Overweight students sapping school finances

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Expanding waistlines are squeezing the bottom line of the nation's schools, as poor eating and exercise subtly strip money from education, a new study suggests
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At least nine states that get state money based on student attendance, for example, are losing an estimated tens of millions of dollars because of absenteeism, a problem caused in part by the poor nutrition and inactivity of those missing school, the study says.

The education problem is bad enough! There are more and more overweight children, I am amazed, I see it every day when I drop my kids off for school, I see very few normal weight kids, most are at least a little heavy and I would say at least 30% are very heavy. Parents have to help motivate these kids, get them away from TV and computer games and get them outside and moving.Stay away from the snack food aisle at the stores too!

I blame it not only on poor eating habits but also in the lack of programs in school that encourage children into exercise.

Stupid kids are expensive, too. Fat is fixable, stupid lasts a lifetime.

It is poor eating habits, everything is prepackaged and precooked, and with a McDonalds or Burger King on every corner. Parents come home from working every day too tired and not ready to cook a full dinner. It gets easier and easier to heat up the mircowave dinners or stop at the fast food place on the way home. In the meantime when the kids came home from school they were already in the potato chips and cookies. We have to learn to put a stop to this or we are going to have a very fat unhealty next generation!

Better yet throw out all the chips and cookies and replace them with raw veggies and fruits. If it's not in the house they can't eat it.
One of my daughters is vegetarian and the other has healthy eating habits too. I got them started eating healthy at an early age though and I grow a small garden in the backyard. I'd rather eat a garden grown tomatoe sandwich than a bigmac anyday. We don't use much sugar around here either.

That is exactly the problem right there. Now I understand some children need to be driven to school, but some are just down right lazy. Make you child walk to school, trust me. The exersise isn't going to kill them!

I tried researching a giant super post on the FDA and the new proposals to the food pyramid taught to schools and nutritionists and the lobbyists pumping money into the government to be included in approved diets and ties between the beef industry and the Atkins craze and a President that can't go a month without a product placement in a speech or dinner event for Kobe Beef and I got so mad I couldn't even compose my anger to words.

We are being fattened up for something. I'm just not sure if it's for a Reptilian buffet or soylent green, but somebody is altering evolution on a global scale in my insane forward thinking opinion.

When we start sweating crude oil, we'll know why.

I though that the reason they are fattening children in this country is for the pharmaceuticals to keep the money flowing and also to help the diet pill industry stay in business.

Actually, at $50 a barrel, I think that would be a good thing!

Keep on eating kids!

A part of it is the fast pace we live at now, both parents working, so anything and fries is easy to prepare but it's the vast amount entertainment that the kids have today that requires no exertion. TV, PS2, internet, etc. This is a bad combination.

I think it has to do with genetics, my son eats burgers and fries every other day (he is 18) and he is as skinny as a stick.

So I don't get it.

Im 16 years old and I see obese kids every day, Its pretty dissgusting yet sad. The crap they sell at the school is hiduos. They consider ....hostess.....twinkees.....doritos lunch, I don't think so. The only nutrional thing they sell at school is Minute Made Orange Juice/Cranberry juice and tuna sandwhich everything else is to blame for fattening kids up.

I agree with you RATT I used to work in a junior high and the favorite food of choice was chicken nuggets and pizza.

Minute Made Orange Juice/Cranberry juice healthy?!?!

I think not!

Do they sell water at your school? I would stick with that.

Not necessarily Marg. I work with a guy like that, fatty foods, skinny. His doctor told him to cut out the fats as they're clogging his arteries. Mind you he's in his 40's but just because you're skinny doesn't mean that there aren't health issues.

My lunch consists of a Tuna Sandwhich and a water bottle, Thats 2.75.


A twinkee or a doritos bag or a soda at the school is all under 1.00. I think thats one reason why kids are going towards the fatty foods becuase they can buy more of what they like.

Don't forget about Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Hydrolyzed Proteins- Soy especially- these ingredients, flavor enhancers, are found in most packaged products, as well as High Fructose Corn Syrup found in virtually all sweetened soft drinks, pancake syrup, and fruit drinks as well. These are all toxic to the human body. It screws with the metabolism. You don't have to believe all this, but one just has to go search on the internet to find out.

Then there is the other story with diet drinks, and the poison they use to "sweeten" them with.

Also, who let's their kids go out and play anymore?

Ok so no gym class or nutrition classes in schools, or very little.

No time for mom to cook stuff, just feed them crap with preservatives and processed fats.

Can't go out and run around the neighborhood like they used to.

Video games better than ever.

I think our country needs a wake-up call.

It isn't like the old days. Most schools do not allow children to walk or ride a bike to school until they are in 5th grade!!!





Exactly! It's pretty sad but there are just too many kooks out there to let your children just run around like they used to. I'm lucky that I'm a stay-at-home Mom so I can roam the neighborhood with my children and we also have a fenced in backyard, but still, it just isn't like when I was growing up and chances are, it's only going to get worse.

But on some levels you can also blame the school for children not running around as much. In most elementary schools now P.E. is not offered every day, it's only offered 2 times a week, and once you hit high school P.E. is only required in 9th or 10th grade. Also, the amount of time children have to spend doing homework has gone way up which means either they have to stay up past bedtime to do it or have less play time outdoors to get it done.

Jemison

Want to put a wrench in the fat-landslide? Don't let your kids get their drivers licnese before they finish HS! I knew too many people who drove to school every day once they had their license, they became "gas-asses" as I put it. Got a big yard? don't get a riding mower or a golf cart, make them sweat for real.

In the school department don't let them eat the food period, 99% of the time it tastes like crap, and I have friend who will testify to the strange objects they retrieved from their lunches. Packing a lunch is alot cheaper anyway. A little bit of physical labor does both the kid and the family good, esp if you get them out helping you to split firewood or something.