#children

According to the surgeon general, obesity today is officially an epidemic; it is arguably the most pressing public health problem we face, costing the health care system an estimated $90 billion a year. Three of every five Americans are overweight; one of every five is obese. The disease formerly known as adult-onset diabetes has had to be renamed Type II diabetes since it now occurs so frequently in children. A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association predicts that a child born in 2000 has a one-in-three chance of developing diabetes. (An African American child's chances are two in five.) Because of diabetes and all the other health problems that accompany obesity, today's children may turn out to be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will actually be shorter than that of their parents. The problem is not limited to America: The United Nations reported that in 2000 the number of people suffering from overnutrition--a billion--had officially surpassed the number suffering from malnutrition--800 million. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#diabetes #fatties #food #health #health-care

I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise. ↗

— Wilkie Collins

#noise #nature

Children are natural practitioners of the Queer and the Questing, for childhood is nothing but a quest through a queer country. Of course, they often have a good deal of trouble with the Quiet. ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#quiet #nature

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world? ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#child-abuse #children #feminism #hell #religion

The part of the brain most affected by early stress is the prefrontal cortex, which is critical in self-regulatory activities of all kinds, both emotional and cognitive. As a result, children who grow up in stressful environments generally find it harder to concentrate, harder to sit still, harder to rebound from disappointments, and harder to follow directions. And that has a direct effect on their performance in school. ↗

— Paul Tough

#children #science #science

The journey is the reward. ↗

— Erik Daniel Shein

#science-fiction #science

A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#children-s-books #reading #story

Dreams are glimpses into life’s truths. ↗

— Larry Itejere

#children-s-books #fantasy-fiction #teen-fantasy #dreams

Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from our grasp. For the only promise of childhood, of any childhood, is that it will someday end. And in the end, we must ask ourselves what we have given our children to take its place. And is it enough? ↗

— Richard Paul Evans

#childhood #children #parenting #play #miracles

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable. ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#children