Why frummies don’t learn about the food pyramid
Annie offered a few reasons why the haredim don’t eat right, and why they are so fat. One was particularly interesting,
Health and welfare classes don’t seem to be taught in Beis Yaakov schools or comparable Yeshivot. Kids don’t learn about the food pyramid or other health related information, as parents are worried that sex ed info will get snuck in there.
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I don’t think it has to do with sex ed. It has to do with they barely can cover the most rudimentary English, math, science and social studies given the time, budgetary and attitudinal constraints.
A female Bobov friend of mine told me girls in BP don’t learn about healthy nutrition as it clashes with the spouse-appealing anorexic look they (and their mothers) aim for. I know that statement is pretty sarcastic, but there seems to be some truth to it. Skinny / Scrawny is mistaken for healthy.
Got to agree with Ron for once; “secular studies” can take up as little as two lessons per week to fulfil the minimum criteria for public funding.
I think it’s because of the reactionary “If the goyim think it’s a good idea, we must avoid it.”
I agree that sex ed probably has nothing to do with it.
And besides, the food pyramid is no more about health than kashrus is.
Do you really want US Department of Agriculture wing of the industrialized ag-business indoctrinating kids about being good food consumers?
Please — look at the overfed and undernourished masses of Americans fed crunchy colored sugar “Fortified with 9 essential vitamins and minerals!”
Part of a complete healthy breakfast. yeah right!
It’s nothing more than a cover for pushing crap at
The pyramid and kashrus: food fundamentalism. easy to digest symbols. eat this shit. don’t ask any questions. we know what’s good for you.
It would be nice if yeshivas encouraged a more healthy relationship with food. But the food pyramid? It’s no better than Triangle-K.
David I love you dearly. Please don’t let your experience with ignorant orthodoxy limit your keen insight.
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http://ajsender.wordpress.com/
The comment about sex ed was sort of sarcastic.
However, even if you disagree with the food pyramid, it does tell you to eat in proportion, and that vegetables/fruits are necessary. Yeah, you probably don’t need that much milk (unless you are a kid, nursing mother, or woman over 40), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good baseline.
Oh, well this is for sure a uniquely haredi problem that we’ve found here, then!
I’m sorry, I didn’t read the sarcasm in your comment, Annie.
Yes. Fruits and veggies are nice.
But putting them into the pyramid doesn’t make for a good baseline any more than lacing Fruity Pebbles with vitamins makes it a baseline for a nutritious breakfast.
We are being poisoned for the sake of profit. And the only way we’d be willing to swallow it is if we are also sold ideas about what nutrition is.
Don’t get me wrong–I’m not claiming some nefarious explicit conspiracy here. It’s simply the natural outcome of a system we’ve created that funnels all human values through the bottom line.
Nutrition has no value unless it can be sold. There’s no column in our corpocracy ledger for health unless we can turn it into the health industry.
While humans care for each other, a health industry needs customers, not a healthy community.
Once again, not some grand conspiracy. And not personal to individuals working in various fields doing whatever they think is best.
It’s just the natural outgrowth of our human tendency to grab onto and therefore be blinded by -isms.
Education is no different — our minds are just another resource to adapt and mine for greater profits.
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Wow…that’s way more words than I’ve written in a long time…
I think it’s a little weird to debate why the haredim don’t learn about the food pyramid, when most secular kids don’t really learn about it, either. Poor nutrition is hardly a problem unique to haredim.
That said, while I agree with //\J that the food industry does a lot of harm to American (and global) nutrition, the food pyramid actually is a pretty good guide to decent nutrition. Fruity pebbles have no place in the pyramid, which is about eating lots of real food (whole grains, veggies, fruits, dairy, protein), not vitamin-fortified sugar cereal.
But the food pyramid? It’s no better than Triangle-K.
Why? Because it’s also maligned for reasons that no one has produced the information to support?
I see.
TheMicah- as a proud graduate of a suburban, middle-of-nowhere public school, I can say that I did learn about the food pyramid. It is on NY State Regents (or whatever the elementary school version is called) and I asked a girlfriend who is a primary school teacher, and she says that it is taught.
AJ-I agree that the food pyramid is the result of some very clever lobbying of DC by the farmers and growers of America, but I don’t agree that it isn’t a good baseline. If used correctly it can teach about proportions, portion control, and many other health-related issues.
The food pyramid may be partially a result of food producer lobbying and finagling, but we don’t fault the Talmud for being printed by Artscroll. He who produces the physical product concerned has a vested stake in the thing the product embodies. In the case of food, that’s the pleasure of eating which induces us to buy it.
But, the pyramid is healthier than let’s say not actually caring about it at all. If there are deviations from it provable by biological/medical studies it at least provides a nice baseline for exploring that in class and motivating the kids to actually think about what they eat.
It should be learned and explored by all human school children.
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