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Category: Readers' Opinions

■ 23 December 2008 | 5:00 AM

Don't fault law for obesity

Re 'Unappetizing learning,' letter, Dec. 19: The writer blames No Child Left Behind for an increase in childhood obesity.

Why stop there? Let's also blame NCLB for global warming, the collapse of the stock market and the terrorist bombing in India.

Children are more obese than their parents were at their age, but it is not a trend related to NCLB but rather an inter-generational increase observed when comparing data collected about children today with data collected when their parents were children.

So why are our children fatter than we were? Where are today's children after school, on weekends or during the summer break, when they are not the school's responsibility? For far too many of them, they are inside watching television, playing on the Internet or playing video games, all provided for them by their parents, not the schools, and certainly not NCLB. These activities are sedentary, are often accompanied by snacking, and besides health concerns, they do little to teach the little darlings social skills they'll need in life.

Criticize NCLB for any number of valid points, but to do so citing childhood obesity is a specious argument.

David Brechtel

Virginia Beach

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swarr012

Submitted by marym63204 on Wed, 12/24/2008 at 3:21 pm.

So it really is the teacher's responsibility to teach every child everything they must know about life (except religion, of course--why is it no one worries if the parents don't teach that?)??? Should there be classes in high school on bed-making, toilet cleaning, and dusting, since many parents might not teach those either, and they can impact health quite easily? I mean, really, when will we just have the teachers adopt the kids and be done with it? . . .

continued from below...

Submitted by swarr012 on Wed, 12/24/2008 at 2:46 am.

will figure out how to live a healthy lifestyle by themselves. Of course they are all bright, smart students; and because of that they deserve to learn all they can about healthy living. The end results could be life changing!

It was an assignment!

Submitted by swarr012 on Tue, 12/23/2008 at 8:53 pm.

Poor parenting has nothing to do with the original letter. The original letter was actually the result of an English assignment at ODU. (Never thought it would have actually made it into the paper)! Of course No Child Left Behind is not to blame for childhood obesity, not 100% anyway. There are many great points to this act, especially higher SOL scores that have led to greater advantages for schools, but with increased time spent on core SOL’s there is a much lesser emphasis placed on health and physical education. For many students, the only information about health they will learn is that taught in school. What happens to our future leaders who don’t find out this important information until it is too late? Why stop with core subjects with NCLB? Like said in “Don’t fault..." many children do not engage in after school activities that are good for their health, such as video games and watching television. This to me is even more reason to have physical and health education standards in school; nothing drastic, just enough so that students know how to live a healthy life. No Child Left Behind has had many great outcomes thus far but it can't be assumed that student