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What's Eating Our Kids
An Emotional Component to Obesity?
By Kelly Burgess
Stress eating and comfort eating. They're well-known triggers for overeating in adults, but could they be a cause of obesity in children as well?
C.T. O'Donnell, president and CEO of KidsPeace (the National Center for Kids Overcoming Crisis), thinks so, and has put forth that thesis in an essay in a recent issue of Philanthropy News Digest.
In it, he acknowledges that physical factors, such as poor eating habits and lack of exercise, play a significant role in childhood obesity. However, he also points out that despite a flood of good intentions, public awareness messages, diets and advice, our kids are getting bigger and bigger.
While no one thinks twice when adults have a bad day at the office or go through a particularly painful breakup and have an extra mug of beer in the local tavern or an extra pint of chocolate macadamia madness from their freezer, the role of emotions and stressors in childhood obesity is almost absent from the popular national debate. But the truth is: It's not only what our kids are eating ... sometimes, it's what's eating our kids.
