I grew up in the 70′s and 80′s, and today, I’m a parent to two boys.
Neither of them are obese. Or even fat.
But obesity is a term that seemed to have come out of nowhere. Sure, I knew what obesity meant visually since I was a teen, but growing up, the issues of the day that I was aware of were about smoking, drinking, drugs, and AIDS.
Now, obesity has come to the forefront, judging by the amount of coverage it gets in the media.
Assuming that becoming obese is a process that occurs over a certain period of time — meaning one does not become obese overnight, or even over a week — it might be a good idea to explore in a somewhat unscientific, i.e. anecdotal manner the possible origins of modern obesity.
What’s the Problem with Obesity?
In many societies, and especially societies of the past, someone who had a suntan meant that person was someone who worked in the fields farming, or were out fishing every day. In short, having a tan meant you were barely eking out a living from the land or sea. Only the upper class could afford to have servants, workers (or serfs or slaves) and such, and could afford to stay indoors out of the harsh sun. How times have changed.
It can also be argued that the person who was considered fat (or today, obese) would be a person with means as well. He or she could afford to have plenty of food to eat, while the skinny person meant that he or she, again, was lower class, and struggled to make a living to even feed themselves.
Today, I bet one would be hard pressed to find an obese person in some of these societies (e.g. third-world country), but here in the United States, all you need to do is go to the local mall or Wal-Mart, and there would be plenty of examples.
Suffice it to say then that society changes most likely have a strong role in contributing to obesity.
In this first part, let’s explore my own life growing up in San Francisco, compared to how kids are growing up today.
Kids Growing Up
Playing today seems to mean getting on the web, spending time playing the Wii, X-Box or Playstation 3, or watching 100′s of cable channels on TV. Every activity seems to involve staring at a LCD/LED screen on some device. The result? A sedentary lifestyle that is instilled from childhood.
Playing Back in the Day meant that I played in the backyard, or in the park, or just out in the street. And there was usually only one cool friend who had the original Atari game console. A bunch of us would all go over to play for a few hours, taking turns playing those short casual games — and you know what else? — we had to walk the few blocks to get to his house. I also have to admit I watched a lot of TV, but this was the analog days of VHF and UHF signals. We were lucky to get, oh, 8-10 channels at most. For reading, I had to go to the local library, where we could only check out a handful of books (2 or 3?).
Adolescent and Teen Years
Today’s teens almost all have cellphones/smartphones, all equipped with cameras and vidcams. They’re on Facebook and MySpace, texting and IM’ing. I don’t know what the percentage is, but a fair number of kids get driven to and from school. I’m also guilty of this practice as well, but it just feels a little less safe these days?
Back in the Day meant one or two kids might have something called a…pager! But other than that, the only thing phone-related were the phone numbers we had in our personal RAM (our brains, remember those days?). Weekdays at lunch I’d be playing basketball, and weekends meant going to the local court for a game, or working in my parents’ backyard. There were also family picnics where we’d play frisbee or badminton. And going to school meant walking and taking the bus, and by walking, I meant I walked a round-trip of 20+ blocks everyday during middle school, and riding the bus and walking another 10 minutes in high school.
Just by comparing these experiences alone — there are a lot of differences between the life I led as a youngster, and those of today’s kids and youths.
- We derive a lot of our pleasures and entertainment today from electronic media
- We’re a connected society, with many members receiving these connecting devices when they’re yount
- We feel the need to chauffer our kids around
Sedentary Lifestyle
So, it would seem that people today are more sedentary then only two or three decades ago.
Is that important?
We’ll try to answer that in Part 2. Stay tuned!
