems. Plus face it, it’s just harder to have fun when your body won’t let you live how you’d like – something as simple as running at the park or going on a nature hike is tough for kids who are overweight.

Obviously there’s a problem. However, everywhere I turn, all I see are people blaming outside factors. Here’s what I think…

• Happy Meals aren’t responsible for your child’s health.
• Soda and chips aren’t responsible for your child’s health.
• School lunches aren’t responsible for your child’s health.
• Video games, television and commercials aren’t responsible for your child’s health.
• Vending machines aren’t responsible for your child’s health.

Personally, I’ll be the first to admit that I hate school lunches in this country. I’ve been blogging about how much I hate them for years and I’m sure they’re not helping the obesity issue. All the other issues above, sure they probably also somewhat contribute to the obesity epidemic.

But there’s one very important reason why we should quit blaming all those outside forces – kids, first and foremost, have parents. Parents, not outside factors, play the single most important role in kids lives.

Parents are responsible for their child’s health. 

As a parent you have the right to…

• Make choices – chips or whole grain crackers? Soda or water? Fast food or dinner at home?
• Teach healthy eating habits to your kids.
• Buy less junk food.
• Increase outside time and exercise time.
• Serve vegetables over and over again. I swear your kids won’t starve.
• Eat healthy and exercise so your kids see you eating healthy and exercising.
• Learn the proper body mass index for yourself and your child.
• Learn about proper food portions.
• Just say no to fast food.
• Make a scene in your community and at your school until school lunches become healthier and pack your kid a healthy sack lunch in the meantime.
• Insist that your health care provider teaches your family about healthy food choices – if they can’t switch providers.

The above is actually more than your parental right – it’s your responsibility as a parent. Banning fast food toys is a fun little bandage, but it’s not up to fast food toys to teach children how to eat well and it’s absolutely within your ability as a parent to say, “No, you don’t need the fast food. I don’t care if there is a toy.” In most cases (I’m hoping) no one is holding a gun to your head saying, “Choose the soda and chips or else.” You actually have the ability to choose what you offer your kids and you can say no to bad choices.

All banning fast food toys does is give parents who don’t want to accept responsibility one less excuse to lean on. Actually, maybe that’s a good thing.

All in all I know it’s not this simple.

• Health care providers are totally slack in some cases, ignoring families who could use nutrition advice.
• There are families who are stuck in generations worth of unhealthy eaters
• Many parents can’t afford to pack their kids a lunch – which sucks because they are dependent on school lunches.
• I know from experience that it’s harder to make smart nutrition choices when you’re a single parent or a parent with low income and you’re tired 24/7 but I also know that it’s not impossible; harder yes, impossible no. Just like the other issues above.

In the end there are all kinds of excuses we can make for overweight and obese children but not one of those excuses helps our kids to be healthy now and in the future. What does help is healthy food and exercise. Basic smart choices. Smart choices are hard work, food choices can be tough and at times it is hard to be a good parent but as parents we need to try because it’s not helping kids to blame all these other outside forces. As parents we have major power when it comes to our kids health.

For now why not tell me – do you think banning plastic toys will make a difference from a nutritional standpoint? Yes, no? Why?

Look at this!

Really?

This is the saddest thing I’ve seen in a good long while. I don’t watch much TV (we don’t have cable) but I’m pretty sure I’m going to try and catch this show online. I’ll be back to comment on what I think about this whole situation at some point soon.