happy birthday to who?

From BBC News

Well now I think I've heard it all....
From the start of the new school term, many schools in the US will be banning the tradition of Birthday cakes.

"What is this horror?", I hear you cry.

I remember when I was in primary school; when it came to a kids birthday, if the school kitchen was informed by your parents, they would prepare a little cake for you that they'd bring to you during your lunch and everyone around you could sing you that song, very much like what they do at TGIs (or Ozer for that matter....).
However, this isn't what happens in the US.
There, the tradition is that on your birthday, you would bring in a sackload (I imagine my hyperbole isn't far off) of cupcakes and what-not to share with your friends. Isn't there a statistic that says that if you put 12 people in a room, at least 2 people will share the same birthdate? That means in an average class of 30-40, there will be around 14-18 birthdays every school year. Allow for the 36 week school year and assume even spread of birthdates and you end up with something like a month, you get a free stuffing of cakes. Sometimes, it might be a double stuffing of cakes.
let's get that clear.
That is, on average, ONCE a MONTH.
And how many cakes do you get when your mate little Willy has his birthday?
2 cakes per person? 3 cakes? 5 cakes?.

"What are you getting at?", I hear you ask.

Well, the reason for this banning is that the schools claim that this is an unhealthy tradition. Of course, this is part of a wider scale banning of junk food, much like what is happening here but still, isn't it a bit misguided? Sure, you have to target all areas of junk food intake but don't you think this one is a bit personal (imagine the therapy involved: "they cancelled my birthday....") and next to pointless when there is no support of the junk food ban outside of the school.

As we have seen in the UK, in the schools where a healthy school dinner meun has been implemented, kids use the journey to and from school as opportunity to stock up on the junk that isn't available in school. Let's not even mention the growing number of parents in the UK who actually consider a trip to the local McD (or whatever fastfood joint) as an acceptable dinner for their children, or the lack of proper cooking at home; things that I gather are common place in the US.

Fact is, banning foods in the school environment isn't going to amount to a hill of beans if nothing changes outside of it. In the case of banning cakes in the US, I really can't see how that would make a change, even when implemented as part of a wider ban of junkfood. The kids still aren't getting enough exercise and are still going to be eating junk outside of school.

Interestingly enough though, is this from a couple of months back. Again, the principles of it are sound; I mean, reduce the outlets, reduces the possiblity of people eating it. Thinking a little deeper though, I can only imagine the emergence of supersized outlets selling super sized portions or worse yet, internet only based places where they only do deliveries, thus reducing their street presense while maintaining a healthy business.
Once again, it is in a way the wrong thing to target when trying to deal with the obesity problem.

Plenty of people have done studies as to why people are getting bigger. In all cases, the simple answer to this is that in general, people are simply eating too much and doing too little. Fat and sugar contents in food is higher than it used to be and in general, our calorie intake is much greater than our calorie burn. Any fools blind monkey can see that the proper way to deal with obesity is to
i) reduce fat and sugars
ii) increase activity

Related studies have shown that you get used to the taste of junk food to the point that everything that isn't saturated in fats and salts and sugars are well, bland. This also has the nasty habit of actually dulling you ability to tase foods properly. What this implies, is that if you can get a child used to a wide and varied diet with little (does not mean no) exposure to junk foods, in the long term, it is unlikely for them to go down that route. What this leads to is that once again, you have to target the real cause of this obesity epidemic: the home.

Another case of people not taking responsiblity?
Absolutely.
It doesn't help that a couple of years back, it was fashionable to target and blame big corporation for the failings of the person. It's Mcdonald's fault for making me fat.
Right.....
My kids are fat because there are too many KFC joints around.
Kiss my skinny ass.

Parents take responsiblity.
Your kids' obesity problems are because of you.
Just you, You and no one else.....