The Times' story gives some accounts of Fullerton students on eating preferences and convenience. Governmental action in response to the student obesity problem is discussed, and the story notes local impact:
The story goes into a lot of details of assorted views on the reasons for obesity among students, as well as comparing that group to others, such as adults with cars and pregnant women. One result is relevant to a big part of the population:California has been one of the most aggressive. Students can no longer
purchase soda or junk food in Golden State schools. Some districts won't allow
bake sales. California has banned artery-cloggingtrans fats, and Los Angeles has
a one-year moratorium on new fast-food outlets in a 32-square-mile area of South
L.A.
Whether that's genetics, environment, or something else- the exact reason still is not known, but NO ONE is mentioning the FACT that Physical Education classes, specifically in LAUSD, but in other districts, too, have been reduced- actually eliminated by HALF as the required time in high school from what I and many others experienced. Instead of one P.E. class required to be taken every semester, you only have 2 years of P.E. classes required out of the 4 high school years. That may be ANOTHER of the more simple REASONS for more obesity in today's students.Latino and female students were the most susceptible to weight gain,
according to the study.
Physical activity is not promoted in school as actively now as in other eras. In my opinion from personal observation, that change also accounts for smaller interest in sports programs in high schools- after all, if you had to take P.E., you might as well choose a sport to satisfy the requirement. And with peer pressure being what it is in high school, friends joined sports together with other friends and filling out rosters was not too difficult. Today, there's an increase in time spent sitting at the computer for students that competes with time for other activities. We didn't have that as a demand for our time in high school, like many things of today, since they were still being developed.
The other factor- really the same factor as above- is that there is less exercise. How many students walk to school now compared to many years back? In some neighborhoods, parents are reluctant to have their children go outside to play, fearing harm that can come in the form of gang violence from gunfire. It's happened so many times in the Los Angeles area that such a concern not even being "overly protective" but realistic. THAT is where our politicians should put their energy; solving that problem might have multiple benefits, but it's too easy to pontificate and assume people "need" somebody "smarter" to make "better" decisions- in short, people are too stupid for their own good.
The story demonstrates this growing intrusion of government, though indirectly, from the fact of the government inserting itself in the place of parents in the decision-making process. The South L.A. fast food franchise moratorium on new businesses was sponsored by L.A. Council Member Jan Perry who believes, as many in government, that parents and other residents are simply too stupid to handle their own health decisions, so government has to take over. That should be an offensive concept to any individual, especially considering that it's politicians making decision for you. And, really, how much can you trust any politician's judgment on YOUR WELL-BEING in real life situations?
The story is one of the examples of how results that come from studies, whether astounding or simply very logically expected, become tools for politicians engineering more changes in lives of citizens where their decision remove a lot of personal freedom. It's just something to consider now so that later on down the road you won't be surprised when those same politicians decide to take another much larger step into your own personal decisons where that over-stepping of intrusion DOES bother you. At that time it just might be too late to control those decisions of theirs.
If you still don't believe that, consider this: The California voters, a few years back, agreed to impose a tax on cigarettes based on the idea that the health damage would be limited by having less smokers and the money collected would be spent on programs to stop people from DECIDING to smoke and help early childhood education, too. That sounds fine to us non-and ex- smokers, but it's really not what's working here if you look into this picture more deeply. The politicians find an unpopular activity and work on that to raise money and pursue the social engineering endeavors "for our well-being."
The cigarette tax generated millions of tax dollars, possibly above a billion dollars, much still unspent in California, as the programs to receive the money only sparsely materialized. Actor Rob Reiner was a celebrity promoting the tax of 50 cents a pack for early childhood education and anti-tobacco efforts that raised $4 billon as of February 2006. There was another measure to raise taxes by $1.50 a pack that did not pass. That anti-tobacco message would be accomplished by "education" and by making it MORE EXPENSIVE to buy cigarettes, influencing that outcome.
The people who continue to smoke just end up spending more money, and many who do smoke are people who may have limited incomes, literally burning up a bigger chunk of it to satisfy their nicotine fix. And that's where we are on that tax-as-a-deterrence situation. What it did was choose an unpopular activity to be controlled by the taxing authority of government, and collecting money from it along the way.
Now the real danger comes when politicians continue to find MORE ills to affect people that "have to be addressed." You see the limitation now on more businesses in South L.A. as such a response. The LAUSD stopped sales of sodas in schools about 6 years ago because of "sugar content" affecting obesity, but they did not allow diet sodas which have no sugar. So much for honesty of motive. They replaced that in many cases with fruit juice beverages as the alternative available, and this can have the same or more sugars in them, under the "fructose" label- just another form of sugar from fruit. The stated reasons usually are not the full reasons for anything that any governmental organization does, and more people should take that into account instead of leaving the thinking to others.
You can see that the door is open for more action by government "for your own good," also known as "NANNY STATE." As you have seen so often in government decision-making- in the ongoing "bailout" handling of money, or the relief response to Hurrican Katrina, or even the selections of cabinet members by President Obama, as examples- there's enough bad decisions on big scale applilcations that continue. Is this a control over your life that you want to hand over to politicians like the ones in LAUSD, the L.A. City Council, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors or the state legislature, all of whom have their own performance issues? And they WILL take that authority if you let them.
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