Raising issues -- about how we're raising our "issues" Bed without dinner = the opposite of thinner? In case you're blind, are boycotting TV and the media (I can only hope), or have just arrived back from an extended solo stay on a deserted island, you already know that today's kids are fatter than at any point in our nation's history. The latest estimates peg the obesity rate among 11-19 year olds -- not the incidence of simply being overweight, mind you, but the state of extreme fatness -- at more than 15%… Now, compared to the 30+% of American adults who are considered clinically obese, this may not seem too alarming at first glance. But considering that this age bracket (11-19) typically represents the most active, energetic, and metabolically efficient of all periods in life, tomorrow's adults are going to have a huge head start toward being hefty. And leave it to the mainstream media and conventional medical establishment to look a problem in the eye and not just blink in the formidable face of it, but look completely through it to stare down a nonexistent "problem" beyond. Here's what I mean: Instead of blaming the incomprehensible number of fast-food, candy, and cereal ads on children's TV… The ridiculously carbohydrate-heavy Food Pyramid the government's literally cramming down kids' throats every day in the school cafeteria… Or the endless product placement of soft drinks and junk foods (remember the Ninja Turtles and their cravings for Dominoes pizza, or E.T. with his Reese's pieces) in the movies… They've now targeted parental discipline. According to a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study of 872 children summarized in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, parents' disciplinary styles have a measurable effect on childhood obesity rates. And not surprisingly (to the mainstream's discipline-weenies, anyway), the parents this study's data indicate are most to blame for their kids' bulging waistlines are those characterized by the study's authors as "authoritarian." Predictably, these were described in so many words as the "clean-up-your-plate" crowd. Funny, but what was known as "authoritarian" when I was a kid were the parents that told kids to go to bed WITHOUT dinner. What this study doesn't take into account at all is the widely varying temperament of children. Anyone with multiple kids knows that they can be as different from each other as night and day. What's this mean? It means that maybe parents apply disciplinary styles based on the inherent challenges of individual children as much as imposing preconceived notions of how to parent on those same kids. In other words, maybe the harsher parents are the way they are because their kids present more of a challenge to guide… Perhaps in this respect, "clean your plate" means not spoiling a child into believing they rule the roost and can pick and choose what foods they want to eat. If I were the parent of a young 'un today, given my own dutiful attention to balanced diet, no child would be allowed to leave the table WITHOUT cleaning their plate. But do you think that child of mine would be obese? My point is this: I wonder if the study's authors controlled for this kind of thing in their data. I seriously doubt it. Now, I'm certainly not saying that a parent's actions have no effect on children's eating habits. Quite the contrary. Parents are the MOST important influence for truly healthy eating kids can have -- both by their example and by their guidance. But to conclude that parental discipline is the cause of excessive behavior (overeating being just one example) rather than an attempt to combat it is typical of the American medical mainstream… Backwards, in other words. And despite how today's agenda-driven, spare-the-rod pointy-heads try to spin the facts, generations through American history show us that people (kids, adults, everyone) are fatter the less discipline they're subjected to… History proves it, too. I think anyone over the age of 50 can see that the last few generations of American children have, on the whole, lived in an ever-more-permissive world -- much farther removed from discipline, consequences, and accountability for their own actions than every other generation before them. And they've gotten heavier with every passing year. Remember? Fighting fat -- and big fat lies, William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
