Insist on healthier choices

Children usually become obese because adults allow and encourage them to make poor choices about food and exercise.

It’s time our community starts to insist that our public parks, publicly funded attractions and public schools provide healthier, more appealing foods and refreshments to children.

Foods full of added sugar and oils are designed to sell and yield profits, yet they contribute to creating unhealthy children. This is one part of our children’s future we can take control of.

A perfect example is BREC’s new Liberty Lagoon water park. It’s a wildly popular modern facility already attracting thousands of kids. But its snack shop, called Colonial Café, is a recipe for un-health: Cheeseburgers, fried chicken fingers, sodas and fries.

There’s no juice, no fruits, no choices other than cheap, high-fat, high-calorie foods.

An agency such as BREC, whose mission is to provide activities for our youth, should be required to offer healthy options at the snack stands and cafés at its various facilities.

Same goes for state-operated facilities and museums.

Children who grow up bombarded by pitches for unhealthy snacks are likely to consume too much of them and wind up with health problems. While parents are responsible for their own children, the whole community should demand better options at publicly funded attractions.