"Elizabeth Reid" wrote in message
om...
"JG" wrote in message
et...
"Roger Schlafly" wrote in message
t...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/05/education/05SODA.html

Soft drinks should be eliminated from schools to help tackle the
nation's
obesity epidemic, the American Academy of Pediatrics says.
In a new policy statement, the academy says that pediatricians
should
contact local superintendents and school board members and
"emphasize
the
notion that every school in every district shares a responsibility
for
the
nutritional health of its students."

Ah, those impetuous peds! Don't they realize that "every school in
every district" is simply too darn busy attending to its
responsibility
regarding the educational "health" of its students?!?
.....er....um....never mind....

Um, okay, I'm missing the huge affront here.

Schools (administrators, faculty), generally speaking, are failing at
the *one* task with which few would disagree they're charged: educating
our youth. (I'd settle for simply producing a literate populace;
"education," IMO, is a personal endeavor.) We (society) have already
added students' mental/psychological well-being to list of things we
expect schools to achieve/ensure, and now, apparently, the APA wants to
charge schools with the task of seeing that kids slim down by
(initially)--tada!--banning the sale of soft drinks.

I don't really
see depriving kids of soda-purchasing opportunities during school
hours as limiting their freedom significantly. As long as
it would be the right of a parent to send a soda to school
with the child, it wouldn't bother me.

Nor I. Do you honestly think, however, that school district
administrators/personnel wouldn't bemoan the lost revenue, or that the
APA wouldn't prefer that schools totally ban "unhealthy" foods/beverages
from campuses? ("This school is a 'junk food'-free zone.")

JG, do you think anything ought to be done by any sort of
public servant about the way Americans are ballooning into
giant butterballs?

What's a "public servant"? g

Government can, and should, play a role in safeguarding *public* health.
I have little objection to bureaucrats monitoring and takng (LEGAL)
measures to mitigate situations that pose a threat to the public at
large. Weight (obesity) is a *private* issue; the gubmnt's only
basis/rationale for intervention in this arena is the claim that
weight-induced health problems (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc.)
among those receiving public assistance (Medicaid, Medicare) impose a
financial burden on taxpayers. (This is a separate subject open to
debate. Perhaps public assistance recipients who have a weight-induced
disease will die younger because of it, thus potentially saving "us" $$$
in the long run.) At any rate, gubmnt health programs should never
have been instituted in the first place. (Anyone care to cite just
where in the Constitution "public assistance"--publicly funded
assistance to *individuals*--is addressed?)

If you believe that this is all a matter
of personal responsibility, can you describe a plausible
chain of events that leads to each individual butterball
waking up one morning and saying, "Gosh! It's time to
change my entire way of life! No more fast food, no more
TV... I'm going to take responsibility for my life and
start eating healthier food, spending more time exercising,
and teaching my kids to do the same!" Or is it just that
you think anyone who doesn't do the above is better off
prematurely ill or dead?

Straw man. I don't think it's anyone's, or any group's (private or
public), right to tell individuals *who pose no threat to others* how to
live their lives (let alone force them adhere to arbitrary dictates!)--
do you? Each "individual butterball" must live, or die, by his/her
choices. The gubmnt (and food manufacturers/distributors, including
schools) hasn't made anyone fat; it's not its responsibility to make
anyone healthy, either.