There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (from Friluftsliv to Hygge)

by Linda Åkeson McGurk

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that childhood obesity has almost tripled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past thirty years. In 1980, approximately 7 percent of American children age six to eleven years were obese; in 2012, that number was nearly 18 percent. Among adolescents age twelve to nineteen years, the obesity rate increased from 5 percent to nearly 21 percent in the same period. When you include figures for those who are simply overweight as well, more than one-third of American children are considered overweight or obese. That means children in the US are nearly six times more likely to be obese and nearly twice as likely to be overweight as children in Sweden. Similarly, approximately 11 percent of American children between the ages of four and seventeen have been diagnosed with ADHD, whereas only 3 to 6 percent of school-age children in Sweden are estimated to meet the criteria for the disorder. Although the number of ADHD diagnoses has increased in Sweden in the past few years, too, the incidence is well below the US trend. When combined with children on the autism spectrum, as many as one in six American children have a developmental disability, representing a 17 percent increase between 1997 and 2008, according to a 2011 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, a 2009 study showed that the prevalence of myopia, or nearsightedness, increased from 25 percent in 1971–72 to nearly 42 ...