How Can We Stop Childhood Obesity?

Soda Tax?Yesterday, TED posted a talk by Jamie Oliver about the importance of school children knowing about balanced meals and healthy diets, which has been a passion of the chef for quite some time. Today, the NYT had an article about proposals to tax soda pop as a way to help alleviate the costs of health care reform.

These are right in line with the Obama administrations goals regarding fighting childhood obesity. Currently, First Lady Michelle Obama is planning to lead a campaign to fight childhood obesity, which of course leads to adult obesity. The health risks of obesity are well-documented, but thus far there appears to have been little done about the problem on a national scale. In 2005, New York City banned trans-fats, but this is only helpful for a portion of the country. President Barack Obama is attempting to procure a ban on candy and sweets at schools across the country.

I say, “Good luck to all of you.”, but I doubt it will be easy.

First of all, school lunches remain on the “unhealthy” list for several reasons- a lack of vegetables, no quality meat, and strange menu items are some reasons that come to mind for starters. In the school district where I grew up, “Cheese Zombies” remain one of the most popular menu items along with “tater tots” and “corn dogs”. Surprisingly, none of these are popular recipes in any of the “get healthy” books I have ever seen.

Secondly, kids eat what their parents feed them and re-educating people late in life about healthier food remains a challenge. As Jamie Oliver knows, you have to teach the parents to shop for the right things, which is not easy when you have a whining six-year-old shopping right along beside you.

Third, a lot of school stores run by students are stacked with mostly soda pop and candy, (not to mention vending machines) which I would guess are pretty much staple items. When I was a high school student, I am really embarrassed to admit that on the days I was late to school, I would sometimes grab a pop and a hostess cupcake for breakfast- obviously, not the healthiest option. For whatever reason, there wasn’t even any produce available in the store.

Fourth, as the NYT sees it, the beverage industry is already fighting back, claiming that soda taxes would be meaningless in any fight against obesity because “there is no link between soda and obesity.”

At the moment, the taxes seem to be in limbo, but there are a few states considering beverage taxes.