Soooo for my College Writing class we had to write an Op-Ed as an assignment. She said we could write about anything, and since I’m never great at deciding on a topic I figured I would do what I do best (and write about most). I searched around on blogs to find a topic that was interesting and could get me going, and settled on this post at Junkfood Science, about how children in Australia are being policed by teachers and stuff. 

Now, myself being a procrastinating college student, held off writing this until… well, now. So I wish I would’ve done it earlier as to have any tips/advice about the writing- or what I could word differently or something (Teachers always say to have peers read it and give opinions on it and such).. But sadly, I’m handing it in tomorrow, sooooo if there is something in it written very terribly, well, don’t tell me lol because there isn’t anything I can do about it and it’ll just make me freak out about the paper, since it is due tomorrow at 10 AM. So, feel free to read it anyway. I haven’t ever written an Op Ed before (hell, I didn’t even know what they were before) so I hope it isn’t too awful and I hope it reads like an Op Ed should (she gave us like 4 examples, but I still dunno if mine fits okay)…. Sooo yeah, here it is lol.

(of course, if anyone reads this before midnight tonight- I’ll probably still be awake by then- feel free to leave any tips, since I’ll have time to edit it until then)

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Attack of the Lunch Police

Packing your own lunch shouldn’t be a crime, and it definitely shouldn’t be the governments job to decide what you can and cannot pack. But for schools in Australia this is what the future holds. Principles in Australian schools want to give teachers the authority and power to “police so they can confiscate chips, chocolates and sugary sweets to ensure children are healthy” according to the Herald Sun. This is wrong on so many levels. When did it become okay for schools to choose what is best for the students? It should be the parents’ job, not the schools’ or the governments’ or anyone else’s, to decide what is best for their child. The idea of having schools regulate children’s food intake seems like a scary movie, but it is all too real. 

This  is along the lines of having schools send home BMI report cards to children and parents. Or how in Japan a national law was passed that requires that companies and local governments measure peoples waistlines. When did the government become so involved with our bodies? What gives them the right to decide and make our choices for us? How can we be free when we can’t even decide for ourselves what foods we choose to eat?

For that matter, why is Body Mass Index (BMI) seen as such an accurate measure of one’s health? BMI was created in 1835- 174 years ago- around the same time Phrenology was accepted as highly scientific. So basically a few people got together and decided what weight was acceptable for what height, using some formula they created, and we have stuck with it ever since. We base an individual’s health, along with so many other factors, on this number. It is also not often mentioned that in 1998 the government changed the cut off numbers for BMI, which made 30 million Americans go from “healthy” to “overweight” overnight- something many reports that talk about how obese people are getting fail to mention). Many reports and studies also fail to mention that they are receiving funding from diet companies, pharmaceuticals, and other donors- all who make money off of people believing they need to lose weight. Because it’s all about health!

Healthy eating is of course a big proponent of living a longer, healthier life. I’m not arguing that eating nutritious food is a bad thing, nor am I advocating to simply eat foods that are considering to be non-nutritious until you feel sick. Schools that provide healthy food options are doing no wrong. Schools that offer apples along with cookies are not the devil incarnate. They are simply offering a choice. That is all they should be doing. It is when they decide what is the only acceptable food is when things become ridiculous. Or in the case of Australian schools, policing what children brought from home- which was not even food from the school. We have come so far as to not allow children to take a piece of birthday cake to school on their special day- because it’s not “healthy”.

A nice summary of the problems with these techniques of sending home BMI reports or policing lunch boxes is summed up nicely by this quote from a Newswise Medical News study about how overweight teens have same eating disorders as thin peers, “The data are striking – talking about weight, worrying too much about diet, focusing on it increases risk not only of eating disorders, but also of being overweight.”

Attaching morality to food does nothing but create a false sense of righteousness for eating foods that are “good” and feeling intense shame after eating foods that are “bad”. This also leads to extending those same feelings to individuals that are thought to exemplify them. We need to learn to balance. We need to listen to our bodies and do what is best for them, whether that means having some chocolate or having some fresh fruit, or going for a walk to the park, or taking some time off to relax from a busy and stressful day. We need to stop continually punishing and shaming them. We need to stop looking at food as a moral objective. What we eat does not make us a good or a bad person.

What is healthy or not should not be decided by the government or by anyone other than themselves. Health is a personal and individual matter and it needs to stay that way.