Bans on “Junk Food” in Schools
Kids eating right – and beating blights
Connecti-cutting out the calories?
Hooray! Add densely populated Connecticut to the list of states that are considering bans on “junk food” in schools.
In the last year and a half, I’ve written to you about school systems in New York, Pennsylvania, California, and other states that are seemingly taking a much harder line against candy, soda-pop, vending machines and other sources of sugary, nutrition-less foods for our nation’s kids
This is all good news. The obesity rate in the United States now hovers somewhere north of 30% by most mainstream estimates (I might have some gripes with their criteria on this, but I’ll be the first to concede that we’re facing a nationwide crisis of gargantuan proportions), and our current generation of children is inarguably the fattest in American history.
And finally, it seems that our schools are getting it – sort of. This year, 17 states have introduced at least some type of legislation aimed at curbing kid’s girth. As I mentioned before, the latest of these is the Constitution State. Their proposal is by far the broadest in scope of any state’s thus far. It’s “ban” on junk food would apply to all public schools, even high schools. This diverges sharply with most such legislation, which typically targets only elementary and/or middle schools.
According to a recent Associated Press article on the topic, the bill has cleared the Connecticut House, and it’s expected to pass easily in their state Senate. Of course, the main impediments to the passage of the bill – which was debated on the floor longer than pending laws on capital punishment and same-sex unions – were a strong showing by the soda lobby and educational interests worried that they’d lose money if vending-machine sales were banned.
Some within the Connecticut legislature reportedly voiced concerns about the pending bill’s effectiveness considering the fact that such foods as pizza and nachos are still slated to be standard fare in Connecticut school cafeterias
Which is a point I’ve brought every time I’ve mentioned such laws. Only time will tell if these mandates will make a real difference in kids’ waistlines, or if they’ll only prove to be window dressing to court the soccer-mom vote.
Oh well. One can hope, right?
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Scouts for scouring
As you may recall, a couple of months ago (Daily Dose, 4/22), I came down pretty hard on the Girl Scouts of America for contributing to the obesity epidemic by relentlessly guilt-peddling those dreadfully fattening (not to mention outrageously overpriced!) cookies of theirs. But it seems they’re up to some good things, too, if a recent item I found in Minnesota’s St. Paul Pioneer Press is any indication.
It seems that the girls in the green vests are practicing to be scientists! In one Twin Cities Scout Troop, they’ve determined that a lot of today’s higher-priced (and highly hyped) antibacterial soaps and household cleaning products may not be all they’re cracked up to be – and may in fact be only marginally better than “regular” soaps and cleaners.
Their two years of ongoing research concludes that so-called “antibacterial” soaps kill only .2% more common germs than the 99.4% that run-of-the-mill cleaners eradicate. What’s worse, there are “friendly” bacteria that belong on the skin and these are washed away as well. Use soap without antibiotics added – if you can find it.
Whether their research methodology was scientifically rigorous or not I could not determine – but either way, it supports a point I’ve made over and over again for years: Simply that washing your hands and kills germs and prevents illness. What kind of soap you use is less important than the actual washing.
Washing up – but far from washed up,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
