Friday Interview: Government Nannies Target Childhood Obesity | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The authors of this post are the CJ Staff of the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Carolina Journal managing editor recaps state task force’s alarming proposals

Rick Henderson
    RALEIGH  -  Governments at all levels have injected themselves into the debate over childhood obesity, with everything from rules about school lunches to higher taxes on candy and soft drinks, even a proposed tax on large, sugary sodas in New York City. Earlier this year, the North Carolina Institute of Medicine Task Force on Early Childhood Obesity Prevention considered taking a big step, possibly right into our own homes. Carolina Journal Managing Editor Rick Henderson discussed the issue with Donna Martinez for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)

    Martinez: This task force that I just mentioned, it's not new, is it?

    Henderson: No. This specific task force has been around for a couple of years working on various proposals to deal with childhood obesity, and it's the successor to another task force that the General Assembly created back in 2009, which came up with recommendations for nutrition in school lunches and things like that, and also dealing with child care centers and how they would handle feeding children and how they would handle monitoring perhaps lunches and things like that brought from the home.

    Martinez: What may be in our future with these new recommendations that we're expecting?

    Henderson: Well, these new recommendations actually may entail having social workers come into the homes of Medicaid recipients, if there's a belief that there is an at-risk child there, a child who may have a problem with obesity or some sort of physical handicap or some sort of psychological or developmental disorder. And if there are fears that the nutrition that's being provided at home is not adequate, then the task force may actually authorize people to go to do things like provide advice on breastfeeding, on nutrition, on proper meal times, on exercise and activity levels  -  I mean, any number of things involving the typical way that the children live at home.

    Martinez: Do we have any idea as to whether the person who was targeted for a visit would be able to say, "No, thanks"?

    Henderson: That we don't know, but it could be a condition of receiving aid. It's always possible that that's going to be the case. Now it's always possible, under current circumstances, for people, say, involved with Child Protective Services, of course, to do home visits if there's some sort of concern that a child is in danger. But what seems to be happening now is that the definition of endangerment is being changed right now. They're blurring the lines a little bit from actual, say, physical harm or some sort of emotional distress, to nutrition that the government doesn't like.

    Martinez: And therein is the phrase "at risk." Do we have any idea who would then define what is at risk?

    Henderson: Well, that would be defined by the social service agency, possibly at the state level by the Department of Health and Human Services. You could have guidance coming down from Washington, just depending on how intrusive Washington wishes to be, or you could have counties that sort of act on their own.

    Martinez: Rick, this sounds very intrusive and it sounds, literally and figuratively, like the nanny state.

    Henderson: Well, it is. I mean, there's no question about it. And what we found in the past is that the previous efforts of sort of top-down management of childhood obesity have not really worked well at all. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Washington came out with a study back in August which essentially said that most states that have tried these very, very tightly controlled measures of doing things like removing certain foods from school cafeterias or controlling the fat content in milk or removing juices from lunch boxes and things like that, have had very little effect on childhood obesity, and sometimes they've actually caused rates to go up, or at least allowed rates to go up  -  maybe not a causal factor there  -  but there doesn't really seem to be a lot of success.

    It's to the point now, in fact, from a story published in Carolina Journal, where officials are now saying that if we aren't seeing rates going down, that's a sign of success. That things are getting so bad, that at least if we're treading water we're doing well. There's an awful lot of [an] Orwellian aspect to this, too.

    Martinez: It sounds as if there is a big shift, then, from parental responsibility over to governmental responsibility, for what children are eating.

    Henderson: That's always a concern whenever you have programs that are publicly funded and the taxpayers are providing support. Taxpayers want accountability. What's happening, I think, is that a lot of officials are taking this notion of accountability very, very personally. And they're wanting to make sure that every child follows the rules and every parent does exactly what he or she is supposed to do. And when that happens, you do have suggestions of very invasive programs like this.

    Martinez: In fact, Carolina Journal has previously reported on a very high-profile incident of this in North Carolina. You mentioned juice boxes and kids' lunches. In fact, this story went national. Give us a quick recap of what happened when a little girl tried to get lunch at school.

    Henderson: A preschooler in Hoke County brought ... to school a lunch that was a turkey-and-cheese sandwich, a bag of chips, and I believe some juice. And a lunchroom worker said, "No, that's not acceptable because it doesn't have any dairy in it; it doesn't have liquid dairy." And so the little girl either felt that she was told that she could not eat her lunch or decided that, and she went through the line in the cafeteria and got chicken nuggets instead. Now this caused a lot of outrage because it turns out that the lunch that she provided had the four basic food groups and, in fact, the bread was whole grain and it was turkey. It was low-fat meat.

    Martinez: It sounds great.

    Henderson: Yes, it was. I believe there was an apple [editor's note: the fruit was a banana] in that lunchbox from home, too. So it sort of caused a stir because what happened was, you had a lunch that obviously looked as if it was perfectly healthy and quite attractive, being replaced by something that most people would say are chicken parts. What's the deal with that?

    Martinez: And, I think in that Hoke County case, is my memory correct that they ended up pouring the liquid milk down the drain because the little girl didn't want it?

    Henderson: Oh, yes, that's right. What happens is that you have to actually  -  the way that the federal nutritional guidelines are run, you can't actually provide a carton of milk for a child. You have to actually pour the milk into a glass. Because the concern would be that, well, if you just put a carton out and the child doesn't drink it, and they just put it back in the refrigerator and give it to somebody else. No, you have to actually make sure  -  present the product to the child  -  and if the child doesn't drink the milk, then it's just poured down the drain.

    Martinez: I'm sorry to laugh, but it seems like the next step, according to that logic, would be you would force the child to drink the milk.

    Henderson: That's right. You probably have a port somewhere, you know, a tube in the stomach or something! I mean, it sounds disgusting, but it seems as if we're headed in that direction. And one of the other issues involved here is that, of course, there are lots of different theories about what's the best nutrition for a child. There are people who say that low-fat milk is not as good for you as higher-fat milk. Or there's even the raw milk contingent, and there are the people who say, "No, we should eat a vegan diet." And others say, "No, we should go with more of the high-protein paleo [diet]." I'm not about to get involved in this discussion, but the problem is, decisions are being made by people who aren't the parents of these children.

    Martinez: And they're one-size-fits-all decisions as well.

    Henderson: Exactly. That is correct.

    Martinez: Always problematic. Well, Rick, how does the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, fit into this story?

    Henderson: What is interesting is that there are some reporters who have sort of looked at this at the national stage and have looked at the way that child nutrition programs are being directed because the state task force here is using guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the thought is that, well, if you can start doing this at the state level, why couldn't this become part of the Affordable Care Act's enforcement?

    There's no reason that it shouldn't become part of the Affordable Care Act's enforcement at some point. That once again, if you have a national health care system that's funded by the taxpayers, then therefore it's society's obligation, if you will, to make sure that everybody is healthy. And so, indeed, such home visits and monitoring of individuals, not just on public assistance, but in every home, because everybody will be on public assistance at that point, might have to be monitored.
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