The Future Generation of America Is Literally Sick And TiredJoshua Krause Recently the Centers for Disease Control conducted a physical study involving 600 teenagers. They found that only 42 percent of them could reach the bare minimum threshold for being considered fit. This happens to be a decline from 52 percent in 2000. The lead author of the report, Dr. Gahche, suggested that Children should spend at least 60 minutes dailymostly doing aerobic exercise, like walking, running, participating in team sports or martial arts. While obviously good advice, does he mean to say that many of our kids arent doing something so mildly strenuous and benign, as walking? Its absolutely baffling to think that a large segment of our youth cant find a few more minutes of their day to bring their heart rate up even a little bit. It shouldnt be too shocking to find that the study pinned the blame on a common culprit: This is the example were offering to our kids, and it shows. Diabetes has been on the rise among our youth for a long time now, but its managed to climb significantly in recent years. Over the course of a decade the percentage of kids 12-19 with diabetes or prediabetes managed to triple from 9 percent to 27 percent. Whats really bizarre is that it isnt just a rise in type 2 diabetes, which can be accounted for with our poor diets and exercise. Type 1 diabetes is on the rise as well, which is widely believed to have more genetic causes rather than environmental. I can only guess at the factors involved, but I have to ask, Is our diet and lack of exercise setting up our kids for a lifetime of illness before theyre even born? The implications for the future are staggering. Theres been plenty of talk of how our nation is going to pay for the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. The lowest estimates of unfunded liabilities in medical care put it at around 25 trillion, as the number of people in retirement will nearly double over the next 20 years. To sustain such an astronomical cost its going to require a healthy generation of workers to maintain a debt that isnt even theirs. I digress. Perhaps what should really worry us is how were going to support the current generation, who may likely end up too sick and bedridden to even work long enough to reach retirement. Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author. You can follow Joshuas reports at Facebook or on his personal Twitter. Joshuas website is Strange Danger . 