Are parents to blame for fat kids?

Some blame school lunch programs while others blame food manufacturers. My friend — let's call him Franklin Delano Roosevelt — blames his parents.

“I think you should do a story about obese children, and how their PARENTS are responsible for their obesity. As a (former) obese child, I blame my parents for my life-long battle with the bulge. It’s their fault. They, however, disagree. But it IS their fault,” he wrote in an email.

He’s not the only one who blames ‘the parents,’ of course.

The blame has been assigned to everything from lack of parental bonding to parents stress levels.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is not a researcher, but a lot of people agree with him: parents teach kids bad habits that can last a lifetime, stuff them with junk food and let them sit on their rumps when there is jumping around to do.

I am not ready to agree with that for every case (some kids are just big), but I am not ruling it completely out either.

Among other things, Public Health-Dayton & Montgomery County advocates "5, 2, 1, almost none" approach through its Get Up Montgomery County campaign.

It involves eating five servings of fruits and vegetables each day, limiting television, gaming and computer time to two hours daily, getting at least one hour of active play a day and drinking almost no sugary drinks.

That makes sense, and not just for kids.

Ohio ranked 13th nationally for obese adults, according to Trust for America's Health annual report.

About a third of adult Americans are obese, the Centers for Disease Control says. Another third is overweight. Obesity can lead to health problems in both children and adults.

My friend’s comments were partly in jest, but childhood obesity is no laughing matter. The CDC says obesity has more than doubled for children and tripled for adolescents in the past 30 years.

One in three children aged 10 to 17 in Ohio is overweight or obese.

Officials fear a heart disease epidemic, and point to the unprecedented number of overweight children developing diseases like type 2 diabetes previously associated with adults.

Some of the cases to make news in recent years have been shocking.

Remember the 218 pound 8-year-old from Cleveland Heights that was removed from his home in the fall of 2011 and placed in foster care? Officials worried that not enough was being done to control his weight.

The situation is clearly not as dramatic in most cases, but action from the parent is no less warranted.

While I am not prepared to blame it all on parents, it is clear that some parents need to do more — a lot more.

Don’t let your kids eat so much junk and sit around playing video games all day. This isn’t about being skinny, it is about being healthy.

If you don’t know how to set a good example, figure it out.

Doing a lot more can be tricky, but ‘doing a lot more’ is in the contract you sign when you become a parent.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and I know that, and we don’t even have kids.

What do you think? Are parents to blame for fat kids?

Contact this columnist at arobinson@DaytonDailyNews.com or Twitter.com/DDNSmartMouth