The Washington Post has been running a series all week on the childhood obesity crisis and our society's inadequate response to it. Today's article is about the schools' role:
When Americans look for a scapegoat to blame for the growing childhood obesity epidemic, they often point to the schoolhouse. School officials said, however, that their efforts to promote good nutrition are thwarted by parents, who send children to school with oversized bags of chips and fight officials when they try to ban cupcakes.
That's a pretty interesting inversion of in loco parentis. But what's more troubling to me is the assumption that this problem--like so many others--is our education system's responsibility to solve. Worried about global warming? Ask the schools to teach something about it. Concerned about teen driving accidents? Ask the schools to beef up driver's ed. And now, concerned about child obesity? Expect schools to take on the job of slimming kids down.
To be sure, schools shouldn't be doing harm by serving unhealthy food for lunch and allowing all manner of junk to spew from vending machines. But neither should the anti-obesity mission replace their anti-ignorance mission. Schools have limited time and resources, and they need to be allowed to make room for core academics first.
