The whole problem with Caffeine in kids isn't helping

Hi again, I am trying to find a video clip on the segment I saw last night on my local news about caffeine in children. It is scary that kids as young as 5 are already consuming a great amount of caffeine each day. Also the form they are getting it in is mostly soda pop which contains an outragous amount of sugar. I will do my research and post the facts in the next couple of days here.

The Problems we face today

The prevalence of overweight and obesity has steadily increased over the years among both genders, all ages, all racial/ethnic groups, and all educational levels. Childhood obesity is the result of an imbalance between the calories a child consumes as food and beverages and the calories a child uses to support normal growth and development, metabolism, and physical activity. In other words, overweight results when a child consumes more calories than the child uses. The percentage of children of preschool age children who are considered overweight has now risen above the 10% level. This is for children ages 2 -5 years old. As the child gets to school age the percentage goes up to more than 15% of the population being overweight with another 15% being considered at risk. The percentage of overweight children in America has more than doubled in the past 30 years. Why we ask ourselves is this happening and what as Parents, Grandparents, Caregivers and Guardians can we do to help our children learn to live healthy active lifestyles. The hope is that this article will provide you with some information and resources to help you learn to help your children.

Over the past thirty years, the nutritional makeup of processed food in America has changed as a result of numerous factors. High fructose corn syrup found its way into Coke and Pepsi, as well as frozen foods and boxed macaroni and cheese. And palm oil became McDonald’s preferred oil for cooking French fries. The availability of cheap and easy food became something that was very appealing to the family life of the time in which either both parents worked or only one parent was raising the family. There is something called a commodities program allows businesses to make money from surplus products that are not necessarily in the best health interest of children. The Schools get a major portion of food from the commodities program. Every year, the USDA buys hundreds of millions of pounds of excess meat and animal products to boost falling prices. These high-fat, high-cholesterol products are then distributed at low cost to school dining programs. Our Children are being fed these foods everyday and it is being called a healthy nutritious lunch. But how Healthy and nutritious is it really?