Food Politics

I love studies that underscore common sense. Picture the average student: he leaves school at 3pm and he’s hungry. He has a few dollars in his pocket. The smells of hamburgers and grilling onions fill the air. The fast food outlet has a $1 menu. Of course he’s going to go and eat fast food! If he’s walking by, the smells are in the air, he’s hungry and he’s got a bit of money – it’s the answer to his prayers. Is it good for him? No, but he’s a kid.
I don’t think outlawing fast food outlets near schools is the right answer. But goodness, do we really need a STUDY to figure this out?

It’s also because there’s pressure to include refined grains (which are higher in carbohydrate than whole grains, fitting the USDA’s definition of a healthy diet) in school food. (When I was in school, we actually had fortified “SuperDonuts” for school breakfast sometimes.) I’ve always theorized that the way “sugars” are defined is to favor refined grains (which are almost entirely starch) over fruits and vegetables (with carbohydrate consisting of cellulose, glucose, fructose, and sucrose).

So, when the clock strikes three, he hasn’t eaten in four hours, and his last two meals were predominantly high-GI carbs with little nutritional value that wasn’t added. Of course he’s hungry! So he picks…high-GI carbs with little nutritional value that wasn’t added, with a side of trans fat and “meat” that doesn’t really taste like meat should and is a lot lower in B12 than a quarter-pound of ground beef should be. So, around seven or eight, he’s hungry again. His mom might cook something, or she might be working late and she might be tired. In the latter case, he’s stuck with TV dinners and take-out, maybe a sandwich if he hasn’t figured out that he’s already consumed upwards of 3000 calories.

Oops, sorry…I meant if he HAS figured out that he’s already consumed upwards of 3000 calories. A sandwich has, at most, around 500 calories.

I’m always amazed at the silly programs espoused here.

It is clear that Marion does not actually treat obese patients, does not actually run community or school programs designed to reduce obesity, nor has any success in reducing obesity in communities. She would then know that the strategies she champions here are naive in the extreme. Sound bites and guru talk doesn’t actually do anything here in the real world.

I don’t know where exactly you got that from, Ivan. All she said was “There’s a correlation between proximity to a fast food restaurant and childhood obesity.” Which is true.

Yes, it’s difficult to manage high school nutrition. If it was just USDA surpluses, we wouldn’t have a problem. But over the years, junk food has found its way in, initially as an advertising contract but ultimately as an alternative to USDA surplus. Sometimes the USDA encourages this, such as replacing butter with margarine. (The irony: Before that, seven-year-olds didn’t usually have heart attacks.)

When I was in high school, my basketball team won a McDonald’s-sponsored tournament, and I said none of us had eaten at McDonald’s since we were 8 in my acceptance speech. Fortunately, all the athletes went on strike, so I didn’t really get serious detention. Just two weeks.

My children have been homeschooled since birth. My third oldest entered the public school system last year and has only three complaints: 1) the school wouldn’t accept his earned high school credits due to ‘policy’ 2) the amount of time wasted in the school in general and 3) the totally inedible food.

He’s a junk food addict, and has tended that way since birth and he finds the food inedible. He says, “If there wasn’t a Sonic practically in the parking lot, I’d starve to death!”

I think it’s time to bring the boy back into the homeschool.

This issue of proximity was on my mind this afternon as I shopped at a major members-only big box store. This store sells everything edible under the sun, it seems, all in huge packages. Everything from carrots to candy bars. I noticed first the number of very obese people shopping in relation to the number of people with weight proportionate to height/frame, and the obese far outnumbered the slender. Then I did my own informal survey of what food products were in the carts. Theoretically, fresh salmon and veggies and fruits were equally accessible as huge packages of honey buns and chips. It seemed there was a predictable pattern of cart contents based on size of human pushing the cart. I thought I saw a lot of obese people checking out with huge packages of processed foods and scant amounts of fresh low-calorie foods. I would like to see a formal study done with scientific analysis, starting with pictures taken anonymously at checkout of cart content and human. I wonder if the pattern I thought I saw really holds up. If so, it would possibly argue against the proximity issue, as all the foods, fresh and processed, are available in this same store. My question would be how to sway people who do have equal access to make healthier choices?

Jeanne: I agree with your analysis of proximity and wonder if school’s should consider having their cafeterias/food vending options available after school with an after school menu. It would encourage students to hang back and be more involved in after school programming as well.

[...] of the 2008 National Health Interview Survey. I got this from the great Marion Nestle’s site “Food Politics.” We just keep getting fatter here in the great US of A. Possibly related posts: (automatically [...]