Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

Rob Reed wrote at 2006-06-22 14:53:

As usual I key in on what is apparently not supposed to be the main point of this.

From the article:

This is not to make light of school nutrition. Vending machines have been under fire for years -- and rightly so. Report after report warns of the epidemic of obesity among young people, a public health problem attributed to various villains including poor diet, too little exercise, and video game addiction. The rise in what was once known as adult-onset diabetes is truly unfunny.

I love it (by which I mean that I detest it) the way the reporter crams in his opinion that it's right that vending machines in schools have come under fire.

I don't have a problem with it because that's his opinion. I'm not even complaining about the fact that it's a very opinionated statement from a reporter writing an article under the heading of news (I don't consider one dumb reporter's opinion of anything to be news and I'd be surprised to find out that other people do).

My problem is that the statement is entirely unjustified. It's brought into the article as if a matter of fact. The implication is that it's a matter of fact that vending machines in schools should be criticized.

When are we going to acknowledge that it's the choices we make, and not the choices that present themselves, that affect that direction of our lives.

Go to any school with vending machines... You'll find happy healthy kids eating (mostly) nutritious food most of of the time... kids playing sports, interested in academics, interacting with their friends, etc. You'll also find broken little fatties making bad choices at the vending machine in addition to living generally sedentary lives, and making a lot of other mistakes. You'll also find kids that are dangerously thin; kids abusing drugs; kids in unhealthy relationships; kids ignoring academics, etc. In other words you'll find well-adjusted kids and just about every kind of issue or problem you can think of. The idea that you can fix people (last time I checked kids were people) by limiting their choices is either idiotic or dangerous.

There are so many other subtle and not so subtle issues raised by this fairly irresponsible example of shitty journalism that I think I could stretch this comment out for hours. I'll resist that temptation.