Childhood Obesity

I heard Bill Clinton on TV last night point out that cutting a grammar school kid’s caloric intake by 45 calories a day would result in the kid’s weighing 20 pound less by the time he is a senior in high school. He'll still be a whale, but more like a beluga than a grey. Thus, the deal to get soda out of schools could have some results in the campaign against child obesity. This assumes that the kid doesn’t just have an extra soda after school to make up for the one he was deprived of on campus.

It sucks that kids are fat. I blame their parents for not disciplining them in nutrition and exercise. They spoil them with sweets and salty snacks and let them watch TV and play video games all day. As a result, the rest of us are called upon to finance anti-obesity campaigns and endure more “government” intrusions in the name of the “public” health. Thanks a lot, lazy breeders!

I have few ideas for tackling childhood obesity:

1. Eliminate farm subsidies. If this causes the price of snack foods to rise, maybe parents will cut back.
2. Repeal child labor laws. If kids are engaged in hard manual labor, this will burn calories. Besides, they won’t be eating while they are working. Also, thinner kids will be in more demand in mines so there will be an incentive to slim down.
3. Eliminate school buses for kids who live within 3 miles of the school. The walk will do them good.
4. School lunch should be a nice salad every day. You could mix it up, eg Caesar salad, Cobb, Waldorf, etc., but the main thing is to get the kids to eat vegetables. Some might bring their lunch and defeat the purpose, but keep in mind that we are talking about really lazy parents in the cases we are concerned about, and they aren’t going to make a sack lunch.
5. Allow health insurers to charge more to insure fat kids.
6. Enact a refundable a tax credit for each child whose BMI is normal.
7. Produce PSAs in which the fat kid is always a dork and thin kids are cool.