An Act was recently signed by President Obama that will help many kids get healthy lunches in school. It is a wonderful and necessary cause to support. There are many health issues that go along with obesity in children or adults and the focus of health goes beyond just eating healthy. It today’s, technological society where kids go to school and learn how to sit still all day, we are forgetting that our bodies are not built to sit still for long periods of time.
In the history of the Homo sapien we have been a species of action and movement, not unlike many other animals on the planet. In order to have healthy bodies we must burn the calories we take into our bodies. We need to move our muscles and interact with the world through more than just a computer screen or at a desk. It is sad what we are teaching our children and that many adults are forced to sit for hours behind a desk in order to provide for their families. Of course this is not a debate over what is produced or the needs of what people accomplish at the many desk jobs that exist in our country. This is a discussion that just learning how to sit at a desk and then spending the rest of life sitting at a desk, may be part of the problem of the health issues we find in our society.
The solutions would be creating work environments that foster movement and human interaction instead of isolation and restricting movement. In most jobs there are two fifteen minute breaks and a half hour for eating lunch. This is not a healthy environment. The society should foster a movement where people are applauded for getting up and moving around during their work if it is a desk job. Eating needs to change, but so does the acceptance of movement, our health depends on it.
