Why Are We
Killing Our Children?
©2003 Julie S. Rayburn
Happy Meals, Coca Cola, Lunchables, Milk, Krispy Kremes; these
are the things that we "reward" our children with. We tell them
that if they are good at the dentist or the doctor that we will
take them out for snacks. We tell them that if they clean their
rooms that they can have a cookie. We tell them that if they
eat all of their dinner they can have dessert. What are we as
parents thinking? This has gone on for generations and
I have no doubt that it will go on for many more.
What kind of message do you think this sends? Is this how
eating disorders and unhealthy attitudes towards food start? I
would be surprised if that were not the case! Not only are we
fostering these unhealthy attitudes towards food in our
children, but are we also killing them?
An article published in the American Journal of Pathology stated
that all
children who consume the rich western diet, i.e. the American
diet, show early stages of atherosclerosis (artery damage caused
by fatty streaks) by the age of 3. Let me say that again .ALL
children who consume the fatty diets we give them have early
stages of heart disease by the age of 3! If this is not a crime
against our children, then I do not know what is!
Have you ever been out in public and seen a baby drinking a
bottle with Coke in it? Or worse, have you done that yourself
to your own children? Maybe people don't understand the very
real danger they are posing to their children by doing this.
We are the product of what we eat. Our children are a product
of the food that we feed them. So why would you set your
children up for heart disease, Type II diabetes, and even
cancer? Our country is plagued by what experts are calling the
'obesity epidemic'. How do we get fat? How do we develop
disease? Are we just one of the unlucky ones if we are found to
be diseased with cancer? I don't think so.
We create the environment for disease to begin within our own
bodies and those of our children. Eating fast food, drinking
soft drinks, eating a diet that consists primarily of highly
processed foods, not eating enough fruits, not eating enough
vegetables; this is how we set the stage for disease to grow in
our bodies.
If you pay close attention to the news reports, you will notice
a trend.
Everyday there is new information out there about the benefits
of fruits and vegetables. There is new information about the
dangers of prescription drugs.
There is new information about the body's ability to repair
itself. There is
mounting evidence of what we should have already known; your
body is the smartest 'machine' ever created.
Everyday there are millions of processes that are ongoing
simultaneously in your body. You breathe without even thinking
about it. With every breath, oxygen is inhaled and poisons such
as carbon dioxide are exhaled. Your heart beats constantly
without any help from you and supplies oxygen-filled blood to
all areas of your body. You eat foods, and while the food is
digested, your body takes what it needs from the food and turns
it into new cells to replace the old cells that your body then
excretes as waste products.
What do you want your new cells to be made of? Do you think
cancer can develop if you have spent years feeding your body
useless processed food? Do you think cancer can develop if you
constantly bathe your insides with the insidious ingredients
found in a 12 ounce can of Coca Cola?
How many years of our children's lives are we going to squander
'rewarding' them with the very foods that are killing them? The
foods that are creating the childhood obesity epidemic? The
same foods that are giving our children adult-onset diabetes
long before they are adults! To me this seems unfair.
Do we love our children enough to provide them with high quality
foods, or are we just trying to give them whatever we think they
will eat because we have tainted their taste buds with poisonous
food.
And since when did pus become a health food and something that
our children cannot live without? Were you aware that there is
pus in the milk that the dairy industry insists that you should
feed your children every day? And the government is ok with
that. They have set the standards for the number of pus cells
that can be in a glass of milk.
Are people just not paying attention when articles with titles
like "McDonald's Meat Sources to Cut Antibiotics" show up in the
local newspapers? Cut antibiotics? How many of us were aware
that the antibiotics given to the cows to stop infections were
ending up in the hamburgers? Of course those are not the
antibiotics that they are stopping. It is the ones that promote
growth.
Are any antibiotics really ok? Not for my children!
Children will naturally gravitate to fruits and natural foods
until, as adults,
we taint their taste buds and ruin them with processed foods.
All is not lost, however, as we can get them back on a healthy
path. It is never too late to begin reversing the early stages
of heart disease. Your children have a right to be healthy!
Don't take that away from them!
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Julie Rayburn is a Lifestyle Coach for Vitality Health and
Fitness. She has
developed a weight loss program that is guaranteed to work for
anyone. Go to
www.takebackyourhealth.org to sign up for a FREE 7 day
e-class on weight loss!
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