Wednesday, September 08, 2004

Letter to the Editor: On obesity and schools

Published on September 25th

Editor, Mobile Register

To the Editor:

Your editorial today, "Schools Can Help Fight Fat," mentions that more than one in four students in Alabama is believed to be overweight -- an appalling number. You urge the Alabama Board of Education to address the role of schools in helping to reduce obesity among students. While the Board of Education studies the matter, school principals and local school boards themselves should take the initiative to deal with some of the most obvious culprits in the obesity epidemic.

One such contributing cause can be seen in a casual stroll through the grounds of Mobile's highly rated Murphy High School. Shockingly, soda machines -- rather than drinking fountains or art works -- nestle in every corner of the school's extensive common areas. These machines, replete with child-friendly ads for their hyper-sweet and nutritionally empty wares, are grim reminders of the many ways in which corporate commerce has invaded our public spaces and institutions.

Students in school should not be subjected to a daily barrage of enticements to buy products that we know are harmful to their health. It may be painful for public schools to wean themselves off the profits that soda and junk food machines generate (why else would there be so many of these machines at a school like Murphy?), but plumping up budgets at the expense of student waistlines seems downright malicious. As for the rest of us, our duty is to make sure that sufficient funding is available so that public schools like Murphy don't need to turn to corporate sales of junk food to provide a decent education for Alabama's youth.

Sincerely,
Lincoln ...
Mobile, Alabama

1 Comments:

Blogger experiencelife said...

As I scan through your writings I was surprised to see you write on a subject dear to my heart. As my life is spent educating others on fitness I battle with these very same issues day in and day out. It all comes down to money. How can we be such bigots? educating our youth on health and nutrition while inviltrating the very grounds they walk and talk with such pollution as "sodas" and "junk" machines on every corner they turn.

12:46 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home