Here's a fact that you may not have been aware of: "Every separate food-related practice that promotes low-nutrition foods in a school is associated with a 10% increase in students' BMI (Body Mass Index)." Alarming, ain't it? I can send you the source if you don't believe it.The scope of my position as Utah PTA Health Commissioner requires that I advocate for children's health, and current obesity trends are certainly a major concern in that area. So, being conscientious, last week I asked the Powers That Be, even the individuals who are in charge of exhibitors at our annual State PTA Leadership Convention, to please refuse to allow vendors who promote fundraisers that sell foods of minimum nutritional value (read: cheesecake, cookie dough, and candy) to participate in our convention.
Their answer was an unequivocal "No way." Their reasons are manifold, if not intelligent and well thought out.
1. People need to be able to make choices. Taking away choices just makes people mad, and then they will end up eating more junk food. (I thought the choices involved having a hundred or so vendors there. I didn't realize that they were robbed of choice when we took out the crap.)
2. Your job, Daltongirl, is to educate the people so they will not make bad choices. Then, when they walk through the booths at our convention and smell the fresh-baked cookies and see the free chocolates, they will refuse. Because education will have made them strong. If they choose unwisely, well, it just means you haven't done your job. So get to work.
3. It is not possible to turn down a vendor who sends us money and pays for booth space. (Uh. Wow. I hope the tobacco, porn, and alcohol vendors don't find out about this. That would make things interesting, because I hear porn turns a greater profit than cookie dough, even.)
4. It's not like having those companies there as exhibitors gives our attendees the impression that we endorse them. (Yeah. Right.)
5. You, Daltongirl, are a communist.
That's right. Because I want to eliminate junk food from our convention and stop parents from forcing their kids to sell chocolate, I am the next Karl Marx.
While conducting a little research on an unrelated project, however, it has come to my attention that, in addition to Lenin and Stalin, I have other comrades who feel the same way I do. The United States Surgeon General, the Director of University of Utah's Nutrition Department (who told me she was called a socialist the other day for making similar statements), and the Executive Director of Utah Department of Health to name a few. And I have plenty of right-thinking national organizations to back me up: Action for Healthy Kids, Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is a great contributor to National Public Radio, and therefore gets two votes. Not bad company, in my opinion.
Who you hangin' with?
9 comments:
I love the smell of righteous indignation in the morning. Almost as much as I love the smell of cookies!
Just kidding! You're 100% right!!!
I have chosen to opt out of our school's candy (and wrapping paper) fundraiser this year. I will be sending the packets back with a check attached, but we're not ordering any candy. Don't need it.
This is why I like living up here in liberal pinko land where my child doesn't get the choice of eating hot dogs, cookies, or peanut butter sandwiches at school (no nuts for allergies, no pork or red meat for dietary concerns). I think it's a little weird how attached some people can get to the idea of freedom of choice. Also Natalie, I think that's a great idea to just send a check without actually getting stuff. I'll have to remember that one in the future...
Wow. I'm glad to have you as a commie friend.
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I'm feeling the entrepreneurial spirit right now. I'm going to buy some cheap vodka and glue pictures of naked ladies on the bottles and show up. Look for me! I'll be the one they're flocking to.
th.: you will find the application to reserve space at www.utahpta.org. I can't wait to see you there!
I totally agree with you. I was a teacher for a few years and there is definitely a junkfood problem! Almost every student walks down the hall at some point during the day holding a large soda and/or some other sugar-laden snack food.
It goes beyond the students, though. There is a culture of caffiene in the faculty and staff - Coca-Cola has their hooks in the adults, too!
My boss just sends donations to her kids' schools when there are fund raisers. She figures that instead of the school getting 60 cents of the $10 worth of cookie dough she ordered, they may as well get the full $10. Or $20, or whatever she decides to donate. Sounds smart to me.
Mark Fenton, a national advocate for walking who teaches seminars for the Utah League of Cities and Towns, says that for the first time in history, we of this generation can expect our children to have a SHORTER life expectancy than ours. Why? Because we don't walk anymore, we don't design our communities so we can walk, and when it comes to food, we over-indulge. Makes a person think.
Is that a reall kid in that picture, because his head and arm parts look de-tachable.
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