TheAgitator.com
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Monday, March 1st, 20041) The Dept. of Health and Human Services announced a federal, taxpayer-funded nationwide anti-bullying campaign today. The program “is designed to stop bullying, including verbal or physical harassment that occurs repeatedly over time, that is intended to cause harm, and that involves an imbalance of power between the child who bullies and the child who is bullied.”
2) No link, but Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that Sen. John McCain (who else?) will “tackle advertising to kids and its links to child obesity.” Last week, the American Psychological Association called for restrictions on food ads aimed at kids.
Sweden, by the way, has already tried this. It’s illegal to market foods to children under 13, and has been for some time. And Sweden’s is among the highest childhood obesity rates in Europe.
What’s next??????
Umm, Radley, how are we gonna achieve national greatness if we’re all a buncha fatasses that got knocked around on the playground? Jeez, it’s just not patriotic to post like this…
While it’s true that Sweden has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in Europe, it’s also worth noting that childhood obesity rates are actually twice as high in the US (~16% vs. ~32%)
Not that it warrants a government program…
There actually is a link between bullying and childhood obesity. It’s called the public school system. It promotes both problems in a number of ways. But, as usual, political leaders can only look at superficial causation rather than root causes.
A guy outside my office is putting in a skylight. It looks nice already. He is very meticulous with his work. I wonder if he was a bully in school, or fat perhaps.
Perhaps a nice gov’t study is in order to determine the career paths of ex-fat/bully types and while they are at it, study a potential increase of cancer risk due to receiving or dishing out all that ‘bullying’.
But the definition of ‘bullying’ needs to be studied first as there are psychological, physical and ‘combination’ types. Then there is the whole boy & girl thing. The permutations of gov’t regulations & programs could be endless.
hang on a minute… i thought all you libertarians were constantly banging on about freedom? Then what’s wrong with giving children and adolescents the freedom to choose for themselves what they want to eat?
Marketing to malleable minds is in NO WAY advancing freedom.
I propose a univerally agreed age at which children become adults, at which point they can drink, vote, go off to die in wars and be marketed to…. what’s wrong with that?
Kids? Freedom for a 5 year old to eat what he wants? Freedom for my 5 year old nephew to choose what he wants based on some crappy corporate promotion.
Wow. you libertarians take this shit too far sometimes.
Michael, the point is our money is being wasted and spent on things that rightly belong in the private sphere.
Michael,
It’s not an issue of giving kids the freedom to eat twinkies. It’s an issue of personal responsibility. It is the responsbility of the parent to manage their child’s food intake, not some bloated federal bureaucracy.
Funny, but I always found that the solution to bullying was to actually stand up for yourself. Nothing quite like a good ass kicking to turn around the lives of both bully AND former victim.
The ass-kicking policy generally works pretty well, and yet doesn’t cost the taxpayers anything.
Soon enough, they’ll make it illegal to make and show movies that encourage standing up to bullies. It will be considered too agressive.
Soon enough, they’ll make it illegal to make and show movies that encourage standing up to bullies. It will be considered too agressive.
That would pretty much wipe Hollywood off the map…
Mountain Man, you’re right, and isn’t it ironic that the majority of hollywood types are ultra-”agression is bad”-liberals? That would be good irony. Of course, they would never let that happen.
What I don’t understand is why parents don’t teach their children to band together and beat bullies.
I drove a schoolbus for 4 months and convinced a group of first and second graders to not allow a giant sixth grader near the back of the bus (where she ruled Stalin-style) by blocking her way with their legs. It worked. I suppose I could have been fired for this, but the kids sure loved me after that.
Hmmm. My son attends a private school in Georgia with an enrollment of approximately 200 pupils. Not a single one of them could remotely be considered obese or even chubby.
Must be that damn resposnibilty we practice rearing it’s ugly head again
Or it could be the income that allows you to send your son to a private school. The poor have much higher rates of obesity.
My daughter’s school in a high-income town in Colorado had very few obese children but the school she’s at here in Florida, where practically everyone is poor (or working poor), has so many obese children she sticks out for being thin.
Could it be, generally speaking of course, lazy = poor = fat? And not that those kids are fat because they’re poor? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I thought poor people were skinny???
As a child, my family was poor. I grew up with poor people. I know many. Most are not enthusiastic go-getters who just can’t get a break. They typically spend their money like it’s the last they’ll see.