Is diabetes the new "normal"?

You've heard the expression, "Sixty is the new 40".  I used that line a lot-when I was 60.  It doesn't work so well at age 62, and my wife told me to come up with something new.

We can laugh about those sorts of things, but I have a couple of alternative lines that are not so funny.  Ho about this?

• Food is rapidly becoming the new cigarettes of this generation.
• Diabetes is well on its way to becoming the new normal.

There are signs we are heading that direction.  Just  15 years ago, not a single state had an obesity rate of more than 15 per cent.  Now all states are are above 15%, and Idaho is sitting at 25 %.  Obesity rates over the last 15 years have doubled or nearly doubled in 17 states.

If this ugly trend continues-and there is no reason to believe that it won't-kids today won't live to be 60.  Forty will be considered "old".  In today's "Man vs. Food" world, food is replacing cigarettes as a leading threat to America's health.  Let's be honest-if you are overweight, you are a train wreck waiting to happen.  If you are overweight and have diabetes or high blood pressure, the train wreck has already happened and you need a lifeline.

Well, it's one thing for an old geezer like me to be ranting about diabetes and high blood pressure.  What I worry about are the increasing number of 10-year-old couch potatoes.  I worry about the explosion of restaurants that offer delicious foods and encourage people to gorge themselves until their stomachs are about to explode.

When I was growing up in North Idaho's Silver Valley in the 1960s, we didn't have a McDonald's or even a pizza restaurant.  We had a '50s style drive-in just a few houses up the road, but that was mostly off limits.  I remember once-and only once-when circumstances forced me to have a burger and fries at that place.  Today, that's lunch and dinner in some households.

In my day, kids fought boredom by playing baseball throwing around a football, or riding their bikes from one end of town to the next.  Today, too many kids spend their time texting, toying with "smart" phones, or playing video games.  What compounds the problem is they eat like lineman for the Green Bay Packers.

We cannot let this trend continue, and we cannot count on a government program to keep America healthy.  Change must start at home, and parents need to take the lead.