Overweight Kids Face the Grim Reaper - Or Just 'Mass' Hysteria?

I am in the middle of a personal battle to get my body back after it being trashed by pharmaceuticals, severe depression and major health problems. This has taken a HUGE undertaking. I never was fat before even through 3 pregnancies but had to begin taking certain medications during my fourth pregnancy which is when the weight problem began.
I could not keep the bad habits I developed during my depression and health problems...i.e. junk food because I wasn't able to cook like I always had but further than that, I cannot even eat like I could before all this began because now, my system is 'deranged'. I am no longer starting from square one.
I have watched my oldest daughter struggle valiantly and successfully to lose 100 lbs she gained due to anxiety meds and mood stabilizers. She had never been fat previously to this either. It took her 2 years to lose what it took her less than 1 year to gain. I have watched my middle daughters struggle in a world of school lunches cram packed full of useless carbs, empty sugar and cheap, cheap protein, not to mention fat from the worst sources imaginable...no, I don't mean animal fat.
We bombard our kids with 'healthy' grains and juices, diet sodas, chips, fast food and just garbage and wonder why they are fat.
We think that anything in moderation is alright yet as Americans, we often have no idea what moderation really means.
We have very little understanding of how food actually works within our body or what we actually need for fuel.

Our kids are fat and they will pay the price.
I can tell you right now that when they are grown, they aren't going to appreciate your (the parent's) part in making them that way.

I don't like to bring up problems without bringing up a few solutions to consider.

Look into nixing grains altogether. You can get all the fiber, vitamins and minerals your family needs in much better, bio-available forms from grass-fed meats and vegetables serving for serving than you can from any grain.
When you eat grains, two enzymes are released that block most of the nutrients within the grains from being available for your body to use, rendering them pretty much useless to your body so even though they look good on the surface...you aren't getting the goodies, just mostly wasted carbohydrates.

Understand how carbohydrates function within your body.
Unless you are working out like an elite athlete, you don't need a bunch of extra carbs on any kind of daily basis. You will get some in veggies but there is no such thing as a 'essential carbohydrate'.
When you eat carbohydrates such as pasta, rice, potatoes, bread, etc...your body converts it into glucose.,..yes, SUGAR. Think of this as fuel for your body. It's necessary...IF you are going to be working it off but if you aren't really, REALLY working out, your body needs to store the extra fuel and it does this very, very well...in your FAT CELLS as what? YES...as FAT.
This is how carbohydrates, sugar and fat work and this is how you get fat.
As I have said at other times, it doesn't matter if you ate a nice, 'healthy' bowl of plain beans or a birthday cake...your body is going to take all the carbs from those items and convert in this manner unless you are seriously working it off.
Yes, beans offer more nutrition than birthday cake if they are prepared correctly but once again...,there are better, more bio-available sources for your nutrients and proteins than beans.

BTW, your body is very capable of creating or gathering enough carbs from very minimal carb intake when it it not working out like an elite athlete that it doesn't require carb intake for this work.
If you ARE working out like an athlete, there are still far better ways to accommodate your carb needs than any grain.
I just wanted to make that point clear.

Cut grains entirely, beans in serious moderation and only after proper preparation (soaking), rice in serious moderation.

Serve grass fed meats and vegetables and healthy fats.

Cut the sugar and processed foods.
Your kids will complain but they will discover that an apple tastes pretty darned good, especially compared to nothing.

Be an example.
You don't need the garbage either.

Short on time?
That is what crock pots are for!
Plus they are a lot of fun:)
You have to cook real, honest to goodness food from scratch but it doesn't have to be complicated and hard.

Play together whenever possible. It seems to me a lot of the time, the seriously fat little kids seem to have very disconnected parents. This may be a misguided generalization on my part because I am observing from a distance most of the time and if so, I apologize but in any case I have seen, the mother was constantly shoving food in the kid's mouth to keep him quiet, calm, pacified in some way while she did whatever it was she was wanting to do that didn't involve him.

Ok, this is far too long but thanks for sticking with me this far.
Those are my thoughts:)

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