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Yeah, happy new year.

zuzu

Well, it’s that time of year again, for people who haven’t set foot in the gym all year to suddenly start showing up en masse so’s you can’t get a treadmill.

And then there’s this. Just what is it with mayors and governors who struggle with weight themselves deciding that everyone in their city or state needs to go on a diet? Especially, in the case of schools, when they don’t put their money where their mouth is and provide some funding for fresh, healthy food and exercise to the students.

Posted in Fat

15 thoughts on Yeah, happy new year.

  1. When I lived in Philadelphia, our esteemed Mayor John Street took to accosting people walking around on South Street with a scale. That was charming.

  2. It’s that time of year. In my part-time job in the Evil Diet-Industrial Complex, we had 21 people join last night. It was a total freakin’ madhouse.

    Santa G. bought me the iPod Shuffle I’ve had my eye on (in pretty pretty purple!) so I’m going to get back to my lunchtime walking routine before I start up at the gym again. Baby steps.

  3. With a button-popping spread of cornbread, sausage and gravy, chicken fried steak and pecan pie designated as Oklahoma’s official state meal, it’s no surprise that Oklahoma City’s mayor wants to put the city on a diet.

    Cognativedissonancesayswhat?

    Diets are for chumps. My new year’s resolution is to grow a beard. So far, I haven’t shaved yet. I’ll keep you updated on my ability to keep this resolution.

  4. Is that the big plan? Start a website? Doesn’t seem very comprehensive to me.

    As for school lunches… yea, that could improve. Here our school’s January school breakfast/lunch menu. I’m not sure how typical this is but just as an example of what is out there for kids.

    The entrees are fast-foody (Pizza Hut pizza, Tyson chicken nuggets), but I think those companies may be somehow subsidizing the program so that’s probably why the branding. The available a la carte items are high fat kinds of things like Nesquik and chips. There are fruits/veggies offered but the times I have been to eat with my kids at school, the quality of these is poor–the kids seem to focus more on the pizza and I don’t really blame them.

  5. Did anyone else see “Jamie’s School Lunch Project” when it was on TLC? It was really fascinating, often depressing, and it’s apparently an ongoing campaign on his personal website.

    I suspect that school lunch personnel are considered one of those “inessential” job functions, like art and music, that are the first ones to get hit in cutbacks. To serve healthy, fresh food you need an actual cook or two, but if you’re serving pre-made junk food from Pizza Hut, you just need a custodian to turn on the oven and warm it up.

  7. You know something? Annoying as he is, he actually paid attention to the school lunch issue and put some fairly comprehensive reforms into place at Arkansas’ schools rather than just issuing “obesity report cards” to fat-shame the kids.

  8. Well, it’s that time of year again, for people who haven’t set foot in the gym all year to suddenly start showing up en masse so’s you can’t get a treadmill.

    I call them “resolutionaries.”

  9. The saddest thing for me about Jamie Oliver is he started doing it out of love, it was so touching when he spoke about how it upset him that our children, when their bodies were forming had to be subjected to the industrial (food) waste that school dinners had become and ended up succumbing to the contempt that few seem able to resist when they get involved in this area.

    I knew it was going to awry when I spotted a well known dietician, as soon as I saw her my heart sank. He should have involved a true humanitarian someone that respects people and truly understands food without any fear of it.

    He is now seen by many as an irritant after having previously impressed with his efforts.

  10. I knew it was going to awry when I spotted a well known dietician, as soon as I saw her my heart sank. He should have involved a true humanitarian someone that respects people and truly understands food without any fear of it.

    Is a dietician something different in the UK? In the US, a registered dietician is someone whose bachelor’s degree is in nutrition and is the professional you should see if you want to eat healthfully. They’re especially helpful for people who need special diets, like diabetics or people with severe food allergies.

    The people to watch out for in the US are the nutritionists — anyone can hang a shingle outside their door and claim to be a nutritionist with no training whatsoever.

  11. Here’s a hunk of tasty brainfood to chew on regarding this.

    Yesterday, Lindsay of the Babble blog posted the following on Unapologetically Fat when Jo Geek blogged about it:

    From wikipedia: “The city’s estimated population as of 2006 was 537,734, with a 2006 estimated population of 1,172,339 in the metropolitan area.”

    Which means that the average person should lose anywhere from 1.8 to .8 pounds.

    Is there anyone who couldn’t lose that much after a nice healthy poop?

  12. Oklahoma City is not an exercise friendly city. There are portions of the city where you cannot walk without risking your life. Roads with no shoulders/break down lane much less sidewalks. That are along unmown fields that are likely filled with snakes and definitely filled with ticks.

    Biking is especially hazardous as motorists refuse to watch for bikes and are downright hostile to bikers.

    I’m not sure what a city wide diet will do for a survey like this that “… examined lifestyle factors in each city, including fast-food restaurants per capita and availability of city parks, gyms and bike paths”. Is Mayor Cornett planning to add bike paths (other than the one from hotel row on Meridian to Brick town – which I assume has opened in the 3 years since I lived there) and maybe even sidewalks? Is he planning a wide scale campaign to reach motorists who are hostile to bikers? Is he planning to encourage and maybe even finance bike racks outside local businesses? Hell, even some of the public libraries didn’t have bike racks when I lived there.

  13. Mnemosyne, you are absolutely correct, and yes she is a nutritionist! I must admit I’ve never been able to get the distinction before, so thanks.

  15. Yeah, there are areas that aren’t exercise friendly. If you want people to exercise, put in more parks and sidewalks. Don’t go around fat shaming. And I’m glad that I haven’t had to show up to the gym yet this year. I’ve been doing my workouts at home after recovering from a cold.

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