{"id":6994,"date":"2010-04-21T05:43:49","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T09:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994"},"modified":"2015-12-28T05:23:34","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T10:23:34","slug":"why-wasnt-i-a-fat-kid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994","title":{"rendered":"Why Wasn’t I an Overweight Kid?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been vaguely following the reports on Jamie Oliver\u2019s<\/a> trip to a West Virgina school where he showed the children common vegetables, like tomatoes and cauliflower, which they were unable to identify.\u00a0 This led me to think about my own childhood, and what I ate.\u00a0 What I realize is that while vegetables did exist here and there in my surroundings, and I certainly could identify them, I never really ate them.<\/p>\n

I led a gastronomic triple life as a child, since I split my time between three homes.\u00a0 In my father\u2019s house there were some chicken and rice dishes, a lot of microwavable soy products, some cucumbers and carrots, and pitchers of pink lemonade, which we considered a healthy alternative to Coke.\u00a0 We ate Kraft singles on white bread, chewy granola bars, potato chips, graham crackers, and popsicles.\u00a0 In my grandmother\u2019s house there was a lot of boiled chicken.\u00a0 There were greasy latkes, Empire frozen pizza bagels, and stale coffee cakes which were not really cakes, but challah stuffed with homemade jam as thick as tar.\u00a0 There was strudel and there were cinnamon rolls which were – like the coffee cake \u2013 just a slight variation on the challah recipe.\u00a0 My grandmother grew cucumbers in her garden, but we never ate them fresh.\u00a0 The minute we plucked one it went right into a jar for pickling.\u00a0 Same was true of the figs from her fig tree.\u00a0 They went right to the pot, destined to become jam.\u00a0 And then there was my mother\u2019s apartment, where junk food ruled.\u00a0 [Note: My mother was incapacitated with MS so she was not actually serving the junk food, but rather her caregiver of the moment was doing so and my mother was unable to object].<\/p>\n

The caregivers who also drove my brother and me back-and-forth between our parents\u2019 homes always stopped at 7- Eleven for cigarettes, which is where my brother got his Coke and Twix, and I got my Sprite and Kit-Kat.\u00a0 (I just paused in writing this to look up the carbohydrate content of a can of Sprite and a Kit-Kat – 90 grams of carb!).\u00a0 With our sugar in hand, my brother and I went into our mother\u2019s apartment and straight to our Atari where we began heated games of Pitfall <\/a>and Frogger.\u00a0 As intense as it was to maneuver that primitive Atari joystick, it wasn\u2019t enough of a work-out to burn off the sugar and calories in the snack we were eating.\u00a0 And yet, we weren\u2019t fat.\u00a0 In fact, we were both about as skinny as possible.<\/p>\n

So my question is, with all of the sugar, carbs, and processed food we were eating, why weren\u2019t we overweight like so many children today? \u00a0Genetics, I\u2019m sure plays a role, and we kept kosher which means we didn\u2019t eat meat in fast-food restaurants.\u00a0 Is this part of the reason?\u00a0 Are the processed foods of today considerably worse than the processed foods of the 80s?\u00a0 What other factors are there in the enormous rise in childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes in children? Does anyone know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We ate Kraft singles on white bread, chewy granola bars, potato chips, graham crackers, and popsicles…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":53098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1501],"tags":[20,718,230],"yoast_head":"\nThe Rise of Childhood Obesity?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What other factors are there in the enormous rise in childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes in children?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jessica Apple\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994\",\"name\":\"The Rise of Childhood Obesity?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ASL-Social-Big-Square-3.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-04-21T09:43:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-12-28T10:23:34+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/1f33fe649de04a31a493d746b6e72607\"},\"description\":\"What other factors are there in the enormous rise in childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes in children?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ASL-Social-Big-Square-3.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/ASL-Social-Big-Square-3.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":1280},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=6994#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why Wasn’t I an Overweight Kid?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\",\"name\":\"ASweetLife\",\"description\":\"The Diabetes Magazine\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/1f33fe649de04a31a493d746b6e72607\",\"name\":\"Jessica Apple\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c10409e04c60ee9e1a01fbe9c4a704b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c10409e04c60ee9e1a01fbe9c4a704b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jessica Apple\"},\"description\":\"Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. 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