City on a Diet

In Somerville, MA, they did a study for 1 year. They fed the kids healthy foods and educated the parents on healthy meals and snacks. Then they refreshed the crosswalks and encouraged biking and walking. What a novel concept. I mean it's not like we've ever heard that we should have the kids exercise more. No, instead they're pushing the curriculum for the "No Child Left Behind" What a joke. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making sure our kids are educated, but I honestly feel they are going about it the wrong way. They are taking the arts (including band) and physical education out of the schools, and just pushing the kids to learn. Well, I don't know about anyone else, but when I was in high school, there was no way that I could have kept learning without some sort of exercise to clear my mind of the stress. Now my son doesn't have to take physical education unless he decides to join a sport (he's in football). What else should we expect if we take away the kids playing time, the exercise time, the time to get out and run off all that energy. Instead we tell them to sit and learn. Then we complain that there percentage of obese children is going up. Yet with all the sports that we have our kids in, if we don't teach them the balance of good eating, it's not going to do them any good either. It's time to remember how this goes... we need to eat fruits and vegetables, and we need exercise. That's how to combat obesity. This study only proves what the rest of us know.