Tuesday Thoughts
Oh the outrage that is building since the beginning of the school year. New healthier eating standards are now in place at schools as a result of Michelle Obama receiving her request from Congress to pass a nutrition bill into law during the lame duck session in 2010. Passed into law in late 2010, it gave the U.S. Department of Agriculture broad new powers to regulate school lunches. The initial brush back has been wasted food and angry, hungry children.
Give me a break. Please, as a father of three school aged daughter’s, let me monitor their caloric intake and do what a parent should do – make sure they are growing up healthy in mind and spirit. This is a function of the parent, not the government and school bureaucracy. My kids are not the best eaters and I know darn well that if they are forced to eat the healthy fare in the gourmet school lunch line then they simply would not eat. In fact, my kids are such finicky eaters that they have been brownbagging it since the early days and they stuff their lunch with specific sandwiches as well as their drink and precious snacks. I am fine with this as the flip side is that they are all active. Even though they do not eat correctly – by the government standards – they are all healthy, thin and athletic.
Robust physical activity is the key component to a healthy lifestyle for children. I look back to my childhood and a broader measure of my eating and exercise habits over the past 47 plus years and exercise has been the driving force behind much of my life at every stage, not healthy eating. I love snacks, and even today (literally)for breakfast I regularly partake in chocolate chip muffins. In the aggregate I eat 2-3 meals every day in large portions and I crave my 1-2 snacks a day (cookies, candy bars, you name it…) and guess what, I have remained in a steady band of weight for most of my adult life. I may tip the scale at Christmas time at 195, but I also tip the scale around the Fourth of July at 185. I love to eat and I would be a fool to count calories, starve myself and dissect a menu when I go to a restaurant. I would much rather indulge as I like, unbutton my pants when I push away from a 2 hour Sunday feast and not play favorites at dessert time by not trying at least all of the different treats present on the table.
As a static activity, my type of eating is not acceptable and I would be a potential contestant on the Biggest Loser if I ate like this without exercising. However, that is the point, I do exercise and for as much as I love to eat, I also like to sweat and exercise 6-8 hours a week. Balance in life is the key and your body and mind will organically guide you to the optimum mix. The government did not tell me this, I figured it out all by myself.
Now, let’s get back to the nanny state of monitoring school cafeteria’s. Stop the cafeteria monitoring, you can not control it and the kids will find a way to eat their favorites and maybe even more. Shift the focus to the gymnasium. From what I see, gym class in school is a joke and it probably more of a cause for childhood obesity than unhealthy eating. Forty five minutes to an hour of exercise three-four days a week should be mandatory. There I said it, I do want the schools to treat gym class like they would physics – push the kids to perform to peak levels. I have seen gym glasses with the “Stackers” game as an activity and I also know that if a kid simply shows up they will pass the class. This is unacceptable. Resources should be focused on upgrading gymnasiums to be more like health clubs. How many schools have treadmills, rowers, stair climbers for multiple children to use at once? My guess is not many and the inventory of equipment the schools do have are subpar and not maintained properly. How many physical education teachers have ever taught an aerobics class before, how many look like they have ever worked out before? Forget volleyball, softball and traditional sports that the children play in recreational and leagues after the school day is complete. Focus gym class on healthclub activities and do not pass the child if they are not sweating head to toe at the end of the class.
Like many bad activities in life (smoking, drug use, drinking and gambling to name a few) good activities are also addictive. I would much rather have my child obsess over doing 500 crunchies or running four miles in 36 minutes than overdosing on drugs or binge drinking.
Children absorb all they see and will look to emulate the behavior of their parents before they decide to gravitate to darker activities. If the parent is responsible, they will do some basic functions. Number one, they will have dinner as a family, not scattered so the family unit can be together at some point of the day. Second, they will also not partake in bad activities, so stop smoking, drinking excessively, cursing, and gambling around them. Number three, be involved with them when they do want to try a sport or activity. Dance is a sport, cheerleading is a sport, theater club is a sport, even walking is a sport. If you sweat during it and you are not sitting on a couch doing it, it is exercise. If the kids are active, do not go crazy or overboard about what they eat or how good or bad they are in the activity they do. A tiny fraction of kids will play a professional sports or compete in the Olympics. Let kids be kids. Do not stress them out of they perform poorly or even quit a particular activity. Most likely, in a short time, they will gravitate to participate in another sport or activity. One of my daughters played softball, but her head was clearly not in it, however while briefly playing tennis in her younger days, she eventually gravitated back to the sport on her own and has been playing regularly since the sixth grade. I never pushed her in any direction but did support her in everything she did.
It is the responsibility of the parent to make sure their child is leading a healthy life. A lot of times this is not the case and quite frankly our society provides very little incentive or obstacles for children and adults to lead a healthy life. I find it ironic that in a day and age where there has never been more beautiful people (face and body), with people going to health clubs and partaking in the latest and greatest training program in what appears record levels, calorie and fat content disclosed on every item eaten and drank, the population of our country has nevertheless gotten even more obese. Heck, correct me if I am wrong but I believe the USA is the only country where our poor people are obese and not emaciated.
Clearly the message and infrastructure to live a healthy life are out there, but still the incentive to comply, at all ages, is not there. How does this problem get fixed? Health insurance should take the model of car insurance and reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. This now becomes a parent-adult decision. Would they rather pay $8,000/year for health insurance or $20,000/year. Honestly, I could care less what people do in their free time, but if it ends up resulting in an inconvenience for me to subsidize their bad behavior then that is a problem.
I really do not mind – and find it amusing -watching and walking by the outside smoking section. Let them smoke in a controlled setting. I also have no problem with an obese person having to pay extra to take up two seats on a flight. I am also fine with jail time for drunk driving. On the flip side, if my health insurance provider sends me a rebate at the end of the year because I met physical fitness guidelines, passed a physical, or did not need to go to a doctor for emergency care, I would be more encouraged to continue to live a healthier lifestyle.
On a side note, it is quite presumptuous of Mayor Bloomberg of NYC to regulate the size of soda containers that can be sold in the city. Now, do you really think that someone who was regularly consuming 18 ounces of soda would drop down to 12 ounces without a fight. That person will simply purchase two 12 ounces and consume 24 ounces. I am living proof to this but without the imposition of a new law. In the late 1990s and early 2000s I could not get enough of the Starbucks Frappuccino which came in a 7 ounce bottle. The problem was that 7 ounces was not enough, so I always purchased two of them. Eventually, Starbucks began to market a larger size (10 or 12 ounces) and I would buy that instead. All NYC will get from this ban is more 12 ounce bottles to recycle. What a joke.
Our healthcare system needs to be fixed and the answer is not Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act (whatever it is called). A career government employee is not qualified to make laws and regulations for a growing, weakening and dynamic health insurance market. The private industry, with less regulation and a more incentive driven business model would be better equipped to deal with our health insurance market.
Here is an example. Say, your employer provides okay coverage, but because you work for a large company your plan is standard and the algorithm spits out a premium with a higher risk factor than you need. However, you have to take it because it is your plan. Now, say there was free market choice. A spin off of a large insurance carrier decides that the growing “Cross Fit” member market is an excellent demographic to provide healthcare coverage. They are all in great shape, dedicated, eat well and in the aggregate do not strain the healthcare insurance market or doctors. The plan they offer could be far cheaper, but require you as a member to meet annual physical fitness requirements in order to participate. Sounds good to me.
I know I diverted from my original thought, but hopefully it all correlated. Let me know if you have any comments, positive or negative on this.
More can be read via my two novels, Cameron Nation: Going All-in To Save His Country and Columbus Avenue Boys: Avenging the Scalamarri Massacre. www.cameronnation.com.
Give me a break. Please, as a father of three school aged daughter’s, let me monitor their caloric intake and do what a parent should do – make sure they are growing up healthy in mind and spirit. This is a function of the parent, not the government and school bureaucracy. My kids are not the best eaters and I know darn well that if they are forced to eat the healthy fare in the gourmet school lunch line then they simply would not eat. In fact, my kids are such finicky eaters that they have been brownbagging it since the early days and they stuff their lunch with specific sandwiches as well as their drink and precious snacks. I am fine with this as the flip side is that they are all active. Even though they do not eat correctly – by the government standards – they are all healthy, thin and athletic.
Robust physical activity is the key component to a healthy lifestyle for children. I look back to my childhood and a broader measure of my eating and exercise habits over the past 47 plus years and exercise has been the driving force behind much of my life at every stage, not healthy eating. I love snacks, and even today (literally)for breakfast I regularly partake in chocolate chip muffins. In the aggregate I eat 2-3 meals every day in large portions and I crave my 1-2 snacks a day (cookies, candy bars, you name it…) and guess what, I have remained in a steady band of weight for most of my adult life. I may tip the scale at Christmas time at 195, but I also tip the scale around the Fourth of July at 185. I love to eat and I would be a fool to count calories, starve myself and dissect a menu when I go to a restaurant. I would much rather indulge as I like, unbutton my pants when I push away from a 2 hour Sunday feast and not play favorites at dessert time by not trying at least all of the different treats present on the table.
As a static activity, my type of eating is not acceptable and I would be a potential contestant on the Biggest Loser if I ate like this without exercising. However, that is the point, I do exercise and for as much as I love to eat, I also like to sweat and exercise 6-8 hours a week. Balance in life is the key and your body and mind will organically guide you to the optimum mix. The government did not tell me this, I figured it out all by myself.
Now, let’s get back to the nanny state of monitoring school cafeteria’s. Stop the cafeteria monitoring, you can not control it and the kids will find a way to eat their favorites and maybe even more. Shift the focus to the gymnasium. From what I see, gym class in school is a joke and it probably more of a cause for childhood obesity than unhealthy eating. Forty five minutes to an hour of exercise three-four days a week should be mandatory. There I said it, I do want the schools to treat gym class like they would physics – push the kids to perform to peak levels. I have seen gym glasses with the “Stackers” game as an activity and I also know that if a kid simply shows up they will pass the class. This is unacceptable. Resources should be focused on upgrading gymnasiums to be more like health clubs. How many schools have treadmills, rowers, stair climbers for multiple children to use at once? My guess is not many and the inventory of equipment the schools do have are subpar and not maintained properly. How many physical education teachers have ever taught an aerobics class before, how many look like they have ever worked out before? Forget volleyball, softball and traditional sports that the children play in recreational and leagues after the school day is complete. Focus gym class on healthclub activities and do not pass the child if they are not sweating head to toe at the end of the class.
Like many bad activities in life (smoking, drug use, drinking and gambling to name a few) good activities are also addictive. I would much rather have my child obsess over doing 500 crunchies or running four miles in 36 minutes than overdosing on drugs or binge drinking.
Children absorb all they see and will look to emulate the behavior of their parents before they decide to gravitate to darker activities. If the parent is responsible, they will do some basic functions. Number one, they will have dinner as a family, not scattered so the family unit can be together at some point of the day. Second, they will also not partake in bad activities, so stop smoking, drinking excessively, cursing, and gambling around them. Number three, be involved with them when they do want to try a sport or activity. Dance is a sport, cheerleading is a sport, theater club is a sport, even walking is a sport. If you sweat during it and you are not sitting on a couch doing it, it is exercise. If the kids are active, do not go crazy or overboard about what they eat or how good or bad they are in the activity they do. A tiny fraction of kids will play a professional sports or compete in the Olympics. Let kids be kids. Do not stress them out of they perform poorly or even quit a particular activity. Most likely, in a short time, they will gravitate to participate in another sport or activity. One of my daughters played softball, but her head was clearly not in it, however while briefly playing tennis in her younger days, she eventually gravitated back to the sport on her own and has been playing regularly since the sixth grade. I never pushed her in any direction but did support her in everything she did.
It is the responsibility of the parent to make sure their child is leading a healthy life. A lot of times this is not the case and quite frankly our society provides very little incentive or obstacles for children and adults to lead a healthy life. I find it ironic that in a day and age where there has never been more beautiful people (face and body), with people going to health clubs and partaking in the latest and greatest training program in what appears record levels, calorie and fat content disclosed on every item eaten and drank, the population of our country has nevertheless gotten even more obese. Heck, correct me if I am wrong but I believe the USA is the only country where our poor people are obese and not emaciated.
Clearly the message and infrastructure to live a healthy life are out there, but still the incentive to comply, at all ages, is not there. How does this problem get fixed? Health insurance should take the model of car insurance and reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. This now becomes a parent-adult decision. Would they rather pay $8,000/year for health insurance or $20,000/year. Honestly, I could care less what people do in their free time, but if it ends up resulting in an inconvenience for me to subsidize their bad behavior then that is a problem.
I really do not mind – and find it amusing -watching and walking by the outside smoking section. Let them smoke in a controlled setting. I also have no problem with an obese person having to pay extra to take up two seats on a flight. I am also fine with jail time for drunk driving. On the flip side, if my health insurance provider sends me a rebate at the end of the year because I met physical fitness guidelines, passed a physical, or did not need to go to a doctor for emergency care, I would be more encouraged to continue to live a healthier lifestyle.
On a side note, it is quite presumptuous of Mayor Bloomberg of NYC to regulate the size of soda containers that can be sold in the city. Now, do you really think that someone who was regularly consuming 18 ounces of soda would drop down to 12 ounces without a fight. That person will simply purchase two 12 ounces and consume 24 ounces. I am living proof to this but without the imposition of a new law. In the late 1990s and early 2000s I could not get enough of the Starbucks Frappuccino which came in a 7 ounce bottle. The problem was that 7 ounces was not enough, so I always purchased two of them. Eventually, Starbucks began to market a larger size (10 or 12 ounces) and I would buy that instead. All NYC will get from this ban is more 12 ounce bottles to recycle. What a joke.
Our healthcare system needs to be fixed and the answer is not Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act (whatever it is called). A career government employee is not qualified to make laws and regulations for a growing, weakening and dynamic health insurance market. The private industry, with less regulation and a more incentive driven business model would be better equipped to deal with our health insurance market.
Here is an example. Say, your employer provides okay coverage, but because you work for a large company your plan is standard and the algorithm spits out a premium with a higher risk factor than you need. However, you have to take it because it is your plan. Now, say there was free market choice. A spin off of a large insurance carrier decides that the growing “Cross Fit” member market is an excellent demographic to provide healthcare coverage. They are all in great shape, dedicated, eat well and in the aggregate do not strain the healthcare insurance market or doctors. The plan they offer could be far cheaper, but require you as a member to meet annual physical fitness requirements in order to participate. Sounds good to me.
I know I diverted from my original thought, but hopefully it all correlated. Let me know if you have any comments, positive or negative on this.
More can be read via my two novels, Cameron Nation: Going All-in To Save His Country and Columbus Avenue Boys: Avenging the Scalamarri Massacre. www.cameronnation.com.
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