The Schools' Role in Child Fitness

Every legislative year (it seems) some state figures out that kids are fat and the lawmakers attempt to legislate skinnyness through fitness report cards to the parents, more rigorous physical education, better school lunches, and/or restocking school-based vending machines with "healthy" products.

This year in my state it's vending machines.

Schools stand to lose candy bar and soda pop revenues, big-government conspiracy watchers will shout the alarm, and the debate will take to the newspapers. My local paper this time has it right - this not a "nanny-state" power grab, or the end of local control; the state has simply encouraged its schools to go healthy in stocking vending machines.

Wow, "encouraged." That'll skinny the kids right up!

First off, local control is a myth in public schools. Show me a public school district willing to run on solely local money and I'll give a bit on the "control." But by-and-large our public schools are state funded and state mandated institutions, actually requiring attendance by the state's children. The teachers typically have state curriculum guidelines, state approved text books, and required state examinations of the children - so what local control?

The truth is that as state schools they should always model good practices. They should be safe and civil places of learning and work, they should conserve resources and use them intelligently, they should recycle what is reasonable, landscaping should be attractive, smart, easy to maintain and frugal, and yes - meals and snacks should be healthy. How hard is that?

The education community often rails against standardized testing, arguing that learning is soooo much more. And it is. So let's have the schools be better models of good lifestyles. Hire fit and active employees, no overweight PE teachers or school nurses, work hard, take frequent breaks, go for brisk walks instead of playing badminton, and eat (serve) good, healthy food to include the supplemental snack and drink choices in vending machines.

Modeling is often the best teaching and this is a great way to start. Our legislature has the right not only to encourage such action from our taxpayer supported public schools but to demand it .