Childhood obesity is a serious public health issue that must be addressed. I have a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Washington. American children are documented in the historical records collected during the frontier period as having had a much rougher life than European children. For example, falling off wagons while both parents were tending the oxen. Much business today has restructured to use temporaries in positions that used to provide stable employment to adults who then must endure constant change in co-workers and work sites. In my personal childhood, I gained weight after my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and she forbade me from talking to anyone about it. I believe childhood obesity is a generalized symptom of American social problems.
Often parents are living a nightmare because banks are permitted to include overtime earnings in the calculation for how high a mortgage they qualify for; when the overtime dries up, the family is required to borrow at exculpatory rates and/or take on commitments to more jobs/sources of income. Businesses could cease the practice of structuring temporaries into their processes, instead hiring and keeping on-board employees in these positions. Medical doctors could routinely prescribe and medical insurance companies pay for family counseling when a member is diagnosed with a debilitating disease.
Obese children are targeted for insults by their peers, interfering with their happiness, which is every American’s right to pursue, and thus impeding the progress they must make during childhood in order to become fully functioning adults. Out of fairness, we must address the myriad causes of childhood obesity now.
Rosemarie D. Cook
Snohomish
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