Increased Exercise and Better Nutrition Needed at After-School Programs

Things like this make me cross my fingers that my boy will be really interested in sports. I believe it though, just by seeing the kids and how much heavier they are now than when I was in school. (I had maybe 2 overweight kids in my grade in elem.)

I agree 100%. In the new school my son goes they do not have a cafeteria so I pack his lunch on a daily basis. I had the opportunity to meed Dr. Sasson Moulavi when I was participating in the Smart for Life weight loss program (I lost 44 pounds). Dr. Moulavi cannot emphazise enough how bad our children eating habits are and how mouch toxic substances there are in the food we eat. Keeping this in mind I buy organic, low glycemic snacks for my sons lunchbox instead of highfructose, high fat snacks. It was a blessing to meet Dr. Moulavi and Smart for Life.

I am lucky that I can work from home and my kids haven't used the after and before school care at our school. The kids in after school care are always involved in outdoor games and sports which looks like fun.

Where ours fall down is in the food. The snacks they offer are jelly in cups, cakes, biscuits and fairy bread. Nasty food! High in calories, low in nutrition and full of artificial colors and flavors. For that reason I'll avoid after school care. It is a business so I guess they offer cheap foods in order to cut costs. A shame for the children!

nice

It's not the school's (or the taxpayers) responsibility to see to it that kids are getting the nutrition and exercise they need. The kids should be sent home after regular school and let the responsibility for their health be placed where it belongs, to their parents. School is to educate the mind. It's not meant to be a dawn to dusk daycare to get the kids out of their parent's hair. If parents don't want to take the time to parent their children, they should consider that before they make babies.

With the economy the way it is now, if every parent "considered" having babies like some are asking, we would have the same problem as Japan. This whole "it's the parents' fault" thing is really easy to say. Society just isn't structured like that anymore for the most part unless you are rural and / or have money. I do agree that there are some parents choosing career and the proliferation of things over child rearing, there are a great deal more parents that are just coping with the hand dealt them. The fact that one must have a dual income (and sometimes more than one job) to own a home in most places, coupled with the astronomical costs in health care means that many parents don't have all that much time to spend with their children.

That's not to say that mistakes aren't being made.

There are some simple things that parents can do like spending 20 minutes a day every day being active, helping the kids find quick meals to make for themselves that are healthy, and encouraging the children to engage in physically / intellectually engaging activities.

On the flip side of that, we are not looking at the danger (or perceived danger) factor of playing outside. Kids used to to do this free of parental supervision. Now we don't allow that anymore. So...school becomes a safe place where kids can play with other kids. What we shouldn't be doing is making these programs gestapo boot camps. More free play and idea sharing should be the norm.

We ALL must participate in sending messages to kids through our actions AND words. This whole "it's the parent's responsibility" doesn't jibe with the way we have allowed the proliferation of commercial interests. Especially since once adolescence hits, the NATURAL thing to do is to break away from the parents. Then we are all society's "problem". That's why they call society society!!

If you exist in the container, you must do something about the contents of the container, otherwise the problem will become insurmountable. If you care. Otherwise we can just continue to go around blaming "those people".