Why Current Generation of Children is Expected to Be the First to Have a Shorter Life Span Than Their Parents

According to an October 20, 2009 press release from HCG Diet Direct, Phoenix, AZ, an update on recent studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for 2008, and a report from Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences, Cooperative Extension, "Nutrition, Diet and Health Survey," the current generation of children is expected to be the first to have a shorter life span than their parents. The latest reports are projections.

And they're not only about eating too much of the wrong foods. There's not enough of exercise tailored to the needs of the individual child. And foods are not customized to the child's metabolism, body shape, or heredity. It's about getting the right fit and balance.

These projections were made in direct correlation to average weight projections. The obesity epidemic continues to thrive in America and throughout industrialized nations of the world; particularly among children.

Current trends make it very clear that the incidences of childhood and adolescent obesity continue to increase. Jenny Boynton of HCG Diet Direct responds, "We believe that discussing the problem is the first step. That's how we generate awareness of the issue. But it's definitely time to move on to action.

If parents see a problem in their children...they should first consider their example. Do they have a weight issue? If so, they are teaching their children to adopt the same unhealthy acceptance. And if your teenager has a weight issue; discuss their options with a professional before it escalates any further out of their control."

Experts suggest that simply sitting down to regular meal times as a family can decrease the risk of unhealthy weight in children and adolescents. Another general word of advice offered for families aware of the issue is to incorporate raw foods into their diet.

Families can also benefit as a whole from decreasing portion sizes and learning to replace high calorie foods (and desserts) with low calorie substitutes. For example, instead of habitually serving your chicken over rice you can serve the chicken as a stand-alone entrée with a whole wheat roll and steamed vegetables or if your family is big on meat and potatoes opt for smaller cuts of lean meats and sweet potatoes.

Also, too many families are still serving white rice instead of the more nutritious brown basmati rice, or serving rice with various stuffed vegetables instead of serving other whole grains such as amaranth, quinoa, tiff, millet, whole oat groats, buckwheat (not a type of wheat), or barley, if they are not sensitive to grains or have celiac disease. More raw food should be introduced early. Try making cookies from bananas, ground flax seeds, sesame seeds, cashews, almond meal, chopped applies, and oat bran instead of white flour and sugar.

Instead of adding fat to cookies, use a dehydrator and make raw food cookies from ground up nuts, flax seeds, prunes, and other snacks such as dried fruit and almonds that can be eaten raw or dehydrated after being formed into a cookie shape and moistened with chopped fruit such as applies or cherries and blueberries. Here are the CDC's latest tables of obesity rates broken down by each state.

Center for Disease Control (CDC) 2008 State Obesity Rates in Percentages by State

Alabama 31.4 Illinois 26.4 Montana 23.9 Rhode Island 21.5 Alaska 26.1 Indiana 26.3 Nebraska 26.6 South Carolina 30.1 Arizona 24.8 Iowa 26.0 Nevada 25.0 South Dakota 27.5 Arkansas 28.7 Kansas 27.4 New Hampshire 24.0 Tennessee 30.6 California 23.7 Kentucky 29.8 New Jersey 22.9 Texas 28.3 Colorado 18.5 Louisiana 28.3 New Mexico 25.2 Utah 22.5 Connecticut 21.0 Maine 25.2 New York 24.4 Vermont 22.7 Delaware 27.0 Maryland 26.0 North Carolina 29.0 Virginia 25.0 Washington DC 21.8 Massachusetts 20.9 North Dakota 27.1 Washington 25.4 Florida 24.4 Michigan 28.9 Ohio 28.7 West Virginia 31.2 Georgia 27.3 Minnesota 24.3 Oklahoma 30.3 Wisconsin 25.4 Hawaii 22.6 Mississippi 32.8 Oregon 24.2 Wyoming 24.6 Idaho 24.5 Missouri 28.5 Pennsylvania 27.7

The data shown in these maps were collected through the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Each year, state health departments use standard procedures to collect data through a series of monthly telephone interviews with U.S. adults. Prevalence estimates generated for the maps may vary slightly from those generated for the states by the BRFSS as slightly different analytic methods are used.

The data is available as a text-only Acrobat file.(PDF-160k) New Obesity Data Shows Blacks Have the Highest Rates of Obesity

Blacks had 51 percent higher prevalence of obesity, and Hispanics had 21 percent higher obesity prevalence compared with whites.

Greater prevalences of obesity for blacks and whites were found in the South and Midwest than in the West and Northeast. Hispanics in the Northeast had lower obesity prevalence than Hispanics in the Midwest, South or West.

For this study analysis, CDC analyzed the 2006−2008 BRFSS data.

For more, see Differences in Prevalence of Obesity Among Black, White, and Hispanic Adults - United States, 2006-2008.
Also available in a PDF version (PDF-1.3Mb). The CDC's site shows obesity percentages in tables for the following groups:

White Non-Hispanic

Hispanic

Black Non-Hispanic

Related Resources

Trends in Childhood Obesity
Data from NHANES surveys (1976-1980 and 2003-2006) show that the prevalence of obesity has increased: for children aged 2-5 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 12.4%; for those aged 6-11 years, prevalence increased from 6.5% to 17.0%; and for those aged 12-19 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 17.6%

Obesity Prevalence Among Low-Income, Preschool-Aged Children 1998-2008
One of 7 low-income, preschool-aged children is obese, but the obesity epidemic may be stabilizing.

Photo credits: Flickr.com.