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Back to the Forum Archives Peter Jennings did an ABC special on obesity that aired on December 8, 2003. It seems most of us are overweight or obese. That, of course, is not news for anyone who goes out in public. We see lard butts everywhere we look. The worst part is way too many kids are in this lard butt demographic. Health people pointed out that this is much like the tobacco situation a couple of decades ago. Most of these kids will suffer debilitating health problems as they mature. It is for sure a national disaster in the making. Jennings did his best to make the case against the food industry and the government as the culpable parties in this debacle. They are the heavies to be singled out. That makes it easy, I suppose. For sure, they are culpable, but so is everyone else. We know the government is dishonest. We know the food industry is dishonest. The advertising industry has always been dishonest. They use operant conditioning on kids. They always have. It's not just in food, it's in everything they market to everyone. That is their MO. They target a demographic group. Then through advertising in all media, they employ all of the worst tools of behaviorism. This is not news at all. My point is, that marketing dishonesty does not relive us of responsibility. It comes down to the individual and his ethics. Everyone wants to make someone else responsible for their behavior. That is ridiculous on the face of it. The government is not responsible for children, parents are. The schools also bear a responsibility. If we check, we find they are just as culpable as Madison Avenue in this. They continuously sell their kids out to the marketing people for ridiculously tiny sums of money. Look in any public school and notice the pop machines in the halls and lobbies. Go to the cafeterias and see what they are serving to the kids. It's garbage. That is unconscionable, but the parents go along. Parents are not meeting their responsibilities and the schools are not meeting their responsibility. Parents and the schools cooperate in their abdication. Their goal is not to nurture the kids, but to make it easy on themselves. One method is to give the kids the stuff that will make them easy to control. It is really nothing more than operant conditioning. and it is much easier than taking care of the kids in a responsible way. It's not about the kids after all. It's about keeping a clean facade and maintaining control so as to look good. Operant conditioning is the tool of choice in public education. Our schools condition kids in all ways. Rewarding kids with flavored garbage is just part of that. They are conditioned to consume junk food for sure. They are also conditioned in the classrooms to behave in non-creative predictable ways. This will make them controllable as kids and later as adults. They will become part of the machine. They will become the favorite cliche, "Team Players." I love and approve the kids who rebel against this, but not in a destructive way, in a creative way. As to obesity, here is the truth of it. If I am fat, it is
my fault and only my fault. If a kid is fat, it's his parents
fault and only their fault. If a kid becomes and adult an he
is still fat, it is no longer his parent's or his school's fault.
It becomes his fault. Sooner or later, we must all be responsible
for our own condition and our own behavior. We cannot transfer
this responsibility, by pointing a finger at someone else. I
know what makes me fat. If I ate no processed foods at all, I
would not be able to eat enough to get fat. This is also true
of kids. When I was a kid, most kids were not fat because their
parents and schools did not feed them junk food. It's all about
responsibility. That commodity is not transferable. We can only
pretend that it is, but we cannot make it so.
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