This just in...nothing is good for you.

Have you seen the following article? It was in the New England Journal of Medicine. You probably havent seen it but heard about it. Dr. Ludwig, one of the researchers, is widely quoted as he defines the end of American childhood as we know it.



Ludwig and colleagues note that two-thirds of American adults are obese or overweight. That dramatically increases our chances of type 2 diabetes (search), heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, and other life-threatening conditions.
But this is child's play compared with the effects of childhood obesity on life span. America's childhood obesity problem is growing faster and faster.
"Obesity rates are increasing fastest among children, and they will carry obesity-related health risks throughout their lives," Ludwig says. "An adult who gains a pound or 2 a year through middle age will be at increased risk. But that is much less dire than the overweight 4- to 6-year-old who gets diabetes at age 14 or 16 and has a heart attack before age 30."
Ludwig -- director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital, Boston -- says the childhood obesity epidemic has three phases. The first came in the last decade, when child obesity became common but the public health effects weren't yet felt. Phase two is right now, as we begin to see serious complications such as type 2 diabetes in very young people. Phase three, Ludwig predicts, is coming soon.
"But we still have a little time before these children become young adults with diabetes and start to have heart attacks, stroke, kidney failure, and increased mortality," he says. "It is a massive tsunami headed for the United States. One can know it is coming. But if we wait until we see the ocean level rising over the shore, it will be too late to take action."



Did you skip to the bottom of this wall of text?



If you did, go back and read the article, its important.



I have listened to expert after expert define the problem that we all see coming. Not many solutions proffed though. Also absent is any indication of what is causing the problem.



How can so many smart people be so clueless?



Look, you can reasearch all you want, we already know what the problem is. The crap that is marketed to us and our kids as food or medicine is not only not good for us, its killing us. Fruit snacks, juiceboxes, hollow sugary vitamins, "healthy" wraps with 1600 calories. The list goes on and on.



As parents it is our job to know what is good and what isn't. The problem is that no one makes any money if your kids aren't fat, sick, depressed or addicted so the resouces are limted. But they are there. Its sick that we have to work hard to educate ourselves all the while buffeted by advertisements. But its our job.



Tell me it isn't worth it.