Weaning Them Off Soda/Maine

A group of dedicated health specialists met again this week to fine-tune its plan to encourage every school in Maine to get rid of sodas, chips and other non-nutritional items.

They have put together an information packet warning against soda and chips as major causes of a current epidemic of obesity and tooth decay throughout the country but especially in Maine. The packet includes research articles and fact sheets designed to persuade students, parents, teachers and school administrators that the campaign is one tangible, practical means of improving health and heading off future disease. The committee has met with vending machine companies and obtained assurances of cooperation.

The next step will be to develop a strategy presentation for individual school districts. Pilot projects in several Maine communities are scheduled to start March 1, 2003, After evaluation of the results, the statewide campaign is slated for the school year starting in September 2004.

One question that arose in this week’s meeting was how best to get the students to realize that it is up to them to control their own diet and escape from the vending-machine monopolies in many schools that promote consumption of the big-name drinks that are heavy on sugar and caffeine.

A nutritionist suggested permitting a choice between healthful and unhealthful items. Others believe that, if given a choice, many students will take the junk.

Another question is how the vending companies may respond to the campaign. Milk and plain water must be carefully defined or some vendor may come up with a pricey new variation. How about Coke-flavored milk?

The committee is preparing for the day when it will seek wider publicity. It is drafting model news stories and news releases. One suggestion, unanimously approved, was that they drop the technical term “dental caries” in their fact sheets and refer simply to plain old “tooth decay.” That was a step in the right direction.

There is a dirty little secret here. Someone is making big money with these vending machines.

I thought I smelled money. These liberal parasites exhibit serious psychotic behavior when financial issues arise. They feed at the bottom of the food chain, as a result, a dysfunctional preoccupation with money.

Re-read my post.

Either you misread it or I miswrote it. I think the former because so many interpreted it the way I intended it.

I'm not opposed to Big Brother (Not Always opposed. There's years of argument here about the proper role of government). I made those comments in response (or anticipated response) to those who were. It's Big Brother who opposes the sale of drugs and pornography in the schools. I approve. It's Big Brother who is being asked to ban the sale of junk food in the schools. I wish he would.

All of the people you list didn't have the luxury of knowing what we know about the cancer causing affects of cigarettes.

My grandfather, who died in 1960, at the age of 78, smoked cigarettes and called them "coffin nails." This was not a new expression that he invented. It had been around forever.

What's changed in the last 30 or 40 years is that pompous and otherwise useless liberals have gotten a stranglehold on government (the rest of us were working for a living) and decided that they must drag us to their Utopia, for our own good.

They're aided in their jihad by useful idiots, such as yourself, who think that for once in their fearful little lives they're on the winning side. Their hideous compulsion to interfere in the lives of everyone around them speaks volumes about how alien adulthood and rules for a civil society is to them.

I see an America less able to deliver health care to most of its people than it was 10 years ago.

Why does "America" have to deliver health care to anyone? You're operating from the collectivist liberal premise that the government owns our bodies and our lives and therefore has unquestioned authority over how these are managed.

I reject that premise totally.

You're advocating a jobs program for the "health care industry" and the price is our money and our freedom.

You're advocating a jobs program for the "health care industry" and the price is our money and our freedom.

I'm all too aware that I could be doing that. In our little rural town the hospital is a significant source of employment and revenue and a draw for older citizens. Closing it might result in the closure of the town. Not an easy call to make. I'm doing all I can to preserve it but I won't continue to do so if think that it has no legitimate purpose.

Why does "America" have to deliver health care to anyone?

A fundamental question. What are the collective interests? The interests of society? Certainly a common defense. A fair legal system. But beyond that what? Public Education? Public sanitation? Public transportation? All are constantly debated.

Narrowing the question to public health, few would argue that society has no interest in preventing the spread of infectious diseases - especially if it can be done cheaply and easily with public sanitation, clean drinking water, and easy innoculations. But I can't clean to apply those standards - necessity and effectiveness - to a government program which would ban the sale of junk food in the schools. Such a program might result in a loss of revenue to the schools. Nothing more. So - while I support such a program - I can hardly get excited when others oppose it.

....Our average age and average height continue to climb. This means we're HEALTHIER....

Is it possible that the "greatest generation" will also be the generation with greatest longevity. They exercised as children, walking everywhere, and ate unprocessed (cheap) foods. Diabetes got them after 50 or 60. With rampant type 2 Diabetes, will today's young couch potatoes reach old age?

On July 3 in the Lincoln County News there was an article about SAD 40 adopting this kind of program. All sodas and drinks containing sugar are to be removed from the vending machines in this District! Big Brother is now telling children what they may or may not eat or drink.

If ever there was a Marxist Socialistic School Administration this one fills the bill. Of course tha SAD 40 has a long history of Marxist Socialist policies, I will not even attempt to enumerate them, but one of the latest actions was, that after the voters voted down the astronomical budget two weeks ago, rather than offering a lower budget figure to the taxpayers, the SAD board actually introduced and rammed through at a "District Meeting" ( attended primarily by SAD employees ) an increase in the budget. How is that for an IN YOUR FACE attitude on the part of the Board of the SAD?

This sort of action by the board has been typical of the board over the last twenty years. Anyone who speaks out against them is castigated and all but run out of town. I was on the receiving end of that a few years back. Get on the wrong side of these Commissars and they will attempt to destroy you. It's "for the children" you know. If you dare to speak out they will accuse you of trying to deny "the children" an education

By the way this is a school district where a considerable number of children graduate from High School, unable to do simple arithmetic, and functionally illiterate.

But we grew to be taller than them, our food is better. As for our couch potato lifestyle why are gyms such big business? Don't even get me started on the type 2 diabetes "epidemic", one of the more bogus health scares of the last decade.

This "big fat lazy American" crap is just as valid as the environazis "evil resource hogging American" crap.

I went to school in the '40s, '50s, and '60s. I remember very few fat kids and those who were were mostly husky, not obese. Nor was it a common sight - as it is today - to see women waddling rather than walking.

I didn't hit the 40s, started in 51, I saw a lot of Fat, people, I live in the NE, where anorexia(sp) is in and I still see alot of fat people, I've seen fat people all my life, it ain't the bod it is the head.

If mom were home to watch, feed, nurture their brats, and cook for them, their wouldn't be a lot of fat people.

But I can't clean to apply those standards - necessity and effectiveness - to a government program which would ban the sale of junk food in the schools.

Government schools are an abomination in and of themselves - the kidnapping of citizens for forced indoctrination into the ideology du jour.

Their providing food to the victims only allowed statists to gain a greater foothold into the victims' lives. This was concomitant with the growing notion of the nanny states' being in charge of citizens' most basic needs; this led to the state defining the needs. A few of these being the "need" to stop smoking, the "need" to aspire to anorexic thinness, the "need" to conform to the latest standard of fitness.

This forcing of people into bureaucratic standards of perfection leads to defining the resistors as dysfunctional and in need of "mental health" professionals. (More jobs.)

In our little rural town the hospital is a significant source of employment and revenue and a draw for older citizens

How is this at all relevant? Because a nanny-state inspired "health care system" provides jobs, it should survive forever? Whatever happened to all those buggy-whip manufacturers? Are they terribly missed?

You know what..........the schools in Maine are going to have a big problem with this.

I read that the vendors have a contract for years, and the schools have NO idea how they are going to get out of it.

So, I don't look for the schools in Maine to be doing away with vending machine anytime soon. heh!

Nothing wrong with jobs, honey. A lot better than no jobs.

Buggy whip manufacturers were terribly missed by those who lost their jobs. Saying that's not important is the same as saying that peoples' lives have no meaning.

We're powerless to alleviate a lot of human suffering but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can. I don't lightly dismiss the suffering I'll cause if I recommend the closing of a hospital. That you do does not speak well of you.

Nothing wrong with jobs, honey. A lot better than no jobs.

Jobs at any cost, huh, honey? How principled.

Buggy whip manufacturers were terribly missed by those who lost their jobs.

Oh, please. How unbelievably condescending. I guess buggy-whip manufacturers were genetically programmed to do nothing but that. Ever lost a job, or known anyone who has? Did they find another job on their own without government intervention? How horrible it must have been for you if they had.

Saying that's not important is the same as saying that peoples' lives have no meaning.

Really? I think meeting and overcoming adversity gives peoples' lives far more meaning than sitting on their asses waiting for some bureaucrat to make things right for them.

I don't lightly dismiss the suffering I'll cause if I recommend the closing of a hospital.

I've lost jobs before and found new ones. I never for a minute thought that I was owed a paycheck by the great Job Bestowers such as yourself,

That you do does not speak well of you.

I'll toss and turn all night.

This began in post #126 when you described our health care system as a make-work program.

I told you I didn't think that was accurate - and that I was making an effort to make sure it wasn't accurate. You ignored that. So I replied with sarcasm. You missed that.

The state has an interest in providing for the health and education of its citizens. How and to what extent is always debatable. You apparantly want to say that any extent is too much - a limitation on your freedom and a theft of your wealth. So I'll go back to my earlier examples. How do you stand with drugs and pornography? Is it an imposition on your freedom and a theft of your wealth for the state to take a position on these things instead of letting the market and free choice rule? Or maybe you care only about your freedom and not the freedom of those who enjoy those things or who don't want to pay to try to prevent their enjoyment?

As for the rest of your nonsense - you'd better read a little more history. Societies which don't provide jobs for their citizens don't do very well. You have faith in our system because jobs have always been available to you. That's not always been the case - and certainly is not the case for many people even now.

Nor did I ever say jobs at any cost. Quite the contrary. Try reading my post instead of venting your prejudices.

I'll toss and turn all night.

You really are rotten. "Let them eat cake" describes you.

By the way, in case you hadn't noticed. The state is never neutral on the issue of providing employment to its people. Nor do conservatives recommended that it be neutral. Conservatives are opposed to direct employment by the state. But they support state encouragement of business in many, many ways. And of the capitalist system which they believe is the best way to provide wealth and employment.

The state has an interest in providing for the health and education of its citizens

"The State" - you forgot to capitalize it, probably a typo.

How do you stand with drugs and pornography?

Did some drugs as a youth, grew out of it. Never was interested in pornography. State intervention had nothing to do with it. A decent upbringing by my parents did.

As for the rest of your nonsense - you'd better read a little more history. Societies which don't provide jobs for their citizens don't do very well.

Old Soviet Union joke: "They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work."

You have faith in our system because jobs have always been available to you.

What makes you assume that?

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