Canadian Personal Finance Blog

The High Cost of Healthy Kids? (part i)

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

I have seen many articles posted lately in the “real” media complaining about obese kids and the implication that it is their parents fault that they are fat. I agree in some ways given that you as a parent should worry if your kid is morbidly obese, or way over weight (also knowing that some kids fill out and then shoot up in height, and there are sometimes extenuating health issues). Parents should most definitely be worried that their kids are not healthy, no argument there.

What I will write about here, is how the “real” media implies that it is a simple case of parents just not trying to get their kids healthy, and the simplest resolution to the problem is:

Make sure the kids are active at school in sports
Sign them up for sports at home in their spare time
Limit their TV and Video Game access
Limit their intake of snack foods and foods high in sugar and fat

Simple enough, and in an esoteric way, I agree, however, let’s look at this from a financial model.

The question to be answered is: is it cheaper to have healthy kids, or is it more expensive? I’ll give my opinions in the next couple of days.

New Month Coming

September is on the event horizon folks, that means we are in the final third of the year, maybe it is time to revisit your financial plans, and also start thinking about big ticket end of year items that could broadside you if you don’t think of it. What do I mean?

Christmas, better figure out what you are doing there, or you may as well get a pile of money and burn it.
When do your insurance policies renew?
What other yearly payments might come due on January 1? Do you have enough money to pay them?
How about your RRSP input goals? Reached them yet?
RESP Goals?
Savings in General?

A good financial plan is a living, breathing entity, that you must attend to monthly.

House Keeping

I will be out of town for a few days this week so I may miss a day or two this week, my apologies, if I could figure out how to do THIS full time and make a living, I’d gladly do it.