Our nation and community is being confronted with a silent health crisis that’s having a direct impact on the health of our future. In past decades you were able to see children in your neighborhood, parks and recreation centers running and playing until dust. However, in more recent times, the parks have become idle, your neighborhood look like a ghost town and recreation centers are no longer the “Mecca’s” of play. Kids spend more time in front of television, computer and video screens, causing a dramatic decrease in their physical activity levels resulting in an increase in their weight. Obesity in kids is now an epidemic in the United States. The number of children who are overweight has doubled in the last two to three decades; currently one child in five is overweight. The increase is in both children and adolescents, and in all age, race and gender groups.

Obese children now have diseases like type 2 diabetes (commonly found in adults only) and overweight kids tend to become overweight adults; continuing to put them at greater risk for heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. Another and perhaps more devastating to an overweight child is the social discrimination that they are faced with on a day to day basis. Children who are teased a lot can develop low self-esteem and depression.

There are many causes of obesity. While there's no doubt that genetics plays a role, genes alone can't account for the huge increase in rates over the past few decades. The main culprits are the same as those for adult obesity: eating too much and moving around too little. Almost half of children aged 8-16 years watch three to five hours of television a day. Kids who watch the most hours of television have the highest incidence of obesity.