As a part of a move to help our nation's children improve their health and reduce obesity, we now have a government-run website to encourage kids to get outside, play, move around and so on. This prompts a number of thoughts.
1) Someone didn't have my mom, who regularly encouraged my sister and I to do these things long before there was an internet. Or my dad, who would preface similar encouragement with helpful reminders about green living and energy conservation; i.e., "Turn off that d**n TV and go outside and play." Or, for that matter, my sister, who regularly suggested to me (as I often did to her) to "just go away!"
2) How are the kids supposed to know about what's on the website if they're not reading it, parked in front of their little computer screens absorbing their fat-creating emissions and inhaling potato chips and sugary sodas?
3) There was an actual "Walk to School" month? Again, as I recall, Walk to School days were any days that were not rainy, snowy or icy or had morning temperatures below 40 degrees. And of course, if we go back one generation before me, we find that every day was Walk to School day, despite tornadoes, typhoons or time-space warping inclines that sloped upwards no matter which way one headed.
4) I'm not certain I like the inherent bias involved in a selection of "Recipes for Healthy Kids." Sick kids like good food too, y'know.
5) As a pastor, I'm one of the "community leaders" who is supposed to "empower families and communities to make healthy decisions." Waitaminute...there, I did it, and my community and its families may now make healthy decisions. Sorry I took so long to read this and get cracking on it for you. Hope that stroke thing works out OK. Boy, empowering communities and families works up an appetite. Pass me an apple fritter.
No comments:
Post a Comment