Editorial: Nation of spectators with fries

Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2002 | 8:58 a.m.

Forty years ago, much to the chagrin of children, this phrase was ubiquitous: No snacking between meals. Children did not always abide, but they heard it everywhere -- at home, at school, at church, even in TV ads. Adults who came of age during the Depression were fond of the no-snacks admonition, and they were egged on by President Kennedy, who made physical fitness one of his domestic priorities. Today, baby boomers raised on the phrase have long since abandoned it. It's possible their children and grandchildren have never even heard it.

Snacking taboos seem to have vanished completely. Schools are full of vending machines dispensing soda and chips. Confections of all manner are omnipresent. Only vestiges remain of the old "three balanced meals a day, dessert only at supper" lifestyle. Consumption of salty and fatty fast foods is now the norm. Concurrently, many of the activities now attractive to adults and children are sedentary. Recent studies have shown that up to 33 percent of the nation's children are overweight or on the verge of becoming overweight -- a percentage that's more than doubled since studies in the late 1970s. The figures for adults are alarming too -- 64.5 percent are now overweight, compared with 45 percent in 1960. The studies link these statistics with two growing trends -- overeating of the wrong kinds of foods and lack of exercise.

In adults, obesity often leads to health problems, which can lead to financial problems and an overall diminished quality of life. President Kennedy once said, "We have become more and more not a nation of athletes but a nation of spectators." Today we're spectators with fries. For ourselves, for our children, let's begin doing something about our "no meals between snacks" lifestyles.