A philosophical question...

A number of situations have come up lately and have me coming back over and over to the same question.

The question is, what exactly do we owe to other people, especially where our health is concerned?

What I mean is, it is very common for people to have opinions about how others should live their lives. What we should be "allowed" to eat, what we should be "allowed" to do or not do that might by some estimations be "bad for us".

Fat people are often scolded publicly for eating "bad" foods.
(Yeah, believe it or not, it's pretty common!) Pizza, ice cream, chips...all foods that are OK for thin people, but let a fat person indulge in public and the scolding food police start in.

But it's not just a fat issue. It's also the elderly.

My friend John loves to run. He has done so every day for, oh, sixty years or something. Running is a big part of how John sees himself.

About 18 months ago, he started toppling over while he was running and he has, several times, done himself serious injuries in his falls. Now the hospital is pressuring John's son, Bill, to put John in assisted living so that he can be prevented from hurting himself.

I certainly understand that instinct to protect him. Really, I do. Especially for strangers who see him persisting in running though he's 80 years old and has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and he hurts himself sometimes when he runs.

But I also look into John's face as he contemplates a life in which he is not only not being able to run, but also "trapped forever" in what he perceives as a prison. The pain I see there is very sobering.

The people who think that John should just stop running don't know him well. They don't understand what running means to him. Bill does understand, but he also loves his father and hates to see him hurt.

I am relieved to see that Bill is looking for a less draconian answer to the problem than incarceration, but I also see the tough spot he is in. Aside from the quandary his own feelings provide , if he doesn't seem to be trying to stop John from hurting himself, as John's guardian he can be seen as legally negligent and interpreted as not a very loving son if he doesn't act to limit John's ability to hurt himself, when my experience of him suggests that Bill loves his father and is as devoted to him as a son can be! Bill understands the pain that never running again will cause to his father and he seeks to find the Sacred Middle Way.

And yet, if John were 30 years old and persisted in bungee jumping or diving into lakes or rivers off bridges (both inherently more dangerous than running) people might cluck, but no one would be insisting that he had to be stopped.

John has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and I'm sure the day may come when he really doesn't understand the danger inherent in his choice to run. In that case, though he will no doubt be angry with me, I would agree that he would not be in a position to make a meaningful choice. Right now, though, that doesn't seem to be the case. In talking with him, I am pretty clear that John acknowledges that running is a dangerous choice, but the pleasure it brings him when it goes well (far more often than when it doesn't) is, to him, worth the risk he takes .

This matter of our "responsibility" to others where our health is concerned has been on my mind a lot. As a fat diabetic, I find that a lot of people seem to have an opinion about what I should be eating and doing. Maybe that colours my opinions and makes them more "libertarian" than they might otherwise be.

I am irritated with how often the press implies that we all *must* follow the latest advise about how to live forever in our little cotton-wool worlds and I am even more dismayed at how pervasive that opinion seems to be. What of a life worth living? What about the fact that life not only shouldn't be risk free - -it *can't* be risk free. No matter what we do, there are risks. (Even if you never leave your own home, you could find a truck coming through the bedroom wall or an airplane coming through your roof. Improbable, yes, but still possible; just read the paper.)

So, what do you think...how much do we owe other people in making choices about our lives? Do we owe it to the people who love us to try to live absolutely safe lives for as long as possible?

The Eater's Agreement by Marc David

I hereby agree, from this day forward, to fully participate in life on earth. I agree to inhabit the appropriate vehicle for such participation - a body. As a requisite for the sustaining of that body, and of the life that dwells therein, I agree to be an eater. This agreement fully binds me for the duration of my stay on earth.

As an eater, I agree to hunger.

I agree to have a body that needs food. I agree to eat food. I recognize that as the biological need to eat is fulfilled with greater awareness and efficiency, the benefits of my well-being will increase. I further acknowledge that ignorance of the eating process may cause undesirable consequences.

Because the essence of my participation in life is one of learning and exploration, I agree to experience uncertainty as an eater. I recognize there are a great variety of foods to choose from, and I may not know which to eat. I may have a choice of different nutritional approaches, and not know which to follow. I may have an assortment of habits, and not know how to manage them. I recognize that my relationship to food is a learning process, and I will inevitably make mistakes. Therefore, as an eater, I agree to accept my humanness and learn as I go along.

I acknowledge that as the body changes from infancy to old age, so will the eating process change. I recognize that my body may call for different foods as the days, seasons, and years progress. My dietary needs will also shift in accord with changes in my life-style and environment. I understand that there is no one perfect diet.

As an eater, I accept pain.

I recognize that I may suffer pain when the body is disturbed by my choice of food or eating habits. I may also experience pain when emotional and spiritual hungers are confused with physical hunger. I further understand that eating to cure a pain that cannot be remedied by eating may bring even more pain. I further agree to accept a body that is imperfect and vulnerable, that naturally decays with the passage of time. I recognize there will be moments when I am incapable of caring for it myself. I agree, then, that to live in a body is to need the help of others. I also agree to be vulnerable as an eater. I acknowledge that I will be helpless as an infant and will need to be fed. I may be equally helpless when I am old and unwell. I further recognize that even when I am fully capable, I may still need the warmth and care of someone who can feed me. Therefore, as an eater, I agree to be nourished by others.

If I have a woman's body, I acknowledge that I have a special relationship to eating and nourishment. I recognize that as a giver of life, I am the nourisher of life as well. Whether through my cooking or the milk of my body, I acknowledge that the union of food and love is a quality that marks my womanhood and has a profound effect on human-kind.

As an eater, I acknowledge the domain of the sacred. I recognize that the act of eating may be ritualized and inspired. It may be given symbolic meanings that are religious or spiritual in nature. It may even be joyous

I further agree that eating is an activity that joins me with all humanity. I recognize that to be an eater is to be accountable for the care of the earth and its resources. I acknowledge that despite our differences, we are all ultimately nourished by the same source. As such, I agree to share.

I recognize that at its deepest level, eating is an affirmation of life. Each time I eat, I agree somewhere inside to continue life on earth. I acknowledge that this choice to eat is a fundamental act of love and nourishment, a true celebration of my existence. As a human being on earth, I agree to be an eater. I choose life again and again...

An Open Letter to the Scholastic Company

19 November 2007

Scholastic Worldwide Headquarters
557 Broadway
New York, New York 10012

Dear Madam or Sir:

We have just received another invitation to a homeschool book sale event. Sadly, we will not be accepting your invitation, though we have in the past. Nor will we be buying Scholastic books for our home classroom on our adventures in other book stores.

As a mother, grandmother, and home educator, I am dismayed at Scholastic’s decision to partner with Kaiser Permanente to offer The Incredible Adventures of the Amazing Food Detective video game. Although I cannot belive that your company is really aware of it, the hate-mongering and interpersonal intolerance encouraged by this game are extremely offensive to our famiy's values, as is the promotion of the long-discredited pseudo-science on which this game bases its “facts”. I do not and can not believe that the Scholastic Company of my youth, the company that first introduced me to the idea of diversity, could knowingly be a part of distributing the bigotry and misinformation conveyed by this game.

Here’s an example I have borrowed from nutrition researcher Sandy Szwarc:

“The Food Detective game invites kids to click on the ‘AFD Case Files’ of various ‘Suspects:’ children who are supposedly behaving badly. The fat little 10-year old girl is Emily. The game tells kids that Emily is fat because ‘she eats too much and needs to learn portion control.’ The food detective sets up a security cam in her house ‘to catch the culprit in the act’ and she is shown gobbling nonstop a table of fattening foods and a chart shows her eating a whopping 4,550 [kilo]calories.”

My first objection is to the inculcation of the idea that it is somehow OK to snoop in other people's homes or into other people's personal habits with the excuse that one is "saving them from themselves". From there, it is a short step to teasing in the school lunchroom because of what "Emily's" real life analog has in her lunch today. What other people eat should not be the concern of anyone else - - and certainly not of children! My second objection is to point out that there is no scientific consensus about what causes people to get fat. Research has long disproved the idea that people get fat because they overeat; while eating and exercise habits may play some role, research verifies over and over again that the human body is amazingly adaptable and that, given a state of reasonable health, it maintains its weight within a narrow weight range, regardless of activity or nutrition.

Sandy Szwarc again:

The DONALD (Dortmund Nutritional Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed) Study, for example, clinically followed children, actually weighing the individual children and recording their diets (the foods, amounts and eating occasions) at least ten times a year and followed them thusly for 17 years. They found that no matter what the children ate during childhood or adolescence, they naturally grew up to be a wide range of weights. While there were great differences in the children’s diets, these differences weren’t at all related to their weights.

One of the real conclusions drawn by recent research is that the bullying experienced by children who are considered ‘fat’ by their peers results in higher levels of depression, suicide, and disordered eating. A large and growing number of children -- of all sizes -- are at increasing risk of developing eating disorders because they are afraid of getting fat. More than half of women aged 18 to 25 have told researchers that they would rather be hit by a truck or lose a limb than be fat.

In light of this finding, this game psponsoroed the Scholastic Company is not just misguided, it is unethical!

Sadly, the game doesn’t just promote wrong-headed ideas about fat children. (Another child, Cole, is presented as a “weakling” and a problem case because he eats ‘junk food’.) Is there now to be only one 'correct' body type among children? What does this tell our kids about their classmates who are bigger or smaller than they are? And if we can’t tolerate a natural difference in size, how long will it be before handicapped and challenged children are blamed for their differences from the “ideal”?

Good nutrition and an active lifestyle are indeed important things to teach children about, for their future happiness and good health and there are many ways to teach children about eating good food and about loving healthy movement. This game, sadly, is far from one of them. The developers could so easily have used this game as a fun, non-judgemental way to teach kids about good nutrition without demonizing foods or fat kids. Shame does not engender healthful habits and bigotry can not give children a love of good food and joyful movement.

If, as I have long believed to be the case, Scholastic Company truly cares about the children to whom you sell books and other products, you must take a long, hard look at this video game and the bigotry it engenders and reconsider your involvement in it. Look instead, I beg you, to return to your tradition of positive encouragement for diversity and a fun approach to learning.

Until that day comes, I will not buy another Scholastic product and I will urge my fellow homeschoolers to look elsewhere for suppliers for their childrens educational needs.

Regards,
Misti Anslin Delaney
former Scholastic customer