Archived Edition: April 18, 2007 | Back to Current	Sep 10, 2010

Obesity as social issue
Molly Hunter - STAFF WRITER

Kids these days are not as healthy as they used to be, or could be for that matter. You’d think that with the growing organic movement, New York’s new limits on the use of trans-fats in restaurants, the youth sports craze, Britain and France’s healthy lunch programs and the well publicized trend of super-sized Americans, we would be nurturing a generation of active, healthy and aware young kids around the world. No such luck.

The rising population of unhealthy children under 18 paired with the increased percentages of uninsured kids, specifically in the U.S., is unacceptable and frightening. Ever since Ronald Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, declared ketchup to be a vegetable in 1981, thereby allowing schools to inexpensively meet dietary requirements for school lunches, the American school cafeteria has been filled with fried, fast and fatty solutions.

While child obesity rates rise around the world, other countries’ lunchtime offerings don’t have the same heavy impact. The French believe that sophisticated palates should develop early and little beret-wearing children exercise their taste buds early on with grapefruit, grilled chicken, green beans, a cheese course and sparkling water, while American kids gorge on iceberg lettuce, canned fruit, the day’s “mystery meat” and a packaged brownie. French schools banned all vending machines from schools two years ago, while in America chips and soda cans seem to pop out of every school hallway.

British children, who survive off fish and chips, are now force-fed healthier options, but unfortunately, these healthy efforts have been slightly stymied by British mums around the country who have taken to selling black market burgers through the locked gates at lunchtime. All change comes slowly, but when it comes to their children’s health, parents, it seems to me, have a special responsibility to lead the way, rather than perpetuating the fried craze.

Alas, American cafeterias perpetuate that craze right inside the school gates. Currently, 12 million kids are overweight in the U.S., a hefty number when you tack on the additional 12 million that are at risk of being overweight. If solutions can’t or don’t start at home for these kids, then our government needs to make it happen at school.

And it needs to happen soon. It’s no secret that being overweight puts you at risk for everything from diabetes to back problems which all require medical attention as these overweight children grow older. Right now there are about 43 million Americans living without health insurance, 8.3 million of which are under 18. The clincher is that many of the kids eating french fries morning, noon and night, are also the ones living in low-income areas that house the highest percentage of uninsured kids.

So young, unhealthy kids with greasy eating habits and no health insurance, will grow into even larger, unhealthier Americans with no health insurance, and we will all pay the price; not just in astronomically rising health care costs, but in a huge loss of talent and brains to keep this society on track.

By the time most of us hit college, our eating habits are ingrained. I don’t know too many people around campus who lived on In-N-Out burgers in high school only to switch to tofu and broccoli at Williams. But stranger things have happened, and alongside the chicken nuggets and french fries, we have a plethora of healthy options in our dining halls. It’s all a matter of choice. The more we consumers choose the healthy options in dining halls or grocery stores the more available they will be. While being on your own in a dining hall full of tasty options may be tricky for some (think about the ubiquitous “freshman 15”), we should take it as an opportunity to make the healthy choice and choose a healthier future. Healthy hearts and, yup, healthier wallets, because one way or another, our generation will pay the price for those of us who don’t get the message or who choose to ignore it.

We here at Williams don’t have much of an excuse, but what about the people who don’t have the choices we do, who lack awareness and education and easy availability? We’re all in this together so how can we sidestep a looming crisis, financial and social in nature? And do it before it’s too late?

What’s the answer? Healthier kids. It’s simple – start young. Healthier lifestyles mean better health, and better health means cheaper insurance. Enter California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York governor Eliot Spitzer and their plans for universal child health care. Schwarzenegger and Spitzer come from different sides of the aisle, yet these two governors from states with two of the highest rates of uninsured children seem to really get what will make their states’ futures healthier and more affordable.

The combination of earlier, healthier eating habits and universal health insurance sounds like a winning combo. But we have to start small. Start by insuring all kids, start by removing vending machines, start by educating kids on how to take care of their bodies, start young and start now. By the time the next generation of kids hits Williams, let’s hope they’ll all be reaching for the broccoli.



Molly Hunter ’09 is from Kentfield, Calif., and lives in Carter.