WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) -- Don't read any further if you don't want to experience the discomfort of shame.
This week two reports about our children's health were published. One, in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, confirms what readers of Eat to Live already know: Around 2.7 million American children are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and a further 39,000 already have it. Till now referred to as adult-onset diabetes, its cause is excess weight gain -- eating too much and exercising too little.
The second report is from UNICEF. "Progress for Children: A Report on Nutrition" finds that more than 25 percent of children in developing countries are underweight, many to a life-threatening degree. Poor nutrition is responsible for over half of all child deaths, around 5.6 million a year.
Why aren't we taking better care of the next generation?
Half of all the world's underweight children live in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Is that why we ignore them?
Anyone who owns a telephone will have had personal contact with someone in Delhi or Mumbai who would like you to believe they are just around the corner as they guide you through re-booting your crashed computer or sort out your muddled bank statements. It could be a young member of their far-flung family who isn't getting enough to eat.
And while you're tidying your life on that telephone, your own child, who should be out running around the block, may be slumped in front of their Playstation with a super-size sack of chips in hand.
Childhood obesity in the U.S. operates at both ends of the economic scale. At the higher end, children are adding snacks to their proper meals schedule just as schools continue to reduce the sports and activities portion of their daily programs.
At the lower end, it is hard to disabuse harassed parents working more than one job of the belief that it's easier and cheaper to feed a family on fast foods than to eat a home-cooked meal.
And now comes Taco Bell with its latest campaign to push us into buying what they call the "Fourthmeal." That's the meal you're missing between dinner and breakfast. Have you been feeling the lack of it till now?
It's targeted at people who stay up late -- or rather people who have to hold down more than just a day job and young people who are hanging out long into the wee small hours with their friends. Who else is going to want food in the middle of the night? If you've eaten dinner already, your metabolic rate has probably slowed down -- as it expects you to.
Taco Bell's own press release makes no bones about who they are going after: "America's trend-setting youth" and "about 40 percent of all employed Americans work(ing) a 'non-traditional' schedule (i.e. working late at night, long hours, weekends, etc.)."
The company's own survey found that 53 percent of Americans "say they eat later now than they did in years past because they are busier. Among survey respondents, an incredible 44.7 percent of 18-29 year old males eat later than 7:00 p.m. every night while nearly a third of all males ages 30-39 also eat every night after 7:00 p.m."
To summarize, 147 million children in developing countries are malnourished and underweight. Nearly 3 million children (and rising) in the U.S. are malnourished and overweight.
Why aren't we out there protesting on behalf of them all?
If you don't want to head out for fast food in the middle of the night, make this simple Greek-style fried egg for around 300 calories.
-- Pour into a heavy-bottomed frying pan 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
-- As soon as it begins to show a heat haze demonstrating the oil is hot, carefully crack into the oil 1 room-temperature organic egg.
-- Keep tilting the pan and spooning over the oil till the white becomes opaque over the yolk and frizzles around the edges of the egg.
-- Sprinkle over a teaspoon of dried oregano, grind over salt and black pepper, and eat out of the pan with some crusty bread to scoop up as much or as little of the olive oil and oregano sauce you want.
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