Oregon could set standards for diet and exercise at day cares
With children joining the ranks of the overweight and obese before they’re old enough to recite the alphabet, public health and child advocates say it’s time working parents across Oregon wonder whether day cares should shoulder some of the responsibility.
Closer regulation could be on its way. A statewide obesity prevention task force has recommended that the upcoming Legislature require state agencies to study child care and develop minimum standards for physical activity, healthy foods and time in front of a screen.
New food and activity rules will undoubtedly raise some hackles. Is it necessary to mandate play for rambunctious toddlers? Reasonable to expect low-paid caregivers to persuade children to eat their vegetables when most parents can’t pull it off at home? And, really, aren’t toddlers supposed to be a little chubby?
“We’re not talking about chubby children,” says Katherine Bradley, administrator for the office of family health in the public health division of the Oregon Department of Human Services.
As hard as it is to take, they could be talking about your children
If you were wondering when the government was going to come out with mandatory exercise and diet rules, this is how it starts.
First they come for the children and it’s OK with the parents because it’s just easier to let them worry about it. Next it will be the teens because they’re getting too fat and lazy too. After that will come the regulation for employees, because good health means lower medical costs. Then it will be people getting government checks like SS or Medicare, medical costs, you know.
You’ll have to have some kind of enforcement because people will just lie about their eating and exercise habits.
Before long you have 90% of the population attending goverment provided (with a tax on your food) excersise classes and you might as well make it 100%.
But it’s always for their own good.
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