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Americans may be feeling squeezed these days by the state of the economy, but there's no question that we still have created a comfortable lifestyle that our ancestors could not have imagined. The evidence? Start with your waist size.

Yes, it's true. Americans are fatter than ever, thanks to our largely sedentary lifestyle. If you're an adult, what you eat and how much you exercise is your business, but there are other victims that we care about: Our children.

A recent study by the Children's Medical Center of Dayton — which included Butler County residents — indicates that one in four children in southwest Ohio are overweight. Yes, we're making our children fat — by allowing them too much fast food and too many colas, too much big-screen TV and video-game time, and by driving them to every destination, instead of letting them walk or ride a bicycle.

The Mayo Clinic considers childhood obesity a serious medical condition that occurs when a child is well above the normal weight for his or her age and height.

The number of overweight children in our region has declined modestly — from 30 percent in 2004 to 24 percent — but doctors still say that obesity is the top concern for area parents.

The most alarming

numbers we've seen recently were from Dr. Paul Jennewine, medical director of the Middletown City Health Department, who shared results of the annual body-mass index survey done by Middletown City Schools. This year's report shows that 43 percent of elementary students, 47.9 percent of middle-school students, and 57.15 percent of high schoolers are obese, overweight or at risk of being overweight. And there's no reason to believe that Middletown students are out of the ordinary, and that other Butler County districts don't have similar overweight or at-risk rates. What will their obesity rates be when they reach adulthood if they're already overweight as children?

We can hope that modern medicine will have fixes for the heart disease, diabetes and other life-threatening ailments that will accompany their obesity. Perhaps scientists will be able to cure obesity with a pill someday. We can all hope.

But for now, responsible, caring parents should be joining forces with schools and family doctors to monitor weight gain and to ensure that children have healthy food choices, plenty of physical activity, and limits on the amount of time they spend in front of televisions, computers and game consoles. And as Jennewine and other doctors have advised, parents must also set good examples for their children when it comes to food and exercise — by taking charge of their own health risks, too.