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Tom, picture this for a second… what if government officials burst into our annual Tom Joyner Black Family Reunion, grabbed all of the children who were extremely overweight, confiscated their Twinkies, Pork Rinds and Red Kool-Aid, and hauled them off to foster care…?

Sound crazy…?  Not really… some of you may have heard the recent news about the possibility of government agencies stepping in to take extremely overweight children away from their parents…

Yep, a recent article on MSNBC entitled Should parents lose custody of super obese kids? talks about how a growing number of folks, including some established doctors, say putting children temporarily in foster care can be more ethical than having them subjected to obesity surgery…

…in other words, they’re arguing that the government should be allowed to remove obese children from their homes…

I don’t know about this, guys… any time you talk about the state taking children from homes, it is a serious issue… especially in our community where we are already justifiably concerned about efforts to break up the black family…

Still, the discussion does raise some interesting questions, like, Who is ultimately responsible for the eating habits and related health of overweight children? And, If the parents are held liable or accountable, what type of measures or actions are appropriate?

Well, let’s first look at the scale of the problem in our community… roughly a quarter of African American children and adolescents in the United States between 6 and 17 have been identified as overweight… and unfortunately, poor dietary practices and health habits are often passed down from generation to generation…

…and this can lead to type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high levels of blood fats and high cholesterol which, in turn, are all risk factors for heart disease and stroke, much more common in our community…

…and such obesity-related diseases have some doctors promoting weight-loss surgery for severely obese teens while others feel state intervention is necessary…

One doctor had a 90-pound, 3-year-old girl brought into his clinic briefly only to return at age 12, weighing 400 pounds and suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and sleep apnea… Her parents were poor, had physical disabilities, and obvious difficulty controlling her weight…

The girl was removed from the home and placed in foster care where she received three balanced meals a day and moderate physical activity… After a year, though still obese, she lost 130 pounds and her diabetes and apnea disappeared…

Now, for me, it still doesn’t quite justify taking children from their homes… obviously the parents were dealing with some serious issues themselves and could have likely used some help and education on how to take care of their daughter…

I mean, couldn’t the same or less money be spent by the state to have someone counsel or assist the family in nutrition a few times a week at home as opposed to the amount spent on keeping her in foster care…? You think?

Okay, enough said. Time for you to weigh in and let us know what you think about this – shall we say – weighty issue… Text us here at 64-64-64 and tell us if you believe that: 1) super obese children should be taken from their parents; or 2) the children should stay, but with mandatory family nutrition counseling; or 3) the parents should be punished by locking them in a room for 24 hours with a large screen TV with surround-sound looping last week’s Republican presidential debate; or 4) tell us your own idea on how to best handle super-obese children…

Think about it… imagine these are your children or relatives…We want to hear from you…

I’ll close with this Lee Haney quote:

“More than ever, we as parents and a nation must do something about the growth of obesity in our children. We must do more than just talk, we must be concerned enough to act.”

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie in Love and Hope.

admin Children, Parenting Obesity

I want to take you back to an extraordinary day 191 years ago this week, when a black minister by the name of Lott Cary, who had purchased his own freedom, set out on a historic journey across the Atlantic Ocean…

Accompanied by former slaves, Cary sailed to a small coastal region in western Africa with the intent of establishing a colony for the formerly enslaved… this territory would later become the nation of Liberia…

Now fast forward to Liberia in 1990, a country of 3 million people embroiled in a horrific and lengthy civil war that would ultimately take over 250,000 lives and trash its national economy…

A five-year old girl by the name of Wayetu (Wah-YAY-2) Moore, along with her father and two sisters flee the Liberian capitol of Monrovia and head north on foot amidst masses of traumatized war victims, flying bullets and the roadside remains of dead families, to stay alive…

Each day, while hiding from warring factions, Wayetu and her sisters join their father on the floor of their hiding quarters to read, listen to him read  and practice their writing…

Unlike those missionaries who colonized the country two centuries before, the Moore family eventually takes the opposite path, from Liberia to the United States…

Once in the states, the family happily reunites with their mother who had left a year earlier to study as a Fulbright scholar at Columbia University Teachers College in NY… but things were far from easy for the father.  He longed for his Liberian home, a home where his education had given him an advanced social and financial status…

The elder Moore now left the cramped college dorm they lived in early each morning to look for work, often unsuccessfully… He took odd jobs, far below his educational level, just to keep food on the table for his growing family…

Even so, he would return home each night and, along with his wife, ensure that Wayetu and her siblings had new words to write in their spiral notebooks…

Well, let’s fast forward again to today where Wayetu, now 27 years old, has started a remarkable family business aimed at keeping children reading and writing around the world…

She is the publisher of One Moore Book, a company that publishes culturally sensitive and educational stories for children of countries with low literacy rates …

One Moore Book, which is celebrating its one year anniversary this month, has hired all four of Wayetu’s siblings as writers or illustrators and has been featured in The Huffington Post, The Economist, MSN and The Houston Chronicle… Wayetu was also invited to speak at Harvard last spring on integrating education and commerce…

The company has successfully published and distributed 7 children’s paperback and digital books, and has formed distribution partnerships with non-profits like Worldreader.org, an organization that sends eReaders to impoverished schools in Kenya and Ghana…

…and Wayetu recently launched a new website that publishes other writers of multicultural children’s literature as well…

You can go to onemoorebook.com to support Wayetu’s family book business and literacy programs…

Her commitment to give back to children, not only in her native land but around the world, is truly inspiring and a direct result of the support and inspiration her father gave her…

I leave you with Wayetu’s words:

“I will never be able to give my father back the twenty years he spent working to educate us, or the home and life in Liberia he lost. I repay his sacrifice by honoring the education he fought for and offering my art to the world, with stories that make the histories and narratives of my people come alive, with words to live by and a legacy I promise I will not disappoint.”

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie in Love and Hope.

admin Uncategorized One Moore Book, Wayetu

Tom, one of our favorite holidays is coming up… Martin Luther King Day is this Monday, January 16th…     

…and with all the talk about the importance of social networking these days, I’ve been thinking if he were alive today, would Dr. King be on Facebook? Imagine him at home in the ATL, sitting in front of a computer with loosened tie uploading pictures of himself, Mrs. King and their children on his wall, and posting videos of marches and excerpts of his favorite speeches for Facebook friends?

How about Twitter? What would he tweet? And given his propensity for lengthy speeches, would he have started a global movement to overturn Twitter’s original 140-character restriction?

Of course, I’m sure he would have appeared on the TJMS to discuss the issues of the day… but afterwards, if someone said something about him he didn’t like, would he text oh-oh-oh to let us know?

Maybe not… but all of this speculation does raise a more profound question… Could Dr. King’s message actually be delivered effectively in our technology-obsessed age? Or would it be spliced, chopped and remixed into sound bites, devoid of its original substance and meaning?

What we do know is that Dr. King’s message and legacy are still affecting people and movements around the world… We can look at the recent examples in several Arab nations where King’s words were trumpeted during popular uprisings or where We Shall Overcome, the song most associated with him, was played in the streets…

That said, it could certainly be argued that Dr. King’s words and legacy are being used these days in more superficial ways that do not necessarily capture the essence of his life or his agenda… we heard talk about this in the debates surrounding the recent dedication of the King Memorial in DC…

So would Dr. King have been encouraged by the explosion of technology, social networking and its use in current movements on the world stage, or would he be deeply concerned about the loss of time for real reflection and critical thinking, and at how impersonal, shallow, and mechanical communication has become?

Well, I obviously am not sure about the answers to these questions, but it is certainly something to think about… In fact, because of modern technology, we can do more than think about it… Text us here at 64-64-64 (oh-oh-oh) to tell us what issues in particular you think Dr. King, if he were alive, would be texting about today…

What we do know for sure is that Dr. King was a deep and critical thinker… and his thinking, combined with his moral obligation to God and humanity, compelled him to speak out and act upon his thoughts and principles…

…and while he may well have found a way to communicate the essence of his message to the world’s masses even with today’s shorter attention spans, Twitter character limits, and real-time technologies, I think Dr. King, in his unique and eloquent way, would have certainly reminded us of our human capacity for – and responsibility to engage in– careful and critical thought, and substantial, meaningful communication…

I think he would have pushed us to resist technologies that encourage quick sound bites and the splicing and tweeting of complex ideas – I think he would have challenged us to think deeply.  And he would have pushed us to really engage with one another in thoughtful, difficult, and often lengthy, conversations and debates… in the quest for just and lasting solutions…

As always, his words say it best:

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie in Love and Hope.

admin Black History Month Martin Luther King

Well, 2012 is finally upon us… and, of course, we all have our own beliefs about what is likely or supposed to happen during this upcoming and pivotal year…

Some folks who believe in the so-called “Mayan Calendar,” which ends in December of 2012, think that that will be the ‘end times’ or the end of life on this planet as we know it…

…while some people will get caught up in world-ending prophecies, I recently came across a fascinating news item that had me thinking about the importance of planning when it comes to end of life issues…

Case in point: 21-year old Sam Schmid, a student at the University of Arizona thought to be brain dead after being critically hurt in a car accident in October, suddenly awoke from a coma just as he was being considered for organ donation…

As doctors prepared to take Schmid off of life support, he began to respond to their commands and hold up fingers upon request… Today, he is walking with a walker, speaking well, and doctors are expecting a full recovery… a miraculous story and perfectly-timed holiday blessing…

This story brings to mind some very important questions… like ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ orders.

A “Do Not Resuscitate” or “DNR” is a legal order respecting the patient’s earlier wishes to not undergo life preserving measures if their heart stops beating, or if they stop breathing…

If there had been a DNR in place, Schmid’s doctors could have justifiably taken him off of life support while he was unresponsive given the elapsed time and the severity of his brain injuries… and we wouldn’t be talking about Schmid right now… since he’d be dead…

To clarify, with a DNR, a patient, once off of life support is left to die regardless of how they fare… meaning even if they start breathing strongly on their own and becoming responsive, caregivers are not allowed to feed or assist them in any way…

And, given that the decision to resuscitate or not resuscitate is played out weekly in hospitals across the country, what are the implications of such a stunning modern-day holiday miracle?

The obvious thing that comes to mind is that our knowledge of life, health and our brains is limited – and medicine is not an exact science… there is so much more for us to know and learn about what our bodies and brains can do, and about what is humanly possible…

While “Quality of Life” considerations are very important, and most who elect DNRs are concerned about existing in a “vegetative state” or as a “burden” to others, we should at least be clear that the nature of life is unpredictable and that miracles can happen at any time… After all, isn’t that what the word ‘faith’ is all about?

So going into this new year, with all its uncertainties, what can we do to ensure our wishes, whatever they may be, are clear for our doctors and loved ones?

Well, we can prepare a Living Will (or Advance Directive), a legal document making known our wishes regarding life prolonging medical treatments in the event we cannot speak for ourselves, and we should make sure we fully understand what our wishes would mean in action…

For more information on this, do an internet search on Living Wills … it’s always good to be aware and prepare for things like this, not for the sake of worrying about tragedy or dying, but to free ourselves to focus on the miracle and joy of living…

…and as we march into 2012, I’ll leave you with this forward-looking quote that speaks to the value and sanctity of life even with all the curveballs it sometimes throws at us…

Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life… I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness… or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.”

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie in Love and Hope.

admin Education Dnr, Do not resuscitate, Sam Schmid