8 cm Peri Hot Flash: Childhood Obesity and Crumb Guzzling Worms

More bad news about fat-ass American kids. 'Just what I needed more of on a day when my 3-year-old son, Cheeks, shouted down the hallway at me from his poop perch on the can, "Mom, you are a BAD person!" and "You're a stupid Mommy!" (No I'm not saying he's a fat ass. 'Much to the contrary, I'd like to see his skinny frame fatten up a bit, if you must know.)



This depressing childhood obesity news just in from the folks at Blogger News Network:

"Obesity and Sleep Problems Linked In Children
It seems not only McDonald’s is to blame for America’s childhood obesity epidemic, lack of sleep plays a role too. Behind lack of sleep in children lies the culprits cell phones, TV, video games and computers. Children’s rooms are often personal media and gaming libraries, leading to a temptation to play rather than sleep. This leads to exhaustion and increased laziness throughout the day. The brain chemical leptin, which decreases with too little sleep, is also thought to play a role.

According to the American Obesity Association, ‘5.5 percent of adolescents (ages 12 to 19) and 15.3 percent of children (ages 6 to 11) are obese.’ These statistics show a dramatic increase over the last twenty years. The National Institute of Health (NIH) calls childhood obesity an, ‘epidemic’. The bottom line seems to be that American is raising a generation of fat, lazy people. The bigger issue is that down the line, childhood obesity can lead to other more pressing health concerns such as cardiac problems, diabetes (even juvenile) and a shortened life expectancy. Added health concerns lead to added health costs. The solution? Simple. Move more, eat less and get more rest at night."

For the record, I refuse to allow a TV set in any of my children's rooms, whether it's their bedroom or playroom. If it were up to me alone, I would blow up our living room TV.

We do own a Vtech preschool video game machine thingy majig that was given to us as a gift, but I tell the kids that it arrived broken in the box so it never gets used, especially not in their bedrooms.

The most technology my brood can hope for in their bedrooms is a sound-machine am/fm radio that allows them to choose between the soothing sounds of the rainforest, the ocean, thunder, rain and a white-noise-ish waterfall. There! Didn't you know it's my turn to play alpha mom today?

When they are newborns we worry about them dying in their sleep from sleep itself (SIDS). Now when they get older we have to worry about them getting fat from not sleeping enough. A mother's worry never ceases.

A Worm a Day Keeps Pigging Out on Leftovers Away
In other high ick-factor news, the industrious newsies over at AOL have unearthed a (non)story about California environmental officials encouraging employees throughout the state to haul live worms along with their briefcases and Blackberries to the office. The idea is to reduce waste while creating garden-fertilizing compost (aka stinkin' worm crap) by giving the moist, squirmy creatures carte blanche to go to town on workers' leftover lunch scraps.

According to AOL, "The state's Integrated Waste Management Board is so serious about this that it has posted on its Web site a list of top 10 ways to recycle on the job, and No. 2 is: 'Keep worms in your office.'"

Maybe I'll surprise the hubster with my newfound cutting edge enviro-California prowess by strategically planting a few black dirt spotted night crawlers in his usually uneventful brown bag lunch tomorrow. Knowing him, he'd probably eat them and like it.

Now if I could only convince my husband to let me employ worms as part of the post three-kid dinner crumb clean-up crew at the chaotic casa di Domestic Slackstress ... I'd definitely have insta-buy in from the kids on replacing our worn out, probably moldy broom with a gaggle of creeping worms.

Can you imagine a few dozen of them wriggling beneath our sticky butcher block dining room table along the newly varnished wood floor, battering themselves for deep fry in Goldfish, Wheat Thins and Honey Bunches of Oats crumbs? Lunch anyone?