"Fat is the new ugly" -- this is an article highlighted on the Girls on the Run Facebook page yesterday.  The article talks about how kids as young as 3 are verbalizing diet messages like "this food will make me fat".  It points out how our dietary patterns have become synonymous with our moral character ("I was bad today, I ate two cupcakes!"). 

We are delivering these messages to our kids.  Sure, we can blame it on the media, magazines, Hannah Montana, and Disney Princesses -- but honestly, our culture is a reflection of us as much as we are a reflection of it.

Whenever you talk about hating exercise, you reinforce the idea that movement is bad.  Whenever you punish yourself for eating something by gutting out an extra 30 minutes on the treadmill (or when you spend any amount of time feeling guilty that you didn't make yourself get on that treadmill to "fix" what you ate earlier in the day), you reinforce the idea there is a price to be paid for eating food that tastes good.

We are blessed to have as much food as we do.  We are blessed to be able to move when we chose to move.  We are bless with children who are born with a love to move, eat, grow, explore, play and just be children.  Why are we spitting on those blessings?  And more importantly:

What can we do to change our mindsets to demonstrate how much we value these gifts?