Before You Go Zonking
Childhood Obesity Gets Personal
Obesity and Chronic Diseases are Ravaging Our Own Families
Several years ago we faced the reality that our parents, brothers, and sisters were dying of chronic diseases, most due to varying degress of overweight and obesity. Some had already passed. More were headed there all too quickly. While solutions for them were in the hands of caring physicians, we looked at our children and grandchildren, and we're moved to action.
We realized we had to change our own lives, and to reach out to effectively help others. We desired more than just better treatment options. Preventive actions everyone could implement were needed. We felt great urgency to stop this generation of children from suffering the ravages of these highly preventable, terrible Early Chronic Diseases (ECD) that arise so readily out of the epidemic of Childhood Obesity.
Looking at the data (e.g.; 1 in 3 kids getting Type 2 diabetes in their lifetime, 1 in 2 if a minority), we realized an entire generation of children was being lost to Childhood Obesity. Their hopes, dreams, productive years, future families, and earning potential would all be impaired. For them and our nation, the human implications were astounding.
Proper diet and regular, vigorous exercise would make most of this epidemic disappear. The solution was to get kids active, and teach them sound nutrition.
Why do it in schools?
For many children, especially minorities and lower income groups, schools provide the only safe place for regular physical activity. With PE disappearing (we created the only PE program proven to reduce Childhood Obesity risk factors, click here now for details) and nutrition education being pushed out in favor of "hard" subjects, after significant development and testing, GoZonkers was born.
