Childhood Busyness = Childhood Obesity?

It has been a hot topic of late to talk about the "epidemic of childhood obesity", and school systems have been trying all kinds of things to fight this trend. Special school lunches, expanded P.E. classes, removal of soda machines, etc. are all things that are being tried... with little success it seems. Obesity continues to be a problem.

The article of last week on "intuitive dieting" (which I still think is impractical) however got me thinking. Shadowmom reminded us that it takes the body 30 minutes to know it is full. (Though I have been unable to confirm this with any sources online - I have heard it from multiple people, so it is at least common wisdom if not "true.") Thus, anyone who typically wolfs down a meal in less than 30 minutes, probably is eating more than their body needs. I know that one of the behavior modification tips given to obese people *IS* to slow down their eating.

Then I thought about the teens I help to coach at our church's bible quiz team. Teens were busy in my day, but it seems every year the average teen becomes busier and busier. When I was in high school, I did marching band (three practices a week, plus one "show" a week from August to December) and Bible Quizzing (one practice a week, plus one competition a month) and Youth Group (one bible study a week and one activity most weeks) and was considered VERY busy. Now, a kid may be in all those things, plus be taking dancing lessons, plus be in an SAT prep course, plus be in the school play, plus be in student government, and still not be the busiest kid in school. I know one kid who holds down 2 paid jobs, works in the sound booth at church 3 or 4 nights a week (plus Sundays for services), does volunteer computer repair, is in quiz team, and still manages to get decent grades in school. There are some weeks this kid tells me he gets less than 4 hours of sleep a night on average. I know another kid whose parents do not allow quite so much - who gets sleep - but who is worried they won't have enough extra-curricular activities to get into the college of their choice.

Combine these first two thoughts with the fact that more and more mandates from the Federal and State levels are forcing schools to put more "stuff" into the school day (mostly other than reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic). Thus school lunch periods are often shortened to fit in more classes in the day. One year I was in school, I had a 20 minute lunch every day. Take out 5 minutes of that being in line to buy a lunch, and I had less than 15 minutes to eat.

I think you see where I am going with this. If it takes 30 minutes to know you are full, and we rarely give our kids time to BREATHE much less eat, how can they possibly know to eat reasonably? Breakfast is grabbed in the 5 minutes between waking up and running to the bus. Lunch is stuffed into a tiny period between classes. And dinner is grabbed while running out the door to some extra-curricular activity. Thus, kids never learn what being "full" is like, or how to listen to their body. Is it any shock that they are overweight now, and have problems reducing their weight later in life?

What do you think? Am I onto something?