Posted on 07/05/2002 6:25:02 AM PDT by SheLion
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.
I think you're right on, bud... I don't want some mealyfaced art major with tofu breath shrilling for one more pushup... Hey you recommember that part in 1984 where Orwell describes the two-way visual screens set up in everybody's house to keep tabs on em, and how some combat-booted dyke would get on every morning and make everybody do jumping jacks? Hmmmmm...
I'm one a these folks who has some control over my diet and can get out there and exercise. Yeah I smoke like a train and drink too much, and I do have a thing for Mickey D's sausage egg cheese biscuits but I am in the local running club and I run half marathons. That's >13 miles, folks. In fact I'm running another one Labor Day weekend. I am not a particularly unhealthy individual and I don't NEED somebody breathing down my neck about my lifestyle. It's all about self motivation and whatnot.
So yer one of them guys I have to swerve and miss driving around downtown Richmond...LOL!! I used to run the 1/2 when they offered it for the RTD, and eventually ran the whole 26 once, but that's just about 6 miles further than I like to train for. Keep up the good routine, though...MUD
BTW...where's that Labor Day 1/2 being run?
Who do you think makes the decisions on what should be sold on school campuses?
The two are correlated?
Obesity is strongly correlated with health problems.
Damn straight. If folks wanna live heavy, that's their prerogative.
Damn straight. If folks want to live stoned and read pornography, that's their prerogative. Oh, by the way, kids aren't folks. They, legally and morally, don't have the right or the ability to make many decisions on their own.
What about YOUR ideological blinders, dude? You gonna line everybody in the country up and dole out their tofu and string bean soup for the day?
This is the only thing you've said that makes any sense...barely. Carried to an extreme it's an argument against law itself...and it's true that there's no sense in passing laws that can't be enforced...and it's true that the less support a law has among the populace the less likely it is to be effective.
But we're talking about banning soda machines from campus, which is a long way from tofu and string bean soup for everyone. We're talking about trying to give kids a decent start in life. Encouraging them to be fat pigs is not giving them a decent start.
Virginia Beach Rock'n'Roll, dude... Ran it last year, excellent race. Nice flat course with lots of water stops. Lots of my club buddies run the November marathon in Richmond... That's about 13 more miles than I like to train for, dude! I figure I'm doing pretty good with halfs for as much as I do smoke, bwaha...
By-the-way, you do not know me, and I resent you using my name in the same sentence as porn.
If you're that sensitive you shouldn't post to a contentious, public, political discussion group.
What about the parents? Ain't it the parents' responsibility to raise their kids to have a little self control so they won't BECOME fat pigs? If the federal gov't usurps all the responsibilities of the people, then no wonder if we end up with a nation of codependent braindead amoral shapeless lifeless miserable idgits. I am going to build me a bunker and hole up in it one of these days. Anybody wants to come over, bring beer and smokes.
I've never been fat but I've spent some time listening to fat people discuss their problems and done a bit of researching.
It's much easier never to get fat than to lose weight. Somewhat analogous to the drug problem. Which is why I think it's so important to get kids off to a good start.
Well, bwahaha, actually dude, I personally would not cry myself to sleep every night if SUV's WERE banned... SUV's have the worst a$$hole drivers in my experience. BUT that would be just the straw that broke the camel's back and everything else would come tumbling after, I suspect.
I don't believe that anyone is forbidding junk food on campus. They are just saying that the school system shouldn't sell it. They're not going to be searching lunch bags, are they?
Did I read that right?
Exactly...and for a princely fee, I might add...MUD
Yes. Of course, it's the parents' responsibility. But what if they abdicate it? Obesity tends to run in families. I can't tell you the number of times I've watched fat families sit down in restaurants and consume ungodly amounts of junk food.
Here's a story for you. A friend told me he watched his father die of delirium tremens. His uncle and many others in his family for uncounted generations had met similar fates. But no one educated him on the dangers of alcoholism. He and his cousin were the first to realize what was going on and do something about it.
There are literally millions of stories like that. How do you want to deal with them?
In case you hadn't noticed we have a terrible problem with obesity and a health care system that's failing.
I think this whole "terrible problem" with obeisity is one of those things that has been terribly overplayed by our better-than-thou nannies and you have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. The goobermint and the CDC changed the whole standard for obesity and threw millions of kids (just "husky before the change) into the obese catagory.
And as far as our health care system "failing", Larry, if liberals like you would work to get the damn government out of health care, you'd soon see that our "failing" system is pretty robust.
But of course, getting the goobers in goobermint out of anything wouldn't appeal to a nannie statist like you, would it?
I actually agree on your comment about government schools not supplying kids with poor nutritional choices, but I'd take it two steps further:
First of all, government should not be supplying food to anybody for any reason and second, I'm all for abolishing the public school system anyway and hope that the one good thing to come out of Maine governor King's (ironic name)crackpot laptop computer scheme for kids will, after they become computer literate, wake them up to the fact that they don't need the damn state for any purpose but road repair.
And if they did so, there wouldn't be any democRATs either - and that would be a Good Thing, right?
That is the point, FRiend-- I DO NOT DEAL WITH THEM. It is up to the individual to deal with his own sh!t. This is why folks call me a meanspirited orphanage Republican but that is the bottom line.
On the other hand I'm the one who's most likely to end up buying ya a beer or staking you for lunch or driving yer happy a$$ to the auto shop or lending you twenty bucks or dogsitting yer dog, so it all comes out in the wash...
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