Thursday, March 11, 2010

Eating Disorders

I had originally planned on writing tonight on photography and my experiments with Photoshop Elements, but then I heard a frightening statistic on the TV.

If the food police are to be believed, there is an epidemic of obesity among our youth. There is so much emphasis on banning soda from our schools. Some school districts have even banned cake sales in which parents provide home baked (no preservatives) goodies for sale to the students for the benefit of the school. However, some schools that have banned these sales continue to sell commercial goodies to the students. Is someone getting a commission on these sales?

Yes, there is a problem with obesity. However, it is the responsibility of the parents to "police" the food their children consume. New York is even trying to put a special tax on soda to discourage children from drinking soda. What they don't mention is that soda has always been subject to the sales tax. This soda tax looks like double taxation.

But, I have digressed from the original point of my rant. I didn't mean to speak about obesity, but the opposite problem - anorexia. There are between 7 and 10 million anorexics in our country now. It too is an epidemic. While both problems can kill, anorexia can kill sooner rather than later. An obese child, with parental supervision, can decrease food intake and increase exercise, but an anorexic will deny a problem and need psychological help to improve health.

There should be more emphasis on the problem of anorexia. I wonder if any of the anorexics started out as obese children and have been frightened into their present state by all the hysteria about overweight children.

I haven't heard much about this problem lately.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Homemade food have been banned at our local schools. When you think about it, it's a very good idea. We never know what the kitchen may look like (germs or worse)where the items were made. Or if an extra unwanted item put into the cookie etc. Then there is the food allergy which is to common today.

BetteJo said...

I'm disgusted by our society being such that anorexia even exists. Magazines and films and TV all want women to be slim slim slim! It's crazy. And don't even get me started on the fashion industry. Unfortunately we don't seem to embrace moderation in this country. It's all or nothing and it makes people sick on both ends of the scale. Sad.

Staci said...

We've become the "live to eat" rather than the "eat to live" society, haven't we? I was just thinking the other day, it seems that I see very few people who are just "average" weight anymore, they're either heavy or too skinny. And you're right, the "too-skinny" ones are being ignored now.