OPINION:
There is no work more important than what first lady Michelle Obama is doing to get America fit, and she deserves a tip of the Nuge cowboy hat for it. Mrs. Obama is promoting a get-fit-and-get-active campaign for American kids. God bless her for it. Our children need Mrs. Obama and her campaign now more than ever. Equally important, she needs the support of American parents.
The bottom line in the blubberization of American youth is a very ugly manifestation of parental neglect, extremely poor parental choices and overt laziness. Fat kids often have obese, lazy, grossly disconnected parents.
Overweight kids are everywhere. Statistics indicate that 40 percent or more of American kids are overweight or obese. Obesity statistics for adults are even worse. A fat, soft America is a weak America. That’s pathetic.
Bicycle sales are down. Childhood diabetes is at an all-time high in America. Perfectly manicured athletic fields go unused during the summer vacation months. Too few of our kids play outside, climb trees, go on bike rides, go fishing, go swimming, mow lawns or go exploring.
Instead, they are anchored to mostly soul-rotting cable television, video and computer games. Their sedentary lifestyle is slowly killing them. It breaks this old guitar player’s heart.
Unless this trend is reversed, our children will live shorter, less fulfilled lives. Health care costs surely will continue to skyrocket while trying to care for them when they enter middle age and need numerous kinds of health care to combat a lifetime of poor, outright irresponsible health choices.
It’s time to draw a line in the sand and quit treating our kids like human dumpsters.
I’m no exercise guru or nutritionist, but I’m married to an exercise addict. My physically amazing wife and Zumba goddess, Shemane, believes the first thing families need to do is to clean out the pantry and toss out all the junk food. Throw out the ice cream, soda, potato chips, donuts and cookies and literally never buy them again. Avoid fast food unless it’s a mallard or white-tailed deer. Replace junk food with generous amounts of healthy food such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, fresh fish and lean meats.
Foods such as carrots, grapes, oranges and apples are meaningful, healthful snack foods.
Same goes for public schools. Effective immediately, all soda and candy machines should be yanked out of our schools by a tow truck and a large chain.
Lunch menus should be completely rearranged to reflect healthy foods. A steady diet of greasy burgers, chips, tacos and pizza is poison. Schools should teach and implement healthy food choices as much as they should teach math, science and English. Schools that continue to feed kids junk for lunch should fire their nutritionists.
Once the food poison has been replaced with healthy foods, it’s time for America to turn off the television and shut down the computer and video games. American families need to get up off the couch and go for a brisk walk every night. If you live a crime-ridden, dope-thug-infested neighborhood, pack a drill and clean up your neighborhood while you’re at it. Dope dealers are human debris that need to be disposed of properly.
If you can afford it, join a health club and take your kids. Get some professional exercise advice at the health club and then get to sweating. Go at least five times a week for 45 minutes each time. Leave drenched in sweat, feeling better and more confident, much like the musical fun gluttons who attend my rhythm-and-blues concerts.
Schools should augment brisk walks by also replacing goofy games during gym time with rigorous calisthenics, including jogging, sprinting, sit-ups and jumping jacks. Kids need to work up a healthy sweat and get worn out during gym class. Huffing and puffing is a good thing.
Every grade school and middle school in America should implement a brisk-walking club in the morning before school starts. Any school that doesn’t implement a before-school walking club for this coming school year should have all public funding rescinded immediately and the principal fired. I mean it.
The goal is simple. Every young person who graduates high school should be able to pass the U.S. Marines Corps fitness test. Set the brass ring that high. Anything less than the Devil Dogs fitness test is goofing around and endorsing the tragic status quo of dangerously unhealthy American kids. Unforgivable.
All of this requires effort, commitment, sacrifice and hard work.
Nothing worthwhile is ever easy or cheap. But we must do it. While America faces a number of economic and international challenges, I firmly believe there is no challenge greater than to improve the health of our young people. The blubberization of America must be reversed immediately.
First lady Mrs. Obama deserves our praise and admiration for bringing this critical issue to the national stage. I am just a guitar player, but I worked up another serious sweat last night when I dragged my dead bear out of the Canadian wilderness. I suppose not everybody can perform such perfect hands-on physics of spirituality, but I am convinced we can dramatically reverse childhood obesity within the year.
Ted Nugent is an unstoppable American rock ’n’ roll, sporting and political activist icon. He is author of “Ted, White & Blue: The Nugent Manifesto” and “God, Guns and Rock ’N’ Roll” (Regnery Publishing).
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