National security is threatened by the sharp rise in obesity rates for young people over the last 15 years, the group Mission: Readiness contends. Weight problems are now the leading medical reason that recruits are rejected, the group says, and thus jeopardize the military’s ability to fill its ranks.
The solution? To throw some money at it of course…
The school lunch bill, currently awaiting a Senate vote, would establish healthier options for all foods in schools, including vending machine items. The legislation would spend $4.5 billion more over 10 years for nutrition programs.
Full Story – HERE
There are going to be a bunch of cranky kids in the school system if they are going to have to eat celery and baby carrots rather than Twinkies and Dunk-a-roos.
<tinfoil> I wonder if this pending bill is evidence of a planned draft? </tinfoil>
I talked about a similar story in November 2009 from the Military perspective – HERE
Comments
13 responses to “Fat Kids Are A Threat To National Security”
You should watch Food Revolution with Jamie Oliver. I agree kids are eating crap and most of it is shoveled at them by schools and school lunch people feeding them junk, but it is very interesting to see that when Jamie wanted to cook and feed GOOD, HEALTHY, and FRESH food to kids using his recipes, his labor, and his money… the biggest hurdle were the current crappy laws and the bureaucracy that loves them. Stupidity like:
School admin: “Jamie, your lunch offering doesn’t have enough vegetables”
Jamie: “There are 7 vegetables in the stir-fry”
Admin: “Yes, but the volume of vegetables isn’t enough, by state regulations”
Jamie: “How can you tell?”
Admin: “By looking.”
Jamie: “So, how can we fix it.”
Admin: “We can add french fries to your line.”
Jamie: “French fries count as a vegetable?”
Admin: “Yes.”
It’s priceless…
haha yea some people are so dumb.. just because it contains potatoes it must be healthy right? :roll: Hopefully the proposed $4.5 billion will fix some of that, but I’m not holding my breath.
I’ve seen parts of a couple of those episodes and you’re right, that was priceless. I also saw where he took vegetables into a classroom full of kids and they didn’t know what any of them were. They sure knew what french fries were, but couldn’t identify the potato that they came from!
Here’s my problem with this crap. It’s great to eat healthy, no doubt about that. But I ate all the crap they want to “outlaw” when I was in high school. I did it because I could, but when I sat down and ate dinner with my family, we had a good balanced meal. Also when I was in high school I played football and lifted and worked out prepping for the next season when I wasn’t. There was also this wonderful thing called gym class twice a week! Where we were actually encouraged to exercise. I saw the death blow to gym class my last two years in high school when instead of dodge ball and floor hockey we were doing ballroom dancing and badminton. These kids aren’t actually exercising because of all this lawsuit crap and liberal ideas that competition is not good for the psyche.
I couldn’t agree more Will. I’m only 28, and I walked to school (except for high school because it was too far) about 2 miles every day… I actually made the trip 4 times because I even came home for lunch. So that was 8 miles of walking per day, plus at the end of the day when I got home I didn’t play video games, I played outside. You’re right, all the kids do now is play on the internet or play video games. The main reason I’m not as active as I used to be is because all my friend got girlfriends and got lazy. Hell i’d still be building forts and making ramps to jump on my bike if I didn’t have to do it alone.
heh I wish I could have done that at my high school (unfortunately, 30 min lunch breaks don’t work that well when you run 14 min for 2 miles…yeah I was better at swimming than running….
I still wish I could find the time to go swimming and do some drill sets
That certainly plays a part. But I think the lack of education about nutrition is a huge part of it too. Mandatory gym class would only go as far as the end of high school. Couple the lack of gym class/exercise with the natural slowing of metabolism as you grow older, and that nutrition part becomes more important. It would be interesting to see some statistics on the percentages of adults, or more specifically, young adults (I’m 30) who can cook for themselves, beyond grilling burgers, making Tuna Helper™, or boiling spaghetti noodles and heating up a jar of Prego™. Besides just being able to cook for yourself and skipping the preservatives and junk in food, I’m sure most people could benefit from a better understanding of the nutritional requirements of the body, and the body processes different types of carbohydrates and fats, etc.
Too many people are oblivious to what they’re putting into their bodies.
(With all due respect to Prego and Tuna Helper, and their trademarks! LOL. Fine products.)
Yea I know a lot of people whose definition of “cooking” is heating up frozen or canned food.
Where would I even start on this rant? I have no clue. The whole obesity deal in this country has become such a metaphor as a whole, on how whacked out crazy we as a people and our government have become. From a nation of lazy Xbox playing couch potatoes to a government who is finding this another good excuse to tax and control and everything in between.
I wonder how much of that $4.5billion is going to go towards paying salaries of food “executives”. Might even include some incentive bonuses for schools that lose the most collective weight. :P
Sorry, but your HTML is not well formed. :P
hahaha thanks, I added the forward slash
cough)future human shields(cough