Taking Action by Randy

    There seemed to be a lot of very empty petitions about childhood obesity.  Things that signing them pretty much just said ‘I support ending obesity,’ without specifying how.  This seems like it is not much help.  However, there was a petition for Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.  This had a more concrete objective of serving healthier food into school cafeterias.  For that reason, I took action by signing this petition.  I am not too sure that this petition really will accomplish very much, but I do agree that serving nutritious food in schools is a valuable step toward reducing childhood obesity.

    Signing a petition is one way of helping to demonstrate the popular support around an issue.  In some ways, signatures are like votes in an election.  Even though they are not binding, like elections, elected officials should listen to the results of petitions.  If enough people sign a petition because they think that it is an important issue, it should tell local politicians that they should pay attention to it.  In that way, it is a way supporting democracy.

    Education is absolutely a public good.  In order make informed votes, people need to be educated enough to think critically and make decisions.  I think that social justice is an important part of a productive society.  If everyone in the society is healthy and well educated, the group as a whole will benefit.

    I think that the quote, “Struggle for social justice is central to our nation’s history…Concerns about the common good and the rights of the individual, no matter how humble in social standing, transcends politics and holds a definitive place in the realms of morality, ethics and federal law, and therefore in the world of teaching social studies” is partially true.  While there has always been an effort toward social justice, I think that it is not the primary goal of American society.  In America, we value personal freedom over social justice.  While we think social justice is something nice, it usually comes with the expense of added taxes and laws, things that many people think of as ‘unamerican.’

    This whole current event project has shown me that there are so many different opinions around issues.  It is hard to say that any one of these opinions is right, because there is evidence to argue a lot of different points of view.  In engaging with this one topic, the most important thing I learned is that since 2000, the number of obese children has continued to grow.  I thought that in America, the amount had sort of leveled off, but it does not seem to have.

I think that childhood obesity is a difficult problem.  With adult obesity, it is easy to blame the person, because they are responsible for themselves.  But, kids are not responsible for themselves, and need their parents and schools to make good decisions for them.  I think that what food is served in cafeterias is an important way that teachers are responsible for their students.  I do not think that anyone thinks children should be allowed to make their own choices about food.  But, I do think that a lot of people can see the school as interfering in something a lot of people see as only the parents’ right.  Even though I think that outside of school, what a child eats is the responsibility of the parent, I think that during school hours, the school does need to be responsible.  At least, the school should not make things worse by offering only unhealthy choices.  Current events is an important topic to teach.  Not only does it help make sure that students are aware of what is going on around them, but also it helps to show the real world usefulness of school.