Why Are We Killing Our Children?

Happy Meals, Coca Cola, Lunchables, Milk, Krispy Kremes; these are the things that we "reward" our children with. We tell them that if they are good at the dentist or the doctor that we will take them out for snacks. We tell them that if they clean their rooms that they can have a cookie. We tell them that if they eat all of their dinner they can have dessert. What are we as parents thinking? This has gone on for generations and I have no doubt that it will go on for many more.

What kind of message do you think this sends? Is this how eating disorders and unhealthy attitudes towards food start? I would be surprised if that were not the case. Not only are we fostering these unhealthy attitudes towards food in our children, but are we also killing them?

An article published in the American Journal of Pathology stated that all children who consume the rich western diet, i.e. the American diet, show early stages of atherosclerosis (artery damage caused by fatty streaks) by the age of 3. Let me say that again: ALL children who consume the fatty diets we give them have early stages of heart disease by the age of 3. If this is not a crime against our children, then I do not know what is.

Have you ever been out in public and seen a baby drinking a bottle with Coke in it? Or worse, have you done that yourself to your own children? Maybe people don't understand the very real danger they are posing to their children by doing this.

We are the product of what we eat. Our children are a product of the food that we feed them. So why would you set your children up for heart disease, Type II diabetes, and even cancer? Our country is plagued by what experts are calling the 'obesity epidemic'. How do we get fat? How do we develop disease? Are we just one of the unlucky ones if we are found to be diseased with cancer? I don't think so.

We create the environment for disease to begin within our own bodies and those of our children. Eating fast food, drinking soft drinks, eating a diet that consists primarily of highly processed foods, not eating enough fruits, not eating enough vegetables; this is how we set the stage for disease to grow in our bodies.

If you pay close attention to the news reports, you will notice a trend. Everyday there is new information out there about the benefits of fruits and vegetables. There is new information about the dangers of prescription drugs. There is new information about the body's ability to repair itself. There is mounting evidence of what we should have already known; your body is the smartest 'machine' ever created.

Everyday there are millions of processes that are ongoing simultaneously in your body. You breathe without even thinking about it. With every breath, oxygen is inhaled and poisons such as carbon dioxide are exhaled. Your heart beats constantly without any help from you and supplies oxygen-filled blood to all areas of your body. You eat foods, and while the food is digested, your body takes what it needs from the food and turns it into new cells to replace the old cells that your body then excretes as waste products.

What do you want your new cells to be made of? Do you think cancer can develop if you have spent years feeding your body useless processed food? Do you think cancer can develop if you constantly bathe your insides with the insidious ingredients found in a 12 ounce can of Coca Cola?

How many years of our children's lives are we going to squander `rewarding' them with the very foods that are killing them? The foods that are creating the childhood obesity epidemic? The same foods that are giving our children adult-onset diabetes long before they are adults. To me this seems unfair.

Do we love our children enough to provide them with high quality foods, or are we just trying to give them whatever we think they will eat because we have tainted their taste buds with poisonous food.

And since when did pus become a health food and something that our children cannot live without? Were you aware that there is pus in the milk that the dairy industry insists that you should feed your children every day? And the government is ok with that. They have set the standards for the number of pus cells that can be in a glass of milk.

Are people just not paying attention when articles with titles like "McDonald's Meat Sources to Cut Antibiotics" show up in the local newspapers? Cut antibiotics? How many of us were aware that the antibiotics given to the cows to stop infections were ending up in the hamburgers? Of course those are not the antibiotics that they are stopping. It is the ones that promote growth. Are any antibiotics really ok? Not for my children.

Children will naturally gravitate to fruits and natural foods until, as adults, we taint their taste buds and ruin them with processed foods. All is not lost, however, as we can get them back on a healthy path. It is never too late to begin reversing the early stages of heart disease. Your children have a right to be healthy. Don't take that away from them.

Julie Rayburn is a Lifestyle Coach for Vitality Health and Fitness. She has developed a program to help people lose weight and take control of their health.