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My guess that it would be a combination of a decrease in general activity among today's youth and a decrease in time available in the average family to eat cooked meals. PE programs are always the first thing schools cut to save money, which is a shame. Kids would also rather sit inside and play games then go outside. I should know, I was one of them. My mom was a single parent who worked full time, so we ate on the go, and I liked video games. I'm obviously not growing up right now, but I can only imagine that over the past 5-10 years, things have gotten way worse.
Another thing to factor in would be the insane increase of portions over the last 20 years. While I'm not a kid anymore (22), I'm younger than a lot here, and was growing up while the portions at fast food and restaurants just got exponentially larger. I topped the scales 3 months ago at 338 pounds. Once I realized what I had become and decided to change, it was insane to look at the lifestyle I had become accustomed to from my teenage years. I ate *so* much food it wasn't even funny. We're talking thousands of calories per sitting, easy. I didn't exercise, ever. I've lost 50 pounds in these three months simply changing how much I eat, cutting out the pure crap (fast food, pop, other super greasy foods) and exercising 3-4 times a week.
So where am I going with this? Well, one of my favorite restaurants is Olive Garden. My favorite dish there is chicken fettucini alfredo. Obviously, health wise it is abysmal. Well, I had been doing really well, so last week my friends and I went when I was back in town visiting, and I ordered it. I used to eat probably 5-6 breadsticks, a couple bowls of soup, and the entire farking meal before I felt full. This time? One breadstick, one bowl of soup, and half way through my meal I felt sick from how much I had eaten. It's VERY easy to eat a ton of food and not even realize it these days, because everywhere you order food they give you way too much.
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Go Pistons!
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