Back in 1945 concern about malnutrition in incoming recruits helped create the national school lunch program. In typical big government fashion, that program moved well beyond its initial scope and now poses… a threat to the nutrition of incoming recruits.
Readiness urged Congress to pass a new childhood nutrition law to remove school junk food, improve nutritional standards and quality of school meals, and to open access to anti-obesity programs for children.
One of the extra duties I had as an Army officer was “Weight Control Officer”. This involved me supervising the body fat measurement and PT tests of soldiers exceeding Army body weight and fat standards. I thought the program was a joke. People hardly ever improved, yet I could rarely separate them from the Army.
My view… fail a PT test, get another, fail – see ya!
Enforcing higher, stricter, standards would actually cause people who can’t stay fit to not join. And avoid many of the 12,000 separated from service due to obesity.
Hey military… do something that works, that you control, not something that feels good and grows government. Don’t create tomorrow’s problem.
April 21st, 2010 at 3:38 pm
How come no one is pointing out that lunch is only one meal of the day? How do they propose to control childhood obesity (assuming this is a governmental responsibility which it isn’t) with the school lunch program? There are no comforting answers to that question.
April 21st, 2010 at 5:49 pm
The economic crash you expect should reduce the money in the kids’ pockets for buying fatburgers.
April 21st, 2010 at 6:18 pm
You don’t expect it?
April 22nd, 2010 at 9:17 pm
I was in a meeting with counselors and the school psych last week. They got into a heated discussion about whether it was a good idea to have a seperate PE class for overweight kids who cant pass the PT test ( which is a joke anyway). The counselors seemed to think it was a good idea because the class teaches healthy eating as well as exercise. The psych thought it was damaging their self-esteem. Counselors argued that failing a PT test was no different than failing a math test; in niether case should you advance without remediation.
I kept out of it, but wondered what being a 50lb overweight 15 year old does for their self-esteem, not to mention their physical health.