Dr. Sanford Newmark practices Pediatric Integrative Medicine in Tucson.

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Obesity is ruining our children's health. If current trends continue, our children will become the first generation in our history to have a shorter and unhealthier life than their parents.

More than 20 percent of our children are obese, and obesity has doubled since 1980.

Because of this, the incidence of diabetes in children is skyrocketing: 30 percent of Caucasian children and 45 percent of Hispanic and black children born in 2000 are expected to develop diabetes in their lifetimes.

What is going on? Simply put, our kids are eating too much, eating the wrong foods, and exercising too little. That's the bottom line, but why is it happening? Surely, we're one of the most weight- and diet-conscious societies on Earth. Certainly, it's about individual families and the choices they make, but that's not the whole story. 

Our children live in a toxic food environment. They are barraged with food and advertisements that encourage poor nutrition. The average small child is exposed to 4,000 television commercials every year, almost half of them for junk food. Worse, the children can't tell the difference between the commercials and the program. 

At school, things aren't much better. Although we've recently removed junk food vending machines from elementary and middle schools, most school lunches are unhealthy, filled with saturated fats and processed foods. One teacher told me that between birthdays and class parties, there were 25 to 30 days yearly where foods like ice cream, cupcakes and soda were served. 

The rise in families with a single parent or two working parents also contributes. Who can blame the harried parent, picking a child up at 6 o'clock, for stopping for fast food, rather than cooking dinner?

Children are exercising less. Few schools have daily physical education class anymore, and in many, PE is once a week. At home, children are watching television or playing computer games instead of being out playing. One study showed that the average child spent more than five hours daily at television, video game and computer screens.

This is everyone's problem. These are all our children. If we don't take some action we will be faced with the consequences. If health-care costs are a problem now, wait until these children with diabetes start developing complications like heart disease, blindness and kidney failure in their 30s and 40s. We will all be paying.

So what can you do? Learn about nutrition and talk to your families, friends and neighbors. Pressure fast-food chains to serve healthier meals. Lobby for better school lunches, and healthier party food. England recently banned all junk food advertisements from children's television; let's do the same. Tell your representatives you're glad junk food is out of school vending machines, and urge them to do more.

The only good thing about the obesity epidemic is that we can end it quickly. It's not global warming. If we act now, we can completely change the health of this and the next generations of children. The time has come.