35 Replies to “Plus, Flying Cars!”

  1. Why not let kids play sports at recess, why not encourage it?!?!? Oh yeah, someone might get hit with an errant soccer ball or some other dangerous projectile. And we certainly can’t have parents and children make decisions for themselves. Might go against party lines. We’re doomed.

  2. Heym not to worry – McDinky and Co. have thought about that.
    With the economic action plan that The Dildo introduced, fat Ontario adults will be hard to find.

  3. I’ll be dating myself a bit here when I recall that in elementary school we had 30 mins of calisthenics at the start of every school day after assembly. In senior grades the last class was 45 – 60 mins of sporting activities, soccer, rugby, cross country running etc. The fat kid was an exception to the norm, as I recall.

  5. Good thing Harper got rid of the long form census and the wheat board; otherwise the outlook would be much worse.

  6. Sugar-sweetened soda pop, and high-calorie snacks have been prominent in the stores for generations. If there’s an obesity crisis, it’s not due to the availability of junk food, it’s due to a lack of exercise opportunity for kids. Sitting in an armchair twiddling the buttons on a video-game controller ain’t going to burn very many calories.

  7. “70% of children will be overweight adults by 2040”
    Retarded(with apologies to honest retards)leftards didn’t get the memo from their master,the UN?
    chris c…..remember that great fun time also. Something to look forward to after the boring math class.Plus it was mandatory,unless you had a Doc’s note excusing you,or your home room teach had you doing some extra help with that math/chem/bio. etc.PLUS…the teams were MIXED at my school,anyways. If we saw an obese kid,we honestly thought there was something medically wrong with them.

  8. Oh no! That can’t be. Olivier de Schutter declared there is a crisis of food security in Canada (this is what happens when you ditch the long form census). He’s a European and works for the UN. He can’t be wrong about this.
    But seriously, if one leaves grade four health class without the knowledge that a good walk and fruits and vegetables are healthy, what can one say or do? Parents can force their kids to eat properly and exercise (ie- chores) because that is their job as parents. See? Simple. No government or interventions are necessary.

  10. I’m glad that you concur with my recollections of that era.
    The current mindset in education cannot rectify the childhood fitness problem.
    Is it not time to open the whole school voucher and charter school debate in Ontario?
    Teacher unions do nothing to contribute to the physical health of the student any more.

  11. I can go you one better. Around our elementary school were various areas for playing ball. From Grade 4 on, there were small ball diamonds and we all played at recess and lunch. The really ‘good’ diamond (we had inherited the old high school and so had some amenities not normal at that time in elementary school, such as an auditorium/gym)was at the east end of the school and was reserved for Grade 6.
    Was not a good athlete, but do remember eing one of the players. Had a good time; avoided injury; got some fitness credits. You’d never see it today.

  13. That’s it, you’re cut off!
    The West will provide no more equalization payments, nothing, until Ontario gets it’s Body Mass Index back to normal.
    signed: Whose your Daddy, now?

  14. In high school, I played soccer after school and even tried my hand at rugby and I snacked heartily between meals – and I weighed 125 pounds when I joined the Air Force at 18 years of age. With even more exercise and military grub I gained 17 pounds in the first 12 weeks; was I on my way to obesity???

  15. Funny…I recall a neighbour kid getting suspended and mama was working so Dad took him to work a few roads over where he was building trailors at a buddy’s place. What one didn’t think of t’other did.
    Each day at 1100 they sent the kid to run to the woodlot and back….no excuses…if he stopped and walked some he had to repeat.
    No text books but they had a whack of manuals….a small blackboard….had him drafting trailor parts and doing the math.
    I blundered in one afternoon and got drafted to teach some history….years ago now but that kid still remembers the fall of Quebec….HBC and the Nor’westers. just a coupla hours.
    The guys told him there would be a test….failure would mean a sprint to the woodlot and once around the wood lot.
    His Mum (now widowed) said he was happy to get back to school…she is of the opinion that home schooling may be a good idea.

  16. So the Ontario government doesn’t think that their efforts to destroy cheap energy and kill off the poor, weak, and elderly will succeed. Wonderful news! I’m reminded of the western reporter who asked a village elder in a 3rd world country what the elder thought about the high incidence of cancer death in his tribe, and the elder replied “isn’t it wonderful? Our people now live long enough to die of cancer. Our children don’t die of malnutrition anymore.”

  17. Ironic that they threw out all the things that worked to make way for all the things that didn’t. Frivolous law suits have a great deal to do with that. Thank the judicial system for that. We had just as much junk food available in the 60’s and 70’s but we were a lot more active. Physical education was mandatory unless you had a note from a parent. We also had a lot more 2 parent families that monitored what we did for entertainment. Schools didn’t “co-parent” back then. The social engineers didn’t have their claws in the kids either. Hell, I didn’t even learn how to put condoms on cucumbers. Couldn’t even get the damned things without a lot of planning and a few older friends. Every class seemed to have one fat kid but you could look at the parents and knew they came by the weight honestly. Seems like every class had a bully too and you eithr adapted or blew up and tied into him. Suddenly you were friends and got along or he just left you alone. Never knew anyone who committed suicide because someone picked on them. Never knew anyone who had peanut allergies or asthma although everyone seemed to smoke back then. Funny that most of them are still alive today and many still smoke. Don’t seem to be overweight either. Last High school reunion for the class of 69 showed most of them to be in pretty decent shape. Only lost 2 through accidents and 1 to breast cancer. Back then we had the freedom to break any bone we wanted and none of us thought we were special. Why anyone felt they had to improve on a system like that is beyond my comprehension, but that was before we turned into a nation of weenies, whiners and politically correct wingnuts. I am just so grateful that I’m close to retirement now and missed all the ” progressive” changes as I still have fond memories of all the things that are taboo today. Don’t tell anyone, but I played with pointed lawn darts and even rode my bike without a helmet.

  19. The very first and apparently most important thing mentioned is the legal removal of freedom to advertise, that is what they consider ‘significant change’ that cannot wait – nothing about telling the little fatties to eat less because surely the kids themselves and no one in their lives have any control over that. And because the government owns your body through their health care laws “This is not a nice-to-do; this is a must-do,” said the health care minister and Liberal control freak.

  20. i am guessing they will be overweight only if they can afford to buy food.

  21. From what you described Peterj, one would wonder if we grew up in the same town? My how things have changed. I often wonder if it’s a natural change, or things have had a little help from the elite?
    It’s pretty apparent whoever started these studies and whoever started paying attention to them, weren’t very bright. But I’m sure they have a degree and years of school behind them.

  22. Hey Jamie what about fat kids, bikes, and generators hooked to the back wheel,with a 90 cent a kilowatt subsidy. Do you want to submit the idea to the Libs or do you want me to do it?

  23. I think that it was Larry the Cable Guy who said that 40% of statistics are made up on the spot!

  24. As I’ve commented in the past, at my public school, we had 15 minute recess each morning and afternoon, and an entire hour for lunch. We’d show up early to play baseball or soccer before school, continue the games at recess and lunch, and then go out and play by ourselves (no adults) from 4 pm till dinner time. Most kids got 2 hrs of exercise per day.
    When my girls were in elementary school – just five years ago – they got one recess per day, and weren’t allowed outside if one teacher saw one raindrop. No baseball (‘someone might get hurt!’), no soccer (‘someone might get hurt!’), no games of Tag (‘someone might get hurt!’).. there’s a pattern here.
    The solution is not draconian advertising laws; the solution is get the adults the h*ll out of the way, and let the kids play. Too bad Tim “Who-dat?” can’t figure this out.

  25. peterj, very much the same here, except about 5 years earlier.
    They snuck in through the educational system, took over eventually and we slept being mesmerized by free things.
    I also think we got more exercise, what with playing cowboys and Tonto.

  26. I posted a viciously sarcastic comment at the link,mentioning the formation of a bureau to oversee compulsory dietary programs mandated and individualized by the new Ministry of Diet.
    I just hope no one in the Ontario government reads it as they’ll probably think,”great idea,why didn’t I think of that!”
    I never thought much about it,Kevin B, but we kids had no TV or video games,and we probably spent at least that amount of time in playing pick-up games of whatever sport was in season.
    Most of us had chores to fill in empty time,too,in my case splitting wood for the cook stove,carrying in oil for the Duo-Therm,and carrying two five gallon buckets of water from the well two blocks away. Everyone I knew did the same.
    On weekends,we’d usually grab the old Cooey and venture off into the bush, walking for miles hunting rabbits and grouse. No wonder we didn’t suffer obesity.
    We had heard of TV and figured we were slightly deprived not having access to “the wonder box”,like the city kids,but looking back I wouldn’t trade that upbringing for any other.

  27. In other future news, I predict Kim Kardashian will have Arnold Schwarzenegger’s illegitimate love child in 2016, just in time for King Obama’s coronation.

  29. My schooling was similar to peterj’s, except the only sports I engaged in were cross country running, cycling and in a failed attempt to break the 4 minute mile record. My daily walk to school was 4 miles each way and this was in a time when any kid whose parent drove them to school would be looked on with some derision. The track team coach looked at my build and said “your race is the 440”. In typical teenage fashion I disregarded his advice and kept trying to run a mile faster than the toothpick milers who I was up against. That involved running 3-4 miles each evening attempting to beat my 5 minute mile which seemed to be the best I could do.
    We walked everywhere and, for long distances, would cycle. My primary problem at that time was trying to increase my weight and heard some angry comments from my mother about how my voracious eating was playing havoc with the household food budget.
    In Vancouver now, it seems parents are terrified to let their children go out on their own and the only exercise they get is the walk from the school door to the parents vehicle. Kids seem to be in totally organized sports whereas we organized our own physical activities which, in my case, was long walks in the grasslands around Calgary with a .22 shooting gophers. I spent more time in front of a keypunch machine back then than a lot of fat kids spend in front of computers today, but I didn’t watch any TV then.
    I do see type 2 diabetes in 12 year olds now who sometimes have topped my office scales at over 200 lb. Almost all of the fat kids I see have fat parents and the notion that high calorie snack foods are the culprit is as stupid as blaming guns for mass murders. The culprit is the parent who cooks massive meals and lets the kid have multiple portions and then doesn’t lock the fridge to prevent the kid from engaging in nocturnal eating. Occasionally I’ll have a normal weight girl brought in to be investigated for “anorexia”. In such cases the remainder of the family have a thick enough subcutaneous fat layer to be comfortable swimming with the belugas in the NW passage and I’ve yet to have one such family accept my premise that perhaps the problem isn’t where they believe it to be.
    There is some very interesting literature on shift work and obesity and I first started looking into this when I noticed the surprising number of morbidly obese nurses in hospitals. Shift workers are likely to be considerably heavier than non-shift working individuals. Also, disrupted circadian rhythms are responsible for weight gain and the solution to childhood obesity might be as simple as turning off the kids TV or computer at a set time in the evening and taking away their cell phone (in addition to raising the age where one can get a drivers license to 21). Considering that a lot of us read books using a flashlight under the covers when I was young, it’s clear that this amount of nocturnal light exposure doesn’t contribute to obesity.

  30. These reports are all about a very hungry government patrolling for more tax dollars,a fat tax, anyplace they can find money.
    How can you argue against taxing fat when it is for the children? or “good for you”?
    Only a fool would believe they would stop at taxing junk food…it will be on anything and everything but vegetables.
    Ba$tards.

  31. Have another donut Deb, geez. Take a good long look in the mirror and try leading by example as there is a good possibility your kid’s may emulate you. Nothing is nothing worse than an academic from Western University, there I said it.

  32. Considering that according to statistics almost 70% of adults in 2013 are overweight, it will not be that surprising if the same is true in 2040. Also considering that 98.7 percent of people that lose weight, regain it all and usually more within 5 years, the calories calories out theory is either oversimplified, or most people are simply not capable of making that kind of commitment.
    Plus overweightness in children is very illusive. If we have a 6-year old girl who is 3 foot, 9 inches tall she would be considered to be a “healthy, normal weight” at 49 1/4 pounds (BMI 17.1).
    If she gained 1/4 pound more, however, she becomes “overweight” at 49 1/2 pounds. For untold numbers of children classified as “overweight” they are within a fraction of a pound or few pounds of “normal.”
    However, if this little girl grew a mere 1/8 inch, she would be considered to be a “healthy, normal weight” again!
    At 54 1/2 pounds (BMI 18.9) she crosses the 95th percentile cut-off and is now labeled “obese.” A very different picture of childhood obesity than the mainstream media is portraying.
    However, if this little girl was a mere 1/8 inch taller, at 3-9 1/8 inches tall, she would be merely “overweight” again.
    So, for a 6-year old girl who theoretically isn’t growing taller, around a mere 5 pounds makes the difference between being labeled as a “normal” weight or all the way to being “obese.”

  33. Just remember folks. When times get tough, the skinny ones always go first. Unless you are hunting or something like that, then always take a fat kid with you. Sacrificial lamb if you have to run from a Grizzly.

  34. When you go to Europe for example the first thing that catches your attention is that there are very few fat people. I strongly believe the reason for this is that everyone is forced to walk as taking the car is not usually your first choice. As transit is the main method of travel in the cities with excellent subways and integrated surface transit with buses and trains people just walk as cars and gas are expensive and parking is limited. Here everyone drives for the shortest distance like local shopping or drive the kids to school even if it is just a block away. Our local schools in Leaside are packed with cars every day with kids being picked up and dropped off with helicopter moms too fearful to let little Sally or Johnny walk a couple of blocks. Most sports are adult organized and again the kids are driven.
    Our suburbs are so sprawling with no thought of transit that without a car you are isolated. Only in the old areas of Toronto downtown can you get away without one as my son and several of his friends do.
    Couple this, as many posters have pointed out, with little sports or play time in school and it is no wonder our children and ourselves are getting fat.

  35. You bring up some good points and one of them is the “fear” factor. In urban centers many parents are afraid to let their children out of their sight in case something evil is waiting for them. We have very weak laws to deter predators and when something happens every newspaper in the country carries the story on the front page. It’s a “circle the wagons” mentality that has grown through the decades.

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