See ‘Weight Of The Nation Part III: Children In Crisis’ At Next Week’s Plow To Plate Event At The Coop

On the second Tuesday of every month, the meeting room above the Park Slope Food Coop fills with neighbors interested in the industry, politics, and culture of food. They gather to watch a thought-provoking film, take part in a Q&A, and enjoy some delicious refreshments — all for free, and for members and nonmembers alike — and it’s called Plow to Plate.

Review by Adam Rabiner

Weight of the Nation Part III: Children in Crisis examines the increasing problem of childhood obesity in the United States. More than eighteen percent of children are now obese, a tripling of the number in a generation, and these children face psychological and physical challenges that put them at risk.

It’s not just that these kids are more likely to be made fun of, feel left out or ignored, or get bullied. That’s all bad. But to make things worse, they are also more likely to become obese adults and to suffer myriad health problems at a young age such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and liver and heart disease. Health experts predict that one third of the children born after 2000 will become diabetics. Type II diabetes, a form of the disease previously thought to pertain only to adults, is now increasingly found in children as young as ten year olds. Some predict that for the first time ever, children born today are likely to not live as long as their parents, a stunning reversal of an otherwise commendable record of improved public health and increased life expectancy.

The fate of any country rests with its youngest generation and Children in Crisis brings home, more so than did parts I and II, that the plague of obesity is indeed a looming and real threat to our nation. By 2025, should present trends continue, private employers will bare over thirty billion dollars in health care costs. The weight of the nation is out of control, but it can be fixed.

However, fixing the problem won’t be easy. Children, especially those who watch TV or are subject to commercials on YouTube, witness a barrage of advertising for sugary breakfast cereals, candy, soda, energy and sports drinks, fast food, and junk food. Studies have shown that kids with TVs in their bedrooms are at greater risk of weight gain. It used to be assumed because they were couch potatoes. Now it’s believed to be the onslaught of advertising for unhealthy foods targeted specifically to children. Collectively, food companies spend in excess of one and a half billion dollars a year marketing these toxic products to kids. Parents with the best of intentions are no match against the corporate behemoths.

Several of the subjects shown in the film take advantage of and benefit from different local anti-obesity children’s programs run out of hospitals and health clinics in their communities. But such specialized and customized care, education, and health monitoring is not a practical, economical, nor universal solution.

Children in Crisis does explore other potential solutions, some more successful than others. One recent failed attempt was the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children (IWG). This group of three federal agencies drafted a set of specific standards for industry which rejected the recommendations and effectively lobbied congress in 2012 to shelve the IWG.

More hopeful has been President Obama’s 2010 Health and Hunger Free Kids Act which sought to improve the national school lunch program by increasing fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, limiting the serving of potatoes, and reducing fat, sugar, and salt. But even this sensible legislation met with resistance. The potato lobby fought for the right to serve French fries with every meal and congress rewrote the law so that tomato sauce (and therefore pizza) counted as a vegetable – a move reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s infamous classification of ketchup as a vegetable.

Children in Crisis also examines the gradual disappearance of physical education from schools nationwide and a novel effort by the Texas State Comptroller, who recognizing the economic costs of childhood obesity and hoping to avert a fiscal disaster, wants to bring it back.

Unlike some other films featured in the Plow to Plate series, Children in Crisis does not end on a high note of optimism and great hopes for the future. Improvements, if they are to arrive at all, will take a great deal of collective effort. Like any successful diet, long- term and permanent change, if it is to come, will be hard.

See upcoming events, past reviews and a comprehensive list of films shown at www.plowtoplatefilms.com which can now also be reached via a link on the Park Slope Food Coop’s home page at www.foodcoop.com.

Weight Of The Nation Part II: Children In Crisis: Tuesday, July 14, 7pm
Park Slope Food Coop, 782 Union Street, 2nd Floor
Free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.