Fat or Fight

One of the things that has always fascinated me most was when you would see a larger set police man/woman working on the job. Yes, the stereotype of police officers is "overweight lazy perpetual donut eaters," but at one point in time this stereotype was sort of a joke, or not meant to be taken to seriously. Now studies are showing though, that this stereotype may be more realistic then previously thought, and it may have a direct correlation to school lunches.

I remember being in the 5th grade and hearing that they were going to change the school lunches. It was an outrage, appalling, it couldn't be true. Being one of the very few schools that had adequate tasting school lunches that never included mystery meat or any odd stew the lunch ladies happened to whip up, instead we were a school with vast choices of french fries, Bosco sticks, and hamburgers. In other words, as much grease as are poor little 5th grade arteries could take. But this is also one of the reasons that they believe 27% of all Americans ages 17-24 are too fat to be in the army according to a report released by the government.

So what does this have to do with school lunches? Well seeing as you do spend roughly 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, for about 12 years in school, consuming atleast one if not two lunches a day, plus any numerous amounts of snacks that are available for purchase, this is a problem. If the only food available to the kids is high calorie and fattening, well thats what theyre going to eat. So if schools begin to incorporate healthier options such as fruits, vegetables, and instead of conventional chips, the healthier version called baked chips, this problem could dissolve itself. But if not we could be facing a serious problem of even higher rates of child hood obesity.

The military used to face the problem of having to turn people way because of malnutrition in the late 1940s, but not more then 70 years later, they're having the opposite problem. What kind of impact will this have on our militaries? No one really knows, and I'm not sure we want to find out either.

For further reading:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_school_lunches_threat

Mental Illness and Domestic Abuse

Recently I've been reading a book entitled, "Wild Roses," by Deb Cavalleti. Being the type of person who often reads many books in a short amount of time, generally I choose my books based upon the covers. (Not the brightest idea, but sometimes the most practical.) Seeing the title of, "Wild Roses," I had automatically assumed that the book would be fluff, a fast read with no actual intellectual value. After about the first few pages though, I became aware that I was in fact truly misguided.

Although I'm only about halfway through the book, each page is painted with a vision of rising tension because of a mental illness in the step father. Everyday I read more and more of the book, I expect something big to happen, some sort of domestic abuse to arise out of the mental illness. This got me thinking more about the topic of domestic abuse, is it purely out of an irrational act? Or is there more behind it, such as mental illness?

According to http://parentingabusedkids.wordpress.com, a database that has many fact regarding abuse, it does have a direct correlation. I had never really thought about domestic abuse on a much more finite spectrum. But when I did, I realized that someone wouldn't just randomly be abusing someone because they felt like it, atleast I'd hope not.

I would highly encourage reading this book for many reasons, not only is it your typical sappy romance, but that aspect does not over take the entire book. There is real meaning to it, it's not just fluff. It also gives you and idea of what it would be like to live with someone strongly from a mental illness. Life isn't just fun and games for everyone, real people deal with real issues.

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