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Originally posted by CutiePie2000
I think it's best if healthy habits are ingrained from the "beginning" like putting kids in soccer at age 5, or swimming, baseball, t-ball...anything. If a kid has not done sports, I think expecting them to start at age 14 or 16 is way too late.
I'll tell you this: as a child, my parents took us hiking on the weekends. It was a good way for us to bond as a family, get some fresh air and exercise and enjoy the outdoors. The same can be done with a walk in the park or at the beach (or whatever "nature" is near where you live). My point is, parents need to start early. My nephew is 16 mos. and he is on x-country skiis already. He probably skiis for about 1/2 an hour and when he's pooped, he goes in the little backpack carrier and sleeps.
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I think the assumption here is that bigger kids aren't exercising earlier, though, which isn't true. I did cross-country running, track and tennis in high school and there were chunky kids in every single one of those sports. There were even a handful of straight-up obese kids on the track & field team (mostly throwers). While exercise plays a part, researchers are quickly discovering that food plays a much, much larger role. After all, you need to spend a couple hours at the gym just to work off the calories in a muffin. Wouldn't it be easier to just not eat it in the first place?
Also, for larger kids who may be self-conscious about their bodies, getting them to exercise is tough because of that alone. I did swimming and gymnastics when I was little, but remember a time when one of the girls in my gymnastics class told me I looked pregnant in my leotard. I was not a big kid at all, just had the typical pudgy little kid tummy that stuck out a little. But did that affect me? (Obviously, if I can still remember it twelve years later.) I quit swimming pretty soon after that and always wore baggy clothes to gymnastics. And when I did sports in middle school, I always stuck to ones that allowed me to cover up more (basketball, soccer). I can understand how someone who is very self-conscious about their body and is used to getting made fun of for it could shy away from stuff like that.
I totally agree that bad eating habits often start with the parents. But the problem is that too many parents don't know what's bad for them! We think it's so obvious -- eat fruits and veggies, eat low-cal stuff, limit fats and sweets. But there are so many people who are confused by all the conflicting diet advice out there -- people who think fat counts instead of calories, people who think carbs count instead of calories, people who think that eating peaches and cottage cheese and Slimfast shakes for two weeks is a valid form of weight control. I remember watching MTV's True Life: I'm Obese and one of the guys was saying, "Hey, this is good for you, it's low-carb" -- while he fried up some kind of meat in butter! Right. That's GREAT for you.
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Originally posted by Lady Pi Phi
I don't really think that's a myth. One can be on the heavier side, but still be healthy. It all depends on their lifestyle. If they exercise and eat reasonably well being a little over weight probably won't kill them.
Now you can't really say that to the person who weighs 300 pounds and sits in front of the TV eating chips all day. If you do, you're being stupid and if that person believes you they are being stupid as well.
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Yes, I think the problem with this is that doctors said, "You can be overweight and still be healthy," meaning that if you're eating food that's good for you (and not too much of it) and you're exercising a lot and you're still not thin, you shouldn't stress out because your body is still probably in decent shape. But people took this phrase and changed it to mean, "If you're overweight, you ARE still healthy," which is often not the case, or in some cases even "If you're obese, you are still healthy" which is never the case. What that statement means is that if you're, like, training for a marathon and eating healthy foods, you're probably okay no matter what weight you're at. But the subsection of the population that this applies to is pretty small.