Monday, June 06, 2005
Obesity = Polio. Or measles, maybe? Diptheria?
This is just bizarre (bugmenot):
For the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sent a team of specialists into a state, West Virginia, to study an outbreak of obesity in the same way it studies an outbreak of an infectious disease.
Huh?
The investigative teams spent a week and a half in each place, going to schools and asking about physical education programs and about what sort of food was provided. They asked, for example, whether students “were offered at least one or two appealing fruits and vegetables every day,” Ms. Kennedy said. And “would you replace regular sour cream with low-fat sour cream?”
They went to workplaces, asking whether there were policies to encourage physical activity. For example, Ms. Kennedy said, “if you choose to walk, could you have an extra 15 or 20 minutes added to your lunch break?” And, were there items like 100-percent fruit juices and bottled water in vending machines?
They went to random grocery stores and restaurants, asking whether they offered fruits and vegetables and skim or 1 percent milk. And they asked whether it was safe to walk along the roads, whether there were sidewalks and whether they were in good repair, whether there was good lighting for walking at night.
What the hell are they going to do? Quarantine the grocery stores until they pull all the whole milk from the shelves? Put up barricades at the city limits until everyone walks a mile after dinner? We don’t want these fat people infecting the rest of the country, after all.
Good God.
At least I’m not the only one who thinks it’s, er...a bit odd:
Daniel McGee, a professor of statistics at Florida State University who has analyzed obesity data, burst out laughing when he heard about it. “My God, what a strange thing to do,” he said.
“They’ll find out what we all know - that the country is no longer set up for physical exercise,” Dr. McGee said. And that schoolchildren “don’t get a nutritious diet.” And that “there is a lot of high-fat food on the shelves of every supermarket.”
But, he said, “that doesn’t tell you much.”
“I’m sure skinny people go to those same restaurants,” Dr. McGee said. “Skinny kids go to those same schools.”
You think?
That woman running the CDC really has lost her mind. It’d be sad if it weren’t so unfunny for the rest of us.
Sheesh.