Slade Students Weigh in on Obesity Bill
By Marty Toohey
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2002–As mounds of legislation sit unfinished today in the nation’s capital, a bill introduced by Sen. Christopher Dodd aimed at reducing obesity rests somewhere in the paperwork pile.
Meanwhile, in the Slade Middle School cafeteria, a pair of eighth graders will go about their day as usual, one eating a lunch of greasy pizza and candy, the other a chicken patty and fruit.
Their diets are as different as Kentucky Fried Chicken and skinless, boneless chicken breast. Ally (not her real name) has poor eating habits and an insatiable sweet tooth, but is thin, has plenty of energy and doesn’t see her diet as a problem. Kelly (not herreal name either) eats healthy and credits her parents for it.
Ally’s habits are more typical of their age group, both girls agree, and so she’s the demographic Dodd and Surgeon General Richard Carmona hope to reach with the legislation. A large portion of it, and the portion that would most affect the two girls, would authorize $175 million for education efforts “to assist local communities in promoting good nutrition and increased levels of physical activity among their citizens.”
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Neither girl, however, sees the additional efforts affecting their own eating habits or those of their peers much, , especially with pizza, candy and soda available the moment they step out of health class.
“I think it really depends on the parents,” said Kelly, whose own parents have emphasized healthy eating “as long as I can remember. Kids will eat what they want, and if parents don’t have healthy food for them, they won’t eat healthy.”
Ally put it a little more bluntly.
“It really hasn’t affected me at all,” she said of the school’s healty-eating campaign.
It’s the bill’s emphasis on exercise that might make a difference, both girls said. Al Sullivan, a health and physical education teacher at Slade, agrees. It’s by no means a revelation, but nonetheless telling.
“Classes haven’t changed how I eat, but I don’t really like to exercise, so I’m glad we do it in school,” Kelly said. “I’m probably healthier because of it.”
But Sullivan, who said his own family worried about his developing weight-related health problems when he was a child, still cautioned against quick judgments of a child’s health. Different builds and metabolisms of students make an across-the-board health standard nearly impossible to achieve, he said.
“It’s difficult to gauge,” he said. “The standards aren’t universal, and can even be misleading.”
Despite their differing diets, Kelly and Ally both seem healthy, by all accounts. They’re savvier than most adults give teens credit for; and both take the long view when discussing how they’ll eat in the future.
Kelly said she eats healthy now specifically to stay healthy later.
And Ally acknowledges that she may have to switch her habits.
“I think a lot about why I eat so much junk food,” she said. “I know that candy and stuff isn’t good for me. But if I start eating differently later I think I can stay skinny and healthy.”
Published in The New Britain Herald, in Connecticut.
