If you think it’s hard to be an obese adult, imagine how hard it is to be an obese child. I’ve been both. I was the “fat” child and I was bullied.

Yesterday I posted this picture collage on my Plant-Based, God’s Grace: Nalida’s Journey to Health and Fitness page. Someone asked, “Were you pregnant in that red dress?”

My answer: “No. I was a recent high school graduate at the time. Only a teen starting college believe it or not. I was very obese then and for many years until I made big changes in 2013.”

I was not offended. I LOOKED pregnant. I had been that big for several years before that then many years—decades afterwards. Childhood obesity is now sadly a bigger epidemic now.

It really hurts me to hear people say that they won’t remove junk food from their kids’ diets because they don’t want to “deprive” them of their childhood and what other children are eating. I respectfully ask you to reconsider. That is the big food industry lie that it’s a right of passage to eat all the junk food and packaged foods that the commercials brainwash us into buying then the sugar-oil-salt-chemical combos keep us trapped into continually eating. And sometimes WE adults are so addicted to these food-like substances that we use that as an excuse to keep the junk in the house. I know. I’ve been there sadly.

Sometimes people say, I want to give them a choice to choose how to eat. Would you give your young children a choice on whether or not to snort cocaine or shoot up heroin and essentially lead them into addiction? Believe it or not, the food industry PAYS chemists to find the right combination of chemicals to make people addicted to their products (see the documentary In Defense Of Food and read the research by Michael Pollen as well as former FDA Commissioner David Kessler and countless other documentaries and research).

It hurts to be that child that people ask if your pregnant but you never even had a boyfriend. It hurts to be that child that is embarrassed because someone stood up to give you a seat on the train because they thought you really was pregnant. It hurts to be that child embarrassed in gym class. It hurts to be that child not able to fully run and play like all children should. THAT is what an obese child is deprived of—a normal childhood in a comfortably fit body that can do what children should be doing, running and playing effortlessly.

Before, we didn’t know better. But now we do. Please, please, try to get out of the mindset that you’re depriving your child of a normal childhood by not allowing all the processed and junk foods in the house. It’s a marketing ploy that we’ve all been deceived by and there are people making beaucoup bucks at our expense. I refuse to be used that way anymore or to allow my kids to be used that way.

Free yourselves and free your children! We all love our kids. FIGHT for them and their health. They deserve it!! Replace the junk with fruits, cut up veggies with hummus and nut/seed butters (plain with no added anything). Make them fruit-sweetened cookies. There are now TONS of resources to show you how. Let your taste buds and theirs heal. Trust me, when you’re healed of many chronic conditions, feeling lighter and able to move with ease—both you and your children—you won’t have any regrets. My husband and I definitely don’t have any and our children have adapted for the better. Please consider this.

In love,

Nalida