The Philadelphia school district is trying to figure out a way to get local students to eat more healthily:
When a Philadelphia school district recently slimmed down its lunch offerings and banned sodas from vending machines, educators hoped the moves would help stem the tide of childhood obesity. But as school officials continued to see an overweight student body, they began to suspect that the real culprit behind the children's weight problems was lurking beyond school walls.A survey of 600 Philadelphia students found that more than 50 percent of them stop at corner stores on the walk to or from school, spending an average of $2 each day...
School officials find a challenge in providing a solution. While it's easier to regulate the foods kids are served at school, it is much more difficult to keep them away from the corner store. In fact, some nutritionists say it's impossible. Instead, the schools have set up mock corner stores, teaching students how to make healthier choices. Students who put that knowledge to work are rewarded with school supplies and raffle tickets.
I found this link via Big Fat Blog, whose commenters are often well-spoken on the topic of promoting health at any size. Two commenters, though, went off on rants that I thought were particularly amusing:
...when the fat police start going after School District of Philadelphia, I start getting pissed. The district is 80% indigent, about 85% minority (well above if we take out the magnet and Center City schools), and performing below basic skills level in all areas. I feel this edge of latent racism/classism every time I read about the district in the national news. I fail to see why concentrating on obesity has any importance when some of these kids can't read, when some of them live without heat in the middle of February, when I've been to welfare houses that have roaches crawling on the walls and the children alike and that don't have a single piece of furniture...
Well said. Another commenter goes to the point even more bluntly:
Another thing about that little "mock store" -- I'd rather see them teaching kids HOW TO COUNT CHANGE than "how to make healthy choices."I have had a number of jobs in which I was responsible for hiring cashiers -- and let me tell ya -- I DID keep stats on that, and 80% of the applicants FOR CASHIER POSITIONS did NOT know how to count back change for a $2.29 purchase, even after being SHOWN an example of how to do it correctly...
If they couldn't do it the first time, I SHOWED the applicant HOW to do it, and then gave them another similar question. 80% of APPLICANTS FOR A CASHIER JOB *STILL* could not do it correctly even after being shown how.
That is a skill they SHOULD be teaching in school (at a little "mock store" or HOWEVER...) -- not how to make "healthy food choices" (GRRR).
Both commenters have a point. When students from Philly schools are struggling so hard to master basic skills, was it really a good use of time and resources to call in Penn's mapping experts to figure out how many pizzerias and cheese-steak shops are near the schools?
Posted by kswygert at August 1, 2005 07:08 PM