Naperville's children being harmed by diet

The best thing about the Forward Coalition, a recently formed confederation of local groups to fight childhood obesity, is that it recognizes that the problem exists right here, in River City so to speak. Ordinarily, the assumption is that problems exist everywhere but here, but the fact is that as many as half of Naperville's children are dangerously ill, and it's our fault.

When I was a boy, kids were skinny and wiry. They ate three regular meals a day at home, swam, played pickup sports, played hockey with blocks of wood, and were outside all the time. They ate from their parents' gardens, or from farm stands, drank water, and ate their lunches from a metal lunch bucket with a thermos in the lid.

Since then, we have over-scheduled, over chauffeured, and commercialized childhood, especially in Naperville. Worse, we have allowed our children to become the targets of a vast and immensely profitable processed food industry. If I had a hamburger as a child, on those very rare occasions when I could afford a Prince Castle or my dad would take us to Clark's Corner, it was grass-fed beef.

Today, kids live on fast-food hamburgers, which are made with corn-fed beef that has as much as 10 times the fat as beef is supposed to have. Fast foods, and many processed foods, are also engineered to have exactly the right combination of fat, salt, corn syrup, and sugar to neutralize the hormones that regulate appetite and fool the brain's hunger centers. In fact, it has recently been shown that the brain chemistry of an animal eating fast food shows all the physiological signs of addiction. The condition lasts for weeks at least.

What are the consequences of third-graders being more obese, and having higher cholesterol and more arterial plaque, than their grandparents? Early onset disease, such as type II diabetes, heart disease, stroke, inflammation, auto-immune disease, and some kinds of cancer. Two thirds or more of our current health care costs are due to these largely preventable diseases. Imagine what a wonderful growth and investment industry American sickness is going to be if we let our children keep going down this horrible path.

I could not be more supportive of the Forward Coalition, and its emphasis on natural foods and exercise, but does it really take $10 million to make people understand they're responsible for the fatty beef, trans fat, salt, and high-fructose corn syrup they let their kids eat? Many people agonize over the presence of minute amounts of artificial colors and preservatives in processed foods. Folks, it's not the preservatives that are killing your children, it's the food.

Contact Bill Mego at bill.mego@sbcglobal.net.