Grandson Kahn Haskell-Wallace

Saving Your Child From Obesity

To the right is a picture of my grandson, Kahn. Like every grandfather and parent I want the very best for our youngest generation. However, Kahn, like all children his age is in grave danger from diseases caused by childhood obesity. The US Center for Disease Control now predicts that if present trends continue - and they are only getting worse - one our of every three children born since 2001 will develop type 2 diabetes. The children who develop diabetes are anticipated to have 17 to 27 years craved off their life expectancy. If this horrible prediction by America's disease control center is correct, this generation of children will be the first in history to die in significant numbers before their parents.

There is a crisis in childhood health that every parent, grandparent, aunt and uncle must acknowledge and move now to take positive preventative action. We can not ignore it any longer. We must act now to save our children.

The causes of childhood obesity are very complex - too much fast food - not enough exercise - too many sugar loaded soft drinks - high fructose corn syrup in everything and public policy that allows mass marketing to our children. The solutions however are very simple - eat more fresh fruit & vegetables and be physically active.

What I have learned as the project manager of the Garden of Eatin' Childhood Obesity Prevention Project (for more information on the project read Annie Spiegelman's article as it appeared in the Pacific Sun Set.12, 2006) is if children are given an opportunity to eat fresh vegetables from a garden - they learn to love to eat fruits and vegetables. It is that simple. Every child needs a garden. Eating from the garden trains their pallets to eat vegetables. If they do not become "vegetable eaters" when they are young, then sadly they are more likely to become addicted to highly processed foods rich in salt, sugar, fats and artificial additives.

Give your Child A Garden for a Gift that Keeps on Giving

David Haskell, Oct 2006