“The panel recommended that
schools position themselves as gateways to obesity prevention,” says the L.A. Times, “ensuring that children get
at least an hour of physical activity daily, barring access to foods and beverages high in calories, and
offering all students healthful, nutritious foods and instruction in the
fundamentals of healthful eating and living.”
It seems to us that school are already positioning themselves as miniature food police states, or, we mean, “gateways to obesity prevention.” In the news, we hear of schools where officials inspect sack lunches and replace them with chicken nuggets, and where students’ eating and exercise habits are monitored both on and outside of school grounds.
A school district in Colorado has banned
sweets, even for fundraisers. Legislators in Massachusetts passed a bill
banning bake sales but the public/parental backlash was strong enough to
motivate the governor to lift the ban only days later.
In Utah, two different high
schools have been fined nearly $20,000 for the crime of accidentally selling
soda, prompting Rep. Rob Bishop to lecture
his colleagues on the Constitution.
And the food control doesn’t end at the school gates—there’s a bill in
California that would restrict
food trucks from operating within 1,500 feet of a school.
This is what the obesity experts want to see more of—even though
research finds no
link between student obesity and “junk food” sold in schools, much less
outside of school grounds.
The good news is that sometimes, as in Massachusetts, the parents
assert themselves and get results. We also see students rebelling against their schools' food restrictions … even up in socialist-friendly Canada:
The “experts” want schools to shift from education to indoctrination–on
food and other subjects–and what they’re doing in the schools is what they’d
like to do in society at large. It’s up to "We the People" to be their hall monitors.
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