Massachusetts To Ban Bake Sales?
May 7, 2012
Brownies, cupcakes and other sugar-laden contraband will be outlawed in Massachusetts public schools as health officials battle what they call crisis-level obesity in children.
All bake sales will be banned beginning Aug. 1, the Boston Herald reported. The ban would apply 30 minutes before the start of classes and thirty minutes after the school day ends. But health officials are trying to banish sweets from school banquets, after-hours events and even football games.
The Dept. of Public Health and Education insisted they were not attempting to regulate what people eat.
“We’re not trying to get into anyone’s lunch box,” DPH medical director Lauren Smith told the Boston Herald. “We know that schools need those clubs and resources. We want them to be sure and have them, but to do them a different way.”
Smith told The Boston Channel that they wanted to create an environment in schools where kids have an opportunity to make choices among healthy options.
We’re at a place in Massachusetts where one-third of our kids in schools are either overweight or obese,” she told the television station.
Jeff Katz, a talk radio host at Boston’s Talk 1200, told Fox News the ban is simply outrageous.
“Only in Massachusetts would the Attorney General say it’s not illegal to be an illegal alien, but it is illegal to sell a cupcake for the football team,” Katz said. “When they outlaw cupcakes only outlaws will have cupcakes.”
State Sen. Susan Fargo, a Democrat, said childhood obesity has reached “crisis” proportions.”
“If we didn’t have so many kids that were obese, we could have let things go,” Fargo told the newspaper.
But parents and local lawmakers are fuming over the ban on bake sales — many wondering how they will be able to pay for extracurricular activities.
“It helps the schools,” Lana Borstein, a PTO president, told The Boston Channel. “It helps buy books. It helps fund trips. It helps fund things that taxpayers aren’t paying for. That’s the purpose.”
“The goal is to raise money,” Maura Dawley told the Herald. “You’re going to be able to sell pizza. You’re not going to get that selling apples and bananas. It’s silly.”
“My concern is we’re regulating what people can eat, and I have a problem with that,” he told the newspaper. “I respect the state for what they’re trying to do, but I think they’ve gone off the deep end. I don’t want someone telling me how to do my job as a parent.”
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/massachusetts-to-ban-bake-sales.html
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