In my opinion, childhood obesity is THE single health issue of our day. If for no other reason, but because obesity is so darned difficult to reverse. In Utopia, all children are raised in loving environments, taught the wisdom of the world, and when they reach adulthood have equal footing to make their way in this world. Now that's Utopia, but I think we can strive for as many children as possible to reach adulthood in a position to put their best individual foot forward.
I'm a child of the 60's. My parents were born and raised in the Depression and WWII. I believe this influenced not only how they parented, but how this generation formed policies based on their priorities. Nutritional guidelines, RDA's and all such related things were born out of efforts to prevent malnutrition and disease. Diseases of deficiencies were real "in their day" and in the true form of forging a better life for one's children, this was a priority for them. A lot of research capital was spent to determine the nutritional needs of children, and childhood obesity was quite rare. This is not to diminish the plight of those rare cases, but public policy always targets the majority potentially impacted. Also, at that time a fat child was more likely to be considered healthy than a scrawny one. My how times have changed.
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