Youth and Teen Obesity Marathon Mischief Running in ruinous circles Well, the jogging fanatics are at it again — and this time, they're targeting children. An Austin-Texas based program called Marathon Kids encourages tykes as young as 5 to log in 26.2 miles worth of joint-pulverizing lunacy as part of a campaign to increase awareness about health, obesity and exercise. According to a recent New York Times article, the program spurs kids to run the "marathon" in 1/4 to 1/2-mile increments over a span of several months. While I agree that youth and teenage obesity is a huge and growing problem (the latest estimates show that fully 30% of our nation's youth are overweight), I'm not sure that MARATHON RUNNING is the answer. This kind of rhythmic pounding is not good for joints of any age, and let's not forget the fact that a small child takes 3 or 4 steps to cover the same distance as one adult stride. That's right: For every mile their adult running partners log in, kids are putting in the equivalent of 3 or 4 miles. And to keep up with even the most leisurely of adult paces, these kids aren't jogging — they're sprinting. So that "marathon" is actually more like 100 miles in kid-steps — at full speed! Is that really what we want to put our kids through? I mean, look at the expressions on marathoners' faces when they cross the finish line. Do they look happy? Of course not—they look like they're on the edge of death (they are). Also, I'd hate to think that these kids might face debilitating joint degeneration later in life because their exercise-fanatic parents or teachers have pressured them into distance running as kindergartners. That really WOULD be a recipe for inactivity and obesity. Besides, distance running is boring. It's monotonous even for most adults, who only do it out of a misguided belief that it's "good for them." How do you think it must feel to kids, whose attention
spans are shorter and who haven't been around long enough to grasp the concept of deferred rewards (if that's what pounding your joints into powder could be called). The only reason these
Texas tots are trudging along is to please their parents and teachers! Don't get me wrong. I know that kids need to run around and play — and that exercise is crucial for their development, both socially and physically. But let them be the judge of how much energy they want to expend, and what sports they want to play (soccer and baseball have a lot of running in them, too). That way, they'll actually WANT to get out and burn off some calories instead of
doing it out of a sense of obligation to authority figures. But as wrong-minded as bullying kids into distance running is, what's even more disturbing is the misguided dietary messages these Marathon Kids get subjected to as part of the program. Keep Reading... As it turns out, the Marathon Kids program is sponsored by an Austin-based grocery store chain called Whole Foods Market, which purportedly sells only "natural" and "organic" products. And while that's a good thing in principle, it turns out that this rapidly expanding national chain is quite vegetable-centric in its view of dietary propriety (there must be more of a profit margin in organic veggies than fresh-cut meats). How do I know this? Because according to the Times piece, on the back-sides of the mileage logs these poor pressured kids get issued at the beginning of the school term, there's a chart where they can keep track of... How many helpings of vegetables and fruits they eat! The chart guides them to 5 SERVINGS A DAY of these, with no mentions of healthy meats or nuts (at least none that the article mentions). NOW I see what this is all about: Not children's health, not combating obesity, not even the promotion of a sport, but programming kids to eat the things that are most widely available
and profitable for the campaign's sponsor! How's that for insidious? Since 1995, the number of forced-marchers — sorry, I mean participants — in the Marathon Kids program has expanded ten-fold, to some 65,000 today. Whole Foods plans to expand the
campaign into three more states in the coming year. Soon, kids in all grade-schools from coast to coast might be toting around little mileage charts as they jog to and from school every day. But it won't stop a growing number of them from being obese adults unless they ignore the profit-driven dietary advice on the backs of them. That'll be quite a challenge when teachers, parents, and whole school systems are buying into this propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Never running from the meat-hating mainstream's myths, William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
