Councilman Gioia has proposed a ban on fast food restaurants from opening within one-tenth of a mile from any New York City school.
There's a method to this madness! Gioia's proposal is in direct response to a study conducted by the University of California and Columbia University, which found students attending schools near fast food restaurants have a 5.2 percent higher rate of obesity. And distance does matter, as fast food more than one-quarter mile away had zero impact on obesity rates.
Gioia also conducted a preliminary investigation that found New York City neighborhoods with the highest rate of obesity had 28 fast food joints within .1 mile of a school.
My Two Cents:
While I applaud Councilman's Gioia's efforts, I would like to see a more strict version of his proposed legislation as the current version would grandfather in existing fast food establishments.
I realize that closing existing fast food franchises sounds harsh, but as a society we need to embrace the reality that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic and fast-food restauarants make lousy neighbors for our children.
We need to stop poisoning our future generation.
Train hard; stay strong.
Peace.
Susan
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10 Responses to "Schools + Fast Food Restaurants = Fat Kids"Those poor overweight and obese children will have to walk an extra 1/10th mile farther. How harsh!
I respect your opinion but believe that personal responsibility is the solution to good fitness and health.
Therefore, I oppose these kind of legislative "solutions".
I appreciate your feedback pierini.
My opinion is that we need to be socially responsible and with all the land we have to build upon, it shouldn't be that difficult to locate fast food establishments further from our public schools -- especially when research supports the fact that such proximity does directly impact obesity rates in our children.
Yes, this is most certainly the answer. While we're at it we should outlaw sugar, or make candy in schools cost 10 times as much as normal. We should also eliminate all school buses so kids will have to walk to school. And to further prevent kids from the possibility of no exercise, we should not allow them to have a drivers license until they are graduated from High School. Furthermore, we should also .... ok yes these are all absurd. I favor personal responsibility above these solutions. We simply must teach good health/fitness principles and let the children govern themselves.
I am not implying that we should not teach our children good eating habits but the reality is that
1) a big part of the obesity epidemic in children starts at home and,
2)peer pressure plays an enormous role in the everyday life of our children.
Again, I find this to be socially responsible legislation and as a friend pointed out, it will certainly hit a nerve with many!!
My opinions are out there and it's unlikely we'll change each others feelings on the topic. Enjoy the discussion! :)
Ok..everyone step away from the keyboard and take a deep breath...
Rather than weigh in on this discussion (I'm in no way qualified), I'd like to recommend a book that kids and adults would benefit (in knowledge gained) from reading: "Chew on This" by Charles Wilson and Eric Schlosser. Both of my sons (age 11 and 14) have read it(AND enjoyed it!).
It's subtitle is "Everything You Don't What To Know About Fast Food". Enough said. It's available from Amazon, USED, for .01 cents plus shipping, so the investment seems reasonable to me. Plus, you'll be getting you kid to read another book...no downside there.
I'm not for closing existing fast food joints...doesn't seem "fair' to destroy someone's livelihood...but I am for having people be informed...and if they still choose to "poison" themselves, then that's their choice, albeit a poor one.
(And no, I'm not related to or have any $$$ to gain from pushing this book...it's just a terrific expose and will make you think twice about what you put into your body.)
Ok...everybody...back to your keyboards. No hating, please.
Have a terrific week!
F.
Susan, I respect your opinion...even though it goes against everything I believe.
Your final statement, "We need to stop poisoning our future generation", is dead on. Many would believe that we should embrace our future generation and teach them to make proper choices. I am one of those many. But.....
As much as I hate any government taking an active role in what I consider "freedom of choice", has this generation proved itself worthy of making those decisions? If you were at the same Mother's Day Brunch I was at, you'd realize the answer is No.
great stuff...pretty ballsy too!
MikeZ
ps. Fred the Old Guy dropped 2lbs last week on the Paleo diet and FLAB.
Wow Fred ... 2lbs! Nice!!!
As for the posting ... I'm a firm believe in people having opinions; irrespective of whether or not I agree with them.
Not sure I'm ballsy Mike, but I will definitely always share my thoughts :)
As a younger man, I lived in a rural area about 40 minutes north of Durham NC. In order to see anything other than horse pastures, farm houses or empty fields I had to get in my vehicle and drive that 40 minutes into the edge of town. My driveway was a half mile long, and the road it exited onto was another mile to the macadam. (Asphalt: for those of you who have never read a book.)
Today I don't own a vehicle, still live in a pretty rural area, but have access to bit of civilization a half mile away. My point is proximity does make a difference.
It infuriates me that our government spends it's time on laws that ‘could’ or ‘may’ help in the future when there are people starving and living in the streets right now, but I guess you can't just build everyone a house. A number of years ago, I was focused on the homeless and how to help them, when NC passed a new law that said if you are driving with your windshield wipers on, you have to turn on your headlamps. I thought how fruitless and frugal… There are families living in boxes and they are thinking about lights and wipers. I guess it is so you won't run over the homeless people in the rain.
Morbidly obese kids are a product of bad parenting. By "bad" I mean "ignorant." If someone is ignorant to a better way of doing things, then it is not a case of placing blame or setting fault, they just don't know any better. Ignorant people can be taught a better way: they can learn new things. The word “ignorant” is just a harsh way of smacking someone with the reality that they don’t know what they are doing. Some people still smoke. These people are not ignorant, they are stupid. Stupid people are useless because they refuse to learn: They choose to remain ignorant. Ignorance by choice is stupidity. I can teach an ignorant parent to run on a treadmill and how to grill chicken. I can even teach a kid that veggies are cool. My uncle Sid smoked. In Nov of last year they cut half of his tongue out and hacked one of his lungs out. He kept smoking. He died last week, out of breath and talking funny. Am I ignorant for making fun of my stupid, dead uncle? Maybe, but I don't smoke. Sid made me laugh more when he was alive than most of the rest of my family put together, and he was "fart joke" funny too. Not "responsible adult" funny. I somehow don't think he would mind being the butt of a joke, if you will pardon the cigarette pun.
I've gone off on a rant here till next Tuesday, but let me say this: If the seemingly ignorant law makes the obese kids have walk further to get the crap food, maybe they will change their minds. Maybe it will lengthen the shortest distance between ignorance and stupidity.
1/10 of a mile wouldn't be remotely close enough to discourage me from eating fast food. Especially if it was the 6'1" 190 lb. me from high school that just ran 5 miles for my body building class. That me would walk a mile to buy 2 #1 combos from McDonald's and still be hungry when I got home.
Steve's got a good point...I think a LOT of this is proximity and availability. But in addition to taking away the unhealthy options, we need to remember to replace those with healthier options.
I grew up in a rural environment, so it was 10? miles into the nearest town for a snack, and our schools in town actually had closed campuses, so walking to a fast food joint wouldn't have been an option even if something HAD been close by.
On a personal note--I have no doubt that a LOT of the obesity we see in kids (and adults) these days comes from ignorance (willfull or not). But not all of it. I'm a good example--was a miserable, unhappy kid, and used to sneak food and even steal it, despite my parents' best efforts.
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