Ask your child which one they would rather eat for lunch today: spinach or McDonald’s french fries? Okay, now, all adults, more mature in your understanding of health, same question …
The American diet is killing us
Our desperation for convenience makes fast food in the car and processed food in the kitchen a quick but deadly choice.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “six in ten adults (about 117 million Americans) have a chronic disease, and four in ten have at least two chronic diseases … caused by a short list of … behaviors” including diet (https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/about/index.htm).
Major chronic disease are killing us much more than COVID.
We’re hurting our kids
The largest increase in obesity prevalence is among 2 to 5-year-olds. For any child who is classified as obese, this quadruples the risk of developing type 2 diabetes before age 25.
Thankfully, some easy education and diet decisions can save anyone from these gloomy trends, especially our children.
Kids who love veggies
Here is how we create healthy, happy, well-balanced, well-behaved children who love veggies even more than video games: Equip children with Bible-based character that helps them grow into their God-given purpose and greet each day positive and passionate about their faith in Jesus.
Kids will love veggies because mom or dad loves veggies, and because they respect and honor mom or dad who says, “Now eat your veggies.”
Kids will love veggies because they believe that a loving, providing God made them and they love how God designed the resources of this planet for their body and health.
The Bible calls us to “live a life worthy of the calling you have received … until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:1,13,14).
Your calling is a gracious gift from God. Before you call on him in prayer, call on him in faith, call on him for help, he calls you to be his very own. He calls you his child. And he equips you to grow up in faith and knowledge, and to make good decisions.
This is Bible-based character that we want to possess on our own, and also pass on to our children.
PRAYER: Dear God, help me better understand and appreciate health in a world more interested in convenience and profit. You have called me to wellness in both soul and body. Use me to nurture children to the same health and wellness. Amen.
FURTHER MEDITATION: What happens when we get caught up in the deceitful and futile thinking of this world that doesn’t alighn with God’s truth? Why does it matter that we pay attention to this? How can it help us get along with each other? Read Ephesians 4:17-32.