Perceptions of Childhood Obesity and Diet Quality
One reason kids may not be eating more healthfully is that their parents vastly overestimate the quality of their child’s diet.
For even more on weight control, go to your local public library and check out my book, How Not to Diet ( ), available in print, e-book, and audio. (All proceeds I receive from the book are donated directly to charity.)
For more on childhood obesity, see:
• Infectobesity: Adenovirus 36 and Childhood Obesity ( )
• Formula for Childhood Obesity ( )
• Animal Protein, Pregnancy, and Childhood Obesity ( )
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Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution!
-Michael Greger, MD FACLM
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How do you decide when to include funny moments in your videos? Do you have any pre-planned jokes? 🍭💝
How do you organize your workspace for filming? Do you have any special conveniences? 💖😘
What if heavy metals and resulting candida and parasites besides the junk grains and starches and fried stuff everyone eats caused obesity?!?
When I was an au-pair in the UK 33 years ago, I also put on weight with their junk diet of beans and starches.
And now go ahead and throw your hate at me as I expect 😉
I don’t have any hate, but as somehow who is thriving at a normal weight on potatoes, vegetables, and grains, you probably ought to spend a little more time learning about nutrition. Starchy foods are highly satiating and have been a human diet staple from the very beginning. Process foods and saturated fats lead to obesity. This has been proven over and over. Seriously, just take a couple nutrition classes!! ❤️
Here in the USA, we have a dish called “baked beans”. While beans are very healthy, the sugar put into that dish far exceeds daily recommended allowances and thusly the excess of sugar makes this dish unhealthy. As best as I can tell there is no one (1) food that is good. All foods need other foods to balance each other out for good nutrition and quality and quantity matter.
I love the way people just use blanket terms, like starches, to describe their diets and then try to make claims from this. Obviously not wishing to tell anyone exactly what they were eating.
I can imagine a lot of people labelling doritos as starches. They’re made from corn, corn contains starch, therefore doritos go down in the diet as starches. Potatoes are a starchy food, therefore deep fried chips (fries for those who can’t speak English), or jacket potatoes slavered with half a block of butter get put forth as examples of starches in the diet.
Keep blaming the heavy metals, candida and parasites.
You seem like an adult child.
No hate, just pity.
I love this channel!
If I had it to do over again, I’d raise my children vegan whole food plant based. 1 of my 3 adult children adopted this lifestyle (due to living home with me) and ditched the obesity going from a size 16/18 to her natural set-point of size 0-2 and is a stable long term 118 lbs. She also discontinued medication for PCOS. The two that live on their own remain on the Standard American Diet and continue to be morbidly obese. I’d give anything to have the chance to influence them sooner. 🙎♀
I have noticed a plethora of obese children in my area and have wondered how any parent could allow such to occur. Now I know. How sad! 😔 However, the title of the paper was offensively hilarious!
Thank you!
My junior year in high school, I wrote my research paper on “who’s at fault for childhood obesity.” That was about 18 years ago and the facts are still the same. I’m now a dietitian trying to help others rewrite their health stories!
“Every cockroach is beautiful to his mother’s eyes” – my god! 😀
Sadly, anybody watching TV, will be exposed to commercials about food in which lying about what’s in it is the norm, from “power bars” which are cookies, to “healthy berverages” which are sugar water. It is becoming very challenging for parents to discern the truth from lies.
I certainly do think my cockroach is beautiful 😊
As a parent in the UK I’d have to confess that my children’s diet almost certainly didn’t meet the rather slack guidelines of the USDA. It’s only since I read How Not To Die, when my youngest child was 16 that I started realising how bad my diet and their diet was.
Thankfully none of my 3 children have ever been overweight or anywhere near to overweight.
However, in the UK we do have a culture of “Eat everything in moderation”. And there is wall to wall junk food. Everywhere you go. So that for almost everyone it’s a case eating various types of junk and semi junk food in moderation – ie rotating round English breakfasts, sugary cereals, pizzas, burgers, fried chicken, meat based curries, fish and chips etc – that all adds up to a mega junk food diet. For pretty much the whole country.
As I’ve improved my diet, bit by bit, I’ve become more and more of an outlier here.
And there’s no point in me telling people outside my family about good nutrition. As it goes in one ear and straight out the other, and annoys them as it passes through.
“And there’s no point in me telling people outside my family about good nutrition. As it goes in one ear and straight out the other, and annoys them as it passes through.”
That is the perfect description of every reaction I’ve ever had when discussing diet and I only mention it when specifically asked.
I think the parents just don’t know what even is healthy food and what’s not.
They’re giving “meat for strong muscles, and milk for strong bones”. Sugar to treat depression.
But of course there’s some strong denialism there too
Processed food manufacturers need to hear from consumers that less ADDED chemicals, sugar, oil and salt is wanted in their food products.
Why is there so much ADDED sugar in everything, even bread. That’s just crazy
Email, text, tweet or phone your favorite producer of poison and let them know consumers want less salt, oils and sugars in their products.
Let their customer service department know that all the extra added salt, oil and sugar is not necessary or desired and is causing health issues.
Reduce or eliminate highly processed food from your diet if you can.
Go vegan for your health, whole food plant based.
Go vegan for the animals. Go vegan for the planet. Go vegan and be healthier and happier.
A lower risk of heart disease and cancer for you and a better planet for everyone, human and animals.
Eating healthy is not a diet it is a healthy life style.
Go out and look around. The vast majority of people you see are obese or al least over weight.
People do not need to be fat shamed BUT being over weight is not healthy and leads to a host of illnesses.
When you look around you can see all the unhealthy people without taking a blood test or a fitness test
“NORMAL” for the average American is “UNHEALTHY” The health of society is in decline.