New York School Making Fat Kids Wear Monitors
Most of us would find a government monitoring device recording the details of our day-to-day lifestyles to be invasive, and an affront to our civil liberties. But when it’s for the children?
Well, then it’s ok:
BAY SHORE, N.Y., Jan. 15 (UPI) — A group of Bay Shore, N.Y., school students will soon be wearing a watch-like device that allows school officials to track how active they are, officials say.
The devices are called Polar Active monitors and they count heartbeats, detect motion and even track students’ sleeping habits in an effort to combat obesity, the New York Post reported Sunday.
“It’s a great reinforcement in fighting the obesity epidemic. It tells kids, in real time, ‘Am I active? Am I not active?’ We want to give kids the opportunity to become active,” said Bay Shore athletics chairman Ted Nagengast.
The monitors are distributed by Polar Electro, of Lake Success, the U.S. division of a Finland firm. They cost $90 each.
Our public schools don’t do all that great of a job of actually educating our kids. Do we really need to be diluting their mission with this sort of extraneous nonsense?
But beyond the issue of the monitors of themselves lays the question of whether or not childhood obesity is really any of the government’s business in the first place. Have we really conceded that this very personal issue is one the government should address through public policy?
There are some things that are none of the government’s business. There are some problems the government shouldn’t even try to solve.
Not that I buy into the idea that childhood obesity is nearly the epidemic some make it out to be.
Tags: nanny statism, obesity
