Getting Saucy with Congress

Dear Congress -

I'm a little confused about something. I'm not sure whether to pity you for your ignorance or write you off as corrupt or some combination thereof. Could you please clarify this for me?

Allow me to explain. Last week, I read an article in the New York Times about overweight truckers trying to get fit. It's a hard slog for these poor saps, given America's 1-2 combo punch of greedy capitalism and lame regulation means they need to sit behind the wheel 11 hours at a time to make a living.

Furthermore, these guys (and gals) are struggling to exercise and eat right while driving down freeways lined with artery clogging convenience store crap and fattening fast foods. To make matters worse, the media has pickled their minds from birth with nutritional misinformation while our faulty educational system hasn't taught them to differentiate a Twinkie from a spear of asparagus. Get a load of this:

Some drivers have even turned to private trainers. Kevin Melton, 39, a trucker in Black Mountain, N.C., used to snack on Snickers bars and three or four Little Debbie pies a day while driving. His weight shot to 260, his joints and back ached, and his cholesterol was “through the roof.”

Two years ago, he began working with Chadwick Slagle, a trainer. Together they devised a nutrition plan: Mr. Melton now eats five meals a day, drinks water instead of soft drinks, and snacks on fruit and nuts. He wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to exercise, running on a treadmill or around a parking lot. He now weighs about 200 pounds and hopes to get down to 190.

He has had to rethink some of his beliefs. “You hear Snickers are healthy because of the nuts, that they give you energy,” he said. “But when you read the label you realize they’re surrounded by caramel.”

Admittedly, I'm no trucker, although I've seen every episode of B.J. and the Bear and my dad had a CB installed in our station wagon when I was a kid. However, I've known a few truckers and I've found them be nice, salt-of-the earth guys. I don't think they're genetically predisposed to being that ignorant, so I'm going to blame their schooling. It's swell that schools across the country have an annual assembly where some dude comes into the auditorium dressed like a corn cob and tells kids to eat fruit, but that's not education. That's a side show. While they're being quizzed on the food groups in the class room, they're being fed refined, processed, fried rubbish in the lunch room. We need to take our kids nutritional education seriously and that can only happen via their digestive systems. People learn by doing.

So that's where you come into the equation, Congress-types. From the AP:

Congress wants to keep pizza and french fries on school lunch lines, fighting back against an Obama administration proposal to make school lunches healthier.

The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year, which included limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line and delaying limits on sodium and delaying a requirement to boost whole grains.

The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to prevent that.

Food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes, and some conservatives in Congress say the federal government shouldn't be telling children what to eat.

Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee said the changes would "prevent overly burdensome and costly regulations and to provide greater flexibility for local school districts to improve the nutritional quality of meals."

Honestly? Remember how the Reagan administration wanted to make ketchup count as a veggie? It turned out to be a recommendation that's been mocked by nutritionists for generations now. I can't believe you're doing it all over again. It's like Groundhog Day meets Super Size Me.

My daughter goes to a public school and, as much as I respect the education she's getting, her school district does an astonishingly shitty job of providing healthy food. I know a lot of people fear the Nanny State, but they had their chance and they blew it. It's time for the government to step in and see to it that our children eat right.

And don't give me the whole budgetary excuse. You're Congress, remember? If schools can't afford proper foods for our children, give them more money. You're running a country where 1/3 of the population is obese and grown men don't understand that candy bars are candy. How is this not something you need to address?

So, to repeat, is the case that you're as ignorant as poor Kevin, or is it a matter of you being too evil to put party politics aside and draw the line with food industry lobbyists?

Which is it?

Love,

The Real Fitness Nerd