School birthday parties and childhood obesity

If you’ve reached this page and are not familiar with me, I encourage you to review the About Allen page to gain some understanding of where I’m coming from. If you do, you’ll learn that I’m on a personal mission to discredit the mainstream and fad beliefs about weight loss that have so-obviously failed us (and which are totally unsupported by the evidence) – and to convince the world there is a completely different approach to losing weight that actually works due to its precise alignment with the true nature of human physiology. To learn more about this mission, please visit Truths Publishing.

This blog is one component of my efforts that’s focused on childhood obesity. Here I review recent media reports related to this topic and try to clarify the confusing, contradictory and inaccurate information that’s so prevalent. My goal if for you to understand the fundamental and unchanging truths about child weight management so you can be confident you’re doing the right thing to support your child’s health.
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It was reported recently that a school in California banned serving deserts at in-school birthday parties for kids. The specific culprit they were concerned about was cupcakes.

Do people really think that think that school birthday parties are one of the causes of childhood obesity?

We had birthday parties at school when I was a kid and the incidence of obesity was much less.

If we are going to address the problem of childhood obesity, we need to abandon most of the goofy ideas which are getting so much attention. Here are some of my favorites:

* Tax “happy meals” at fast food restaurants.
* Weigh every student and notify parents if their child is overweight.
* Focus gym classes on burning calories rather than having fun.

And, here’s my all time favorite — increase the weight of toys so kids burn more calories and increase their heart rates more when playing.

Come on folks, let’s get real. Childhood obesity is a serious issue but we need to address the real fundamental causes if we have any hope for success.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of The Straight Scoop About Childhood Obesity