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by Lyle Hurd, Editor
Introduction to Children's Health
Dear Reader:
Obviously, our children are the future of this country. They are our national trust and our responsibility. It is imperative that we as individuals and as a society address the challenges that threaten their state of wellness and help to ensure that they have the advantage of a quality of life in which they can enjoy the benefits and responsibilities they’ll encounter through their seven, eight, or ten decades lifespan.
The consensus is that for her own well-being and that of her future child or children, a woman contemplating pregnancy should begin supplementing with essential nutrients as early as possible in order to assure that the fetus will have the optimum support necessary to develop brain, heart, nerve, respiratory, and bone structure systems capable of confronting the challenges and insults of a potential 80 to 100 year lifespan.
Also, according to Heidi Murkoff, author of the best-selling book What to Expect When You’re Expecting: “In the best of all possible scenarios you plan ahead for important events like becoming pregnant. If you have that luxury, then you can begin supplementing, you can get your weight to where it should be, you can stop drinking or smoking and cut back on caffeine. You can see your doctor for a checkup and advice so you and your partner can both get into the best baby-making shape before the sperm meets the egg.”
Lisa Petty, author of Living Beauty, states: “The magnitude of challenges passed to a developing fetus are insidious. It is not only the food. Our bodies are inundated with toxicity. Our water, the air, industrial chemicals, pesticides, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and a litany of other insidious substances poison the environment wherever we are to the extent that a recent survey showed an average of 287 chemicals in tests of the blood of newborn babies. My plea is to encourage all of us to become proactive in helping to reverse the cascade of insults which may someday, even soon, take our destiny out of our own control.”
The Children’s Health Environmental Coalition (CHEC) reports that “children are more vulnerable than adults to environmental risks because of their size, physiology and behavior. Pound for pound, kids eat more food, drink more water and breathe more air than adults. They play on the ground and put objects in their mouths. There are also stages of development during which children are especially vulnerable to health problems linked to exposure to toxins, especially in the womb.
“Indoor hazards, such as polluted ambient air, lead-based paint, mold and pesticides, pose significant threats to an unborn or new baby’s health. Even environmental exposure that may not be viewed as immediate risks have the potential to trigger chronic disease in adulthood. In other words, all these seemingly small and harmless exposures are not so harmless, and they add up.”
Also of overwhelming concern is the way obesity is plaguing our nation’s children. Childhood obesity has increased dramatically over the past few decades, from five percent in 1980 to 14 percent. Dr. Nancy Krebs, a pediatrician at the University of Colorado, states, “If you look at the number of kids who are overweight or at risk, you’re talking over 25 percent of our kids. If some infectious disease was affecting 25 percent or 30 percent of our children, you can be sure we’d be looking for some kind of vaccine. Individuals who are overweight as adolescents have an 80 percent chance of being overweight or obese as adults.
“With obesity comes diabetes. During the 1990s, the number of children with so-called ‘adult’ diabetes increased approximately 500 percent and the rate has doubled again since then. Diabetes and pre-diabetes (also called Syndrome X, or the metabolic syndrome) ominously are linked not just to obesity but hypertension, cardiovascular disease and other conditions.
“Just as a lack of proper nutrition leads to poor cognitive development, overeating of empty calories, combined with too little exercise, has negative consequences. Most nutritionists blame inactivity and overeating for the rise in childhood obesity and diabetes.”
The irony is that unless we begin to heal America’s health care system now, annual expenditures could escalate to over 30 percent of our gross national domestic product by the time children under 10 today reach age 25. And not only will they become heir to the debt, but odds are that they will be obese and either suffer from, or be at risk of contracting, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, or numerous other health conditions. Odds are also that they won’t be able to afford comprehensive health care for themselves and their families.
In our opinion, the answer to this dilemma is clear: Wellness.
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