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Cupcakes responsible for childhood obesity

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Contributed by: Donna Feldman on 10/2/2006

In light of recent events, it's obvious there's nothing schools need to crack down on more than ... cupcakes. The Denver Post saw fit to headline this important issue in Section A of the Sunday paper (10/1/06: 27A). "Let them eat carrots," sniffed one school administrator in California. Parents are in a panic about the specter of childhood obesity, and nothing is sacred anymore, including birthdays.

I remember a phone call once from a friend, who was facing the dreaded classroom birthday chore. Did I have a good recipe for cupcakes, she asked? Having dealt with my share of elementary school birthdays at that point, I laughed. What was she trying to prove, and to whom? My advice: just buy a box of cupcakes at the grocery store. Eight-year-olds don't care if the cupcakes are homemade with organic ingredients. In fact, they don't much care about eating the cupcakes at all. They may take a bite or two, they mash the rest into the paper napkin, and the whole mess goes into the trash. Why waste good ingredients and precious time on that?

But of course, people who blame school birthday parties for obesity aren't paying attention to any inconvenient realities. They congratulate themselves for banning cupcakes or Valentine candy, but their kids are driven to and from school, every day for years, to protect them from the awful horror of having to walk a few blocks. Junior and Junioress sit at home all afternoon watching TV and surfing the Internet. If they're lucky, they play a sport for an hour or two a week, but they're also driven to practice and games. If schools want to ban something actually meaningful, they'd ban cars from coming withinfive blocks of the school building.

Cupcake hysteria reminds me of egg hysteria 50 years ago. When medical science made the connection between cholesterol plaque and heart attacks, some brilliant mind concluded "Hey, eggs have cholesterol. Therefore eggs cause heart attacks." Decades of egg phobia ensued, while heart disease rates climbed anyway. We could use the same specious logic to explain the obesity epidemic now: "Hey, people stopped eating eggs and everyone got fatter. Therefore eggs prevent obesity." Hopefully you see the problem with this kind of faux logic.

Given the daily consumption of soft drinks, candy and snacks, banning these items from sale in school is a great idea. Do the math: 180 days of school times 150 extra calories of junk food a day is almosteight pounds of body fat. One birthday a year times ¼ of a cupcake is maybe 40 or 50 calories, easily burned off by walking home from school. So if you're working on a school food policy, stick to the meaningful changes. Stop sucking the fun out of life with pointless attacks on cupcakes.

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Donna Feldman

Louisville , CO

Donna Feldman has posted 133 stories and 1 comment since joining on 9/14/2005. Donna Feldman 's average story rating is 4.91.

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