How do our modern day lifestyles effect the health of our children?

United States
January 6, 2007 12:09am CST
Our world is so full of new and exciting technologies and wonderful opportunities for families to experience things we never could have dreamed of as kids. It amazes me that we can be online and chat with people all around the world, recieve an education in your jammies at your computer, gain access to virtually any information you desire. But with this comes a terrible downside that I believe desperately needs to be managed. When we were children, we came home from school and did our home work by looking things up in reference books and writing it down on paper. Then we went outside to 'play'! What a concept!! We ran, we rode bikes, we played baseball, tag and red-light green-light. We also got a huge whoopin' if we weren't in when the street lights came on! We ate our dinner, maybe watched a LITTLE TV and then went to bed at a decent hour TIRED. Now our children come home, do there homework on the computer, play computer games, play video games watch entirely too much TV and all that this involves is sitting. When we were kids a trip to McDonalds was a special treat. Now with our hectic schedules it's a typical dinner on any night that is too busy for cooking. No wonder so many of our children are over weight. I don't allow my kids to spend too much time at the computer or the TV, but I am going to make it a point to get outside with them, teach them to play, build forts, run around like maniacs and have some good tiring fun. I am also going to look into cookbooks and recipes for good, healthy, yet quick meals so as to limit our trips to fast food places. If anyone has suggestions or recipes please share. Here is a site I found with some stats on childhood obesity. www.healthiergeneration.org/engine/renderpage.asp
2 responses
@ssh123 (31073)
• India
6 Jan 07
Children concentrate on everythings except on school and studies. That is the major draw back of modern life style. In our childhood days, to get one story book or comic book one considered to be lucky. Now the home library is full of such books. Most of the time they are busy with e-games, video games etc. in our days, most of the time we were playing with other children. Most of the time in olden days, our food habits were more organized. Now it is most of the junk food era. Earlier the children use to respect the parents and obedient. Now parents are scared to take any disciplinary action against child.
1 person likes this
• United States
6 Jan 07
My kids do have a library full of books.... but try to get them to read them... it's like pulling teeth!!! As far as respecting parents: these kids are not taught anything about respect now-a-days!! As a parent I try to teach my kids the good old-fashion rules of life; take your hat off in a building, hold the door for someone, the Golden Rule. But our kids are out in a world that teaches them that they can make choices against their parents. I definately think that we should teach our children to think for themselves, but society should also be teaching them respect and even simple manners. It's not found out there in this world on a day to day basis. I applaud the groups that do try to teach this because I know that they are out there. But, I must say that in our daily lives these kids are seeing that it's every man ...or woman (must be politically correct!! Another topic entirely!!) for themselves!!
• United States
6 Jan 07
Oh my gosh are we related or something I feel the exact same way you do and yes we have to admit these kids get a whole lot more junk food than we got coming up. And i am concerned about are childrens health with the day to day fast foods.What happened to playing in the dirt with sticks and hopscotch.
1 person likes this
• United States
6 Jan 07
Hopscotch!!! I LOVE hopscotch!!! lol And I did recently teach my 9yr old daughter how to play!! We had fun! All the junk food today is awful... but then there is the concern with the foods that we eat when we try to eat good. One day something is good for you, the next day they say it isn't. Then they're adding stuff to make it better.... then they're taking away stuff to make it better!!! Geesh!!! Do we really ever know what we're eating?