The New York Times reported today a study by the University of California at Berkley which has interest to all those fighting the obesity war. They concluded that if fast food outlets are within a block of high school freshman, those students are more likely to be obese than students who have to walk farther to buy a greasy cheeseburger and French fries. The study was quite an effort by economists (who study people’s behaviors in addition to the economy) to determine what role proximity to fast food outlets contributes to obesity.
What does that tell us about student behavior and what do we do this information to fight the obesity war?
Students are crimped for time and have to get back to class.Given the proximity of the fast food chains, temptation is staring them in the face.
The Director of Food Policy and Obesity at Yale states clearly: “Zoning laws that prohibit fast food restaurants near schools are absolutely indicated.” It’s certainly hard to argue with that conclusion. Remove the temptation, and perhaps those ninth graders stand a better chance of avoiding obesity.
I am all in favor of moving them farther away and making it totally inconvenient to go to a fast food establishment at lunch. Let them stay in school and hopefully eat something more nutritious in their cafeteria where educators are trying harder to remove the junk.
While this is a step in the right direction, it treats the symptom, not the cause. At 2:30 when class is over and the kids are hungry, they’ll walk the extra few blocks to buy their donut or whatever other junk they crave. We need to convince the students themselves that the proximity to fast food is not the problem. Moving the fast food chains farther away is fine, but we need to formulate at the grass root level why fast food is in the Axis of Evil. Some kids will get it, many won’t. Pie in the sky idea to get to every high schooler? Yes. However, any movement or trend starts small before the groundswell of support picks up.
For now however, I thank UC Berkley for raising the awareness and suggesting through hard evidence at least one step we can take to fight the good fight. Removing the temptations is a start, but we’ll continue to work on additional tactics to win this war.
Comments