Alli’s oily discharges & prepaid healthy food cards for students
One senses an emerging trend in weight-control and -reduction regimens. This trend can be summed up in one simple word: coercion. Or, to elaborate: achieving dietary goals by confronting dieters with the choice of (1) eating fewer unhealthy foods or (2) experiencing painful consequences. This trend can be observed in two subjects that have been cropping up in the news lately.
The first subject is Alli, the hot weight-loss drug of the moment, which technically works by preventing about one-quarter of the dieter’s fat intake from being absorbed by the intestines. So far, it seems that the results have been largely positive. But the key to Alli’s effectiveness is not that it passes fat through the body harmlessly, but that it often passes through it awkwardly and unpleasantly, in the form of abrupt outbreaks of noxious gas, oily discharge, and the need to hit the nearest restroom pronto.
Wear Your Track Shoes When You Use Alli
As one Alli user told a writer for USA Today, the drug works because “it keeps you on the straight and narrow, because you don’t want any adverse reaction.” Other users tell of mortifying, or highly inconvenient, dashes to the bathroom caused by just an extra cookie or so. If you’re on Alli, you court such ugly moments if you consume more than 15 to 20 grams of fat per meal. Pack away an McD’s Quarter Pounder with cheese (26 grams), for example, and you’d better be wearing your track shoes.
In short, Alli’s magic is that it forces the dieter to genuinely change his or her eating habits, from fast and junk and snack food to the world of produce and fruit and grains. It seems that nothing quells that urge to take the second slice of pizza than the certainty that you will suffer, and if in public, embarrassingly so.
Kids Subvert Schools Healthier Food with Off-campus Purchases
The other area conducive to the element of coercion might be that of children’s eating habits at school and other places outside the home. The unhappy fact is that time and again, efforts to shift young peoples’ diets from fattening snack and fast foods to healthy alternatives have foundered on the shoals of kids’ taste preferences. Reports of this come from the United States, Canada, and Britain, but one of the latter, found on the Internet, produced an idea with compelling possibilities.
The news item itself dealt with the move in U.K. schools to cut way back on fried and fatty foods in the burger and fries vein, and to replace chips and soda with juice or milk in the vending machines, and the resulting stampede of students away from school cafeterias to off-campus fast food alternatives.
The 30 percent drop in student patronage has put the whole program in dire financial straits. As one official fretted, “We cannot expect to reverse an embedded eating culture overnight nor can we convert teenagers to a healthier regime by force.” Oh really? Says who? In fact, an argument to the contrary was suggested by two comments posted to the item.
Prepaid Food Cards Could Outsmart Junk Food Junkie Students
Comment A: “I believe children ate so much better when there was no choice at school and they either ate what was given to them or they went hungry.” Comment B: “Simple solution. Introduce a smart card the parents can fill up with money to be spent only in the school cafeteria.”
Let’s take the principle of Comment B onto a larger scale. Let’s propose that a Health Credit Card be created, which parents could give to their children in lieu of lunch money or that portion of their allowance alloted for food purchases. The HCC would only work, however, when purchasing food items that qualified for healthy status—low on calories and sugar and fats and the like and high on nutritional value—whether the purchase be made at school, a convenience store, or fast-food franchise.
All other food purchases come out of your own spending cash, kid. It’s either the parent-paid apple juice and bran muffin, or the costly Slurpee and fries whose indulgence will leave less to spend on gaming, downloads, movies, and lip piercings.
http://calorielab.com/news/2007/07/16/force-feeding-allis-oily-discharges-prepaid-healthy-food-cards-for-students/
The first subject is Alli, the hot weight-loss drug of the moment, which technically works by preventing about one-quarter of the dieter’s fat intake from being absorbed by the intestines. So far, it seems that the results have been largely positive. But the key to Alli’s effectiveness is not that it passes fat through the body harmlessly, but that it often passes through it awkwardly and unpleasantly, in the form of abrupt outbreaks of noxious gas, oily discharge, and the need to hit the nearest restroom pronto.
Wear Your Track Shoes When You Use Alli
As one Alli user told a writer for USA Today, the drug works because “it keeps you on the straight and narrow, because you don’t want any adverse reaction.” Other users tell of mortifying, or highly inconvenient, dashes to the bathroom caused by just an extra cookie or so. If you’re on Alli, you court such ugly moments if you consume more than 15 to 20 grams of fat per meal. Pack away an McD’s Quarter Pounder with cheese (26 grams), for example, and you’d better be wearing your track shoes.
In short, Alli’s magic is that it forces the dieter to genuinely change his or her eating habits, from fast and junk and snack food to the world of produce and fruit and grains. It seems that nothing quells that urge to take the second slice of pizza than the certainty that you will suffer, and if in public, embarrassingly so.
Kids Subvert Schools Healthier Food with Off-campus Purchases
The other area conducive to the element of coercion might be that of children’s eating habits at school and other places outside the home. The unhappy fact is that time and again, efforts to shift young peoples’ diets from fattening snack and fast foods to healthy alternatives have foundered on the shoals of kids’ taste preferences. Reports of this come from the United States, Canada, and Britain, but one of the latter, found on the Internet, produced an idea with compelling possibilities.
The news item itself dealt with the move in U.K. schools to cut way back on fried and fatty foods in the burger and fries vein, and to replace chips and soda with juice or milk in the vending machines, and the resulting stampede of students away from school cafeterias to off-campus fast food alternatives.
The 30 percent drop in student patronage has put the whole program in dire financial straits. As one official fretted, “We cannot expect to reverse an embedded eating culture overnight nor can we convert teenagers to a healthier regime by force.” Oh really? Says who? In fact, an argument to the contrary was suggested by two comments posted to the item.
Prepaid Food Cards Could Outsmart Junk Food Junkie Students
Comment A: “I believe children ate so much better when there was no choice at school and they either ate what was given to them or they went hungry.” Comment B: “Simple solution. Introduce a smart card the parents can fill up with money to be spent only in the school cafeteria.”
Let’s take the principle of Comment B onto a larger scale. Let’s propose that a Health Credit Card be created, which parents could give to their children in lieu of lunch money or that portion of their allowance alloted for food purchases. The HCC would only work, however, when purchasing food items that qualified for healthy status—low on calories and sugar and fats and the like and high on nutritional value—whether the purchase be made at school, a convenience store, or fast-food franchise.
All other food purchases come out of your own spending cash, kid. It’s either the parent-paid apple juice and bran muffin, or the costly Slurpee and fries whose indulgence will leave less to spend on gaming, downloads, movies, and lip piercings.
http://calorielab.com/news/2007/07/16/force-feeding-allis-oily-discharges-prepaid-healthy-food-cards-for-students/
