There is a TED talk about obesity being a national security problem for the US

Maybe, but I highly doubt it. In fact I am willing to bet my entire next months paycheck that it won't happen in my career and probably not even in my lifetime.

It has nothing to do with health it has to do with morale. The overall point of this topic is about how obesity is disqualifying the majority of young people from service, which equals less people to choose from which equals less recruitment. The key word here is less recruitment, not conscription. We need people to WANT to join the service and also stay in the service and we do that by offering incentives. You take away a Soldiers' ability to choose what he/she eats and they're walking out the door and once word gets out to the public that's a new "policy" then your recruitment numbers plummet.

We can certainly offer these things as choices as we currently do but making them mandatory would leave you with about 100 people left in the service. Not even HRC with their infinite wisdom is considering something like that. We are having difficulty getting qualified young folks to join the military as is in spite of offering bonuses, healthcare, free housing, free college tuition, etc. You put "lettuce wrap" as the only choice for lunch with their free meal card and see how many people sign up for that.

The Army just recently went through a huge update across the force to make it's DFAC's suck less as far as quality of food and variety in order to hopefully boost morale because the crappy DFAC's were among the top things Soldiers were complaining about. And in reality back in my day when I was the young private eating at the DFAC it wasn't even that bad even though we had like 1/10th of the stuff the kids nowadays have in these DFAC's. But it's all relative I suppose. Good luck going the opposite direction and taking away all the stuff the Soldiers just complained about not having and replacing it with a keto menu.

Morale is way more important than health as far as recruitment and retention is concerned. For every 1 person you would retain in the Army by making them more healthy you would lose 1000 who just up and walked out after their contract expired because they'll be damned if "keto" is now a requirement for service. I guarantee it.

 

This as well as way too much childhood independence has been my observations. To me it seems like parents just want to "have" children and not necessarily "raise" children. I've met so many parents with the mentality of "as long as the kid isn't acting up and bothering me then they're fine". So they'll stick a TV and a Playstation in their room and never have to worry about them again. That leads to a lot of kids being able to do whatever the hell they want as long as they aren't bothering mom and dad, and when you give children the ability to do what THEY want then rarely is it ever anything good for them. Ask a kid if he'd rather go fishing or sit in his room and play video games and most are going to say play video games. When an entire life's worth of entertainment can be had at the hands of a keyboard and mouse and internet then the child has no real reason to go entertain themselves elsewhere. That leads to a sedentary lifestyle of little exercise and likely poor health. Couple the ability of a child to do whatever they want while simultaneously having their every need taken care of by mommy and daddy and you end up with this mess we have growing up today. "I should be able to do whatever I want as long as I'm happy and my needs should be taken care of" is the new battle cry of the 90s and 2000's generation.

A little independence is fine but it has to be balanced with real world life learning as well and the proper upbringing of teaching children to actually make good independent choices. Too much entertainment without having to actually DO anything is a problem. We didn't have that problem growing up because we didn't have all this "stuff". Exercise wasn't a "chore" we had to endure it was just a part of life because we went outside and ran around and climbed trees and whatnot because we didn't have cell phones and Playstations and the internet. If we wanted "fun" we had to go outside and do something. Now all the "fun" we need is literally in the palm of a child's hand so what actual incentive do they have to go outside and do anything else? So now "go outside and run around with your friends" (exercise) is considered WORK instead of fun.

We used to get pissed off when we had to be inside by supper time, or if we were lucky "when the street lights come on". You want to piss off a child now then tell him to so much as go walk to the mail box and you'll hear "This sucks why don't you just use email mom!" (My friends son actually said that to her the other day, I literally laughed out loud and shook my head). Welcome to the new world where a kid LIVES on a river and would literally rather sit inside and virtually catch fish in a video game instead of walking out back and doing it in real life.

You want to fix the "national security" issue of kids being too fat to join the military? Parents turn off your home internet and kick your kid out the front door and tell them they can't come back until supper time. That'll do way more to combat this problem than Michelle Obama trying to starve kids in school. I'm looking at scars on my hands and arms and knees right now from when I was a kid. Even when you hurt yourself you didn't WANT to go home to mom because then she'd make you stay inside lol. Nowadays kids get up and go cry to mommy because somebody called them a mean name on the damn internet....What the hell is wrong with you kids lol.

 

Exactly. The mass media age is a doubled edged sword. Yes it is absolutely wonderful that near infinite knowledge is widely available to almost everyone at the click of a mouse or the touch of a screen. More knowledge and easily accessible knowledge = better society. However, Technologically advancing ourselves to the point of learned helplessness if NOT a good thing for society. Social interaction and learning skills via doing and not just reading are equally as important as a wealth of knowledge. It's alarming how many adults cannot do the most basic of tasks.

When human interaction growing up is delegated to social media then you tend to lack the ability to talk to people in the real world. You get lost on a road trip the second you lose phone service because you don't know how to read a map because EVERYTHING in modern society is "just google it". You eat fast food all day because your culinary skills don't extend beyond ramen noodles and sandwiches. You "went broke" dealing with car repair bills because you don't know how to change your own oil or starter.

The difference is as adults we recognize the drawbacks of said helplessness but as a child no such understanding is there. To a child the question of WHY should I go outside and play when I can play with my friends sitting right here on my Playstation literally doesn't make sense to them. They don't understand the long term implications of sitting on the couch all day and having all of your social interaction be at the hands of a controller and headset. Children operate in the here and now, they lack the comprehension to think beyond what they personally WANT to do right now. It's adults who understand the WHY's to these questions whose JOB it is a PARENTS to guide their children. WHY can't I eat fruity pebbles and ice cream for breakfast everyday because it tastes good? WHY should I go outside and play with the neighbors kid instead of texting him or playing with him online? WHY should I learn how to cook basic food when I can have food delivered to my front door at the press of a button or pull up to a drive thru? For the most part a child is incapable of understand why regardless of what you tell them as a parent. The job as a parent is to make them do it anyway whether they understand why or not. That is what many parents are not doing.

Go outside and run around and burn some calories and skin a knee. Why? Because it is good for your social, mental, and physical health and will help you in the long run when you become an adult in the real world. Don't understand that as a child? Then the "why" is because I'm the parent and I said so.

Obesity problem solved, national security crisis averted and no disgusting boiled fish and bread Michelle Obama lunch required.

 

They are already choices...