You've seen a lot of coverage here of various issues involving obesity and overeating in general.
So it wouldn't shock or outrage you to know that many schools are transitioning to heatlhier diets -- healthier foods and in many cases banning soda/pop (pick your word depending on where you live).
But now a Masschusetts school has fired a new salvo in the war against fat: a war against cupcakes at parties.
According to the Boston Globe, the Chandler School in Duxbury, MA, has banned cupcakes at student birthday parties:
- Concerned that the children are eating too much junk food, the Chandler School Council and the Parent Teacher Association are forbidding parents from bringing sweets to their child's classroom birthday party.
"We love birthdays, but we decided to shift the focus onto the child and not the food," said principal Deborah Zetterberg, who is also cochairwoman of the school council. "What we proposed was to have a birthday package, as we're calling it."
The package includes a special birthday chair cover that will be placed on the back of the student's chair, Zetterberg said. The birthday boy or girl can also wear a sash. They get a special pencil and a sticker with the school's mascot, the Happy Dragon, she said. Preschool and kindergarten students also get to wear a birthday crown, she said.
A letter was sent home to parents this week alerting them to the sweets ban. Zetterberg said most parents have been supportive of the issue, but some have been bothered by the decision to curtail a childhood tradition.
So what is all is all the fuss about? The Moderate Voice remembers how he was a kid and a good chunk of his job is to do programs for kids. He is SURE any kid would much rather get a sash, a special pencil, and sticker with the Happy Dragon mascot instead of a dumb old, sweet, mouthwatering, scrumptious cupcake that won't notably impact their weight if it's only eat once at a single-event birthday party. We have to show we're firm and demand Zero Tolerance.
And he knows that a special birthday cover on the back of a kid's chair will completely replace the tradition of a cupcake or God forbid SWEET BIRTHDAY CAKE with FIRE HAZARD CANDLES and that criminal frosting slathered on top of it.
One solution for the school and its council of adults who have so much time to focus thinking about cupcakes rather than school budget cuts or curriculum is this: maybe they can press for a carrot cake without sugar with real carrot on top, or a nice spinach pie. That would also add to the festivies that are sure to be enhanced by the sash, chair cover, pencil and sticker.
FOOTNOTE: Adults. Be sure to give a pen, a silk sash, a nylon chaircover, and a laminated sticker to your spouse for his/her birthday this year. These vital habits must be carried into adulthood to set a good example for kids. We are sure they will be delighted as you stress the importance of the Birthday Person and de-emphasize something as unhealthy as food.
I think this is basically a very good idea, although I worry about it.
The problem with obesity is that the best way to cure it is to prevent it in the first place. Programs which prevent obesity's onset by encouraging healthy eating and activity patterns are a very good idea. Steering kids away from junk food is a good idea.
However the vast majority of the research on obesity shows that it's incredibly difficult to actually reverse. This is where binary thinkers on the weight issue always get in trouble. They start invoking thermodynamics and say, "well, if eating too much and exercising too little makes you fat, then exercising more and eating less will make you not-fat."
Which is the equivalent of saying "if smoking gave you cancer, then quitting smoking will make the cancer go away."
I'm pleased at any program which makes kids and their parents more self-aware about these things. I'm not sure I'm very happy about some of the other assumptions we're encouraging alongside it.
Waaaaaaahhh! I want a birthday crown! And none of them cheap birthday crowns made from yellow construction paper, either! It had better be a shiny gold paper birthday crown!!!
*snarky tag on* I can't wait until all birthday celebrations are banned in school, because they single out individuals as having more value on a specific day. *snarky tag off*
You can hve my cupcake (*slathered* with frosting) when you pry it from my cold, dead, hand.
I'm going right out to buy the book: "Eat What You want and die like a man"
Does anybody get the idea that obesity is the new Communism? I mean, lots of lifestyles are unhealthy besides eating too much. One (skinny) guy who's been married four times and hates all of his 7 kids told me that obese people cost too much money. What will his poor parenting and husbanding cost this country? But hey! he's ok 'cause he's thin!
It's all part of the new political correctness: people who are fat should be all lined up and deflated.
(PS: To those who are upset by that lame joke, I was once fat. And I'm five foot one so it's a constant battle..)
O.K., so they ban a cupcake but serve absolute crap in the cafeteria lunchroom? Have you seen the so called 'hot meals' served to kids these days in schools? Most of them are loaded with fat and carbs and aren't too tasty either.
I vote to keep the cupcakes--have a monthly birthday party to honor all birthdays that month, and clean up the school lunch room.
I pretty much agree with the sentiment of prying my birthday cupcake from my cold, dead hand, but rather coincidentally I had the local ABC affiliate's midday news on while reading this. They had a story about some Lithonia, Georgia, school principal (I tried to no avail to find a link to this story, sorry) who had turned her school into a no sugar zone, to the point of having the bus drivers confiscate junk food if they saw kids with it on the bus. They also banned the cafeteria from serving fried foods. According to that story, not only did the kids' weight tend to drop, but they noticed less trips to the school nurse, less behavioral problems, and better grades.
I'd want to see some hard figures on that Georgia school's results. Though I don't disbeleive it necessarily, I'd like to see what the long-term figures looked like exactly.
> I'm going right out to buy the book:
> "Eat What You want and die like a man"
The one you want is "Eat, Drink, & Be Merry" by Dean Edell. He makes the excellent point that obsessive efforts to extend life are likely to be rewarded with extra years of senility in a nursing home. I recently saw close up the decline and death of an 85 year old man. No thanks.
Obligatory disclaimer: of course obesity is a serious problem. It diminishes one's quality of life at any age.
Now, what I'm wondering is why the heck these kids are having their birthday parties in the classroom in the first place. When I was a kid(which wasn't really all that long ago, I'm only 20) we sung "Happy Birthday" and then got on with class. Parents held parties on their own time at their own houses, not on the school's time(and therefore the student's time).
What ticks me off is that the same elementary school I went to over a decade ago has about halved the time for P.E.(which alternated daily between recess on the playground and gym class). You want to curve child obesity? Exercise their bodies as well as their minds.
After teaching a number of years at the now infamous Chandler School. I'm not aware that my former pupils are over weight unhealthy MASCAS flunkees.