Children’s bodies are not a problem for the government to solve.

Got it in one.

I was deliberate in how I phrased my comment above, making sure it was clear that my ill-will was towards the specific gym teachers I had the misfortune to be assigned to, and not towards gym teachers in general and especially not towards teachers in general. (Although I’m sad and outraged that so many others had rotten gym teachers like mine.)

I hold most of my teachers, especially in high school, in quite high regard. Ok, there were a few duds, but that’s just how it happens. In fact, I’ve been off and on trying to track down one of my old teachers because I’d like to write him a letter telling him that even though it’s over 25 years later, I still remember many of the stories he told us in class, and I’ve told them to my husband. And to tell him that in a roundabout way he had a huge influence on my career choices, and to thank him for it all. Somehow, I think he’d be amused by that.

I understand it’s a burn out job, but you may be doing more good than you know. Thanks.

YES, so totally. When I tell people schools are not in the business of teaching (or facilitating learning), they think I’m crazy, but I was convinced of that even BEFORE I switched high schools and the counselor in the new system wanted me to repeat a class I’d taken the year before, because it was a required course but I’d taken it too early! As if school wasn’t boring enough, augh!

Mind you, I had some excellent teachers – even a couple of pretty good PE teachers (although I also had one who “suited up” a couple of times a year and otherwise tromped around the gym in her Absolutely Verboten heels sneering at anyone who didn’t do things perfectly). It’s the system I have problems with, not so much the people in it.

College, however, I loved, with a deep deep passion. Knew I wasn’t interested in a degree but went when I could afford it anyhow.

And I hate to think of sending my children to school.

I home school. And my kids all love fruits and vegetables, to the point that I have to hide them or threaten Dire Consequences should I want to keep some fruit or veggie long enough to cook with it. Even middle daughter (the picky eater who hates even spaghetti and hot dogs and makes cooking one dish everyone will eat generally impossible) will eat a green pepper a day if I let her, and also likes broccoli, carrots, celery, etc.

Although I admit half of them won’t eat cooked vegetables. And the one who will eat just about anything I put in front of her doesn’t like corn, which I’ve always found odd. But, yeah. They find the whole concept that kids are not supposed to like vegetables just strange.

Did anyone catch The Today Show the other day where somebody wrote in asking for nutrition advice? The writer was fat and wanted to lose weight but had no idea what to eat. Really, the letter sounded made-up because I don’t know a single fat person – or a single woman, for that matter – who doesn’t know plenty about nutrition, calories, etc.

Some researcher I ran across argued that “fat people who say they’re eating very few calories but aren’t losing weight just don’t know how to count calories,” saying that “a lot of them don’t know drinks have calories, and even orange juice and milk can really add up!” I’ve known my share of dieters wondering if toothpaste has calories, and this researcher thinks they never consider what they’re drinking, where the calories are printed right there on the side of the container? Please.

Yup.

Clearly gym classes should take into account the fact that these are adolescents, and their bodies do weird things like GROW.

Although it seems that the entire Establishment doesn’t actually take the realities of human anatomy and physiology into account when devising plans. Babies on low-fat milk? Taking cholesterol, which glues the brain together, out of toddlers’ diets? Great, a bunch of malnourished, unglued children. I want THEM running the EU (or the US, or whatever) someday!

THEY DO NOW.