Don't Look Now

Female students at an american college stole 1000 copies of the school newspaper. The girls had gone to watch a lacrosse game and had painted "I (heart) Noonan" across their torsos, as support for an individual player. It appears that they didn't like the photo when it was published and some off them thought they looked "fat".

It is almost a funny story. I say almost because there are more elements of sadness in it that humour. That these girls (look at them) think they are fat is a damning inditement on society. What is even worse is that on any particular day we can find stories about people trying to become size 0 and the population becoming obese. Both leading to problems with health. It seems that we can't find a happy medium because of the obsession the media has of how people look, and the "beautiful people" who are the celebrities that people aspire to be.

I also think the weight problems are related to how divorced people have become from their food and its source. As more and more live in cities and never see a farm, people understand less and less about food itself. We shouldn't need traffic lights and warnings on packaging. We should know about how to eat healthily because this is how we should be brought up. Not that food is good or bad, but that a balance is needed. Crisps and biscuits shouldn't be banned from schools because that doesn't teach children to eat responsibly, it teaches them that they can rebel by eating crisps and, crisps being more accessible than alcohol when you are young, then that will be what they do.