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James D. Weill

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FRAC Response to Rush Limbaugh's Summer Food Comment

Posted: 06/18/10 04:24 PM ET

When schools close their doors for the summer, millions of low-income children lose access to school meals. Hunger spikes in the summer months, and so does childhood obesity when kids don't get healthy school breakfast and lunch. It's likely that this summer will even be worse for families still reeling from the recession. Fortunately, there are programs that exist that help many -- but not enough low-income children get healthy lunches when school is out.

In his comments, Rush Limbaugh suggests that children instead should seek cheap fast food or dumpster-dive to stave off hunger in the summer. Limbaugh's strained efforts to be provocative and over-the-top are neither insightful nor humorous. When the great satirist and cleric Jonathan Swift suggested in A Modest Proposal that starving Irish parents should sell their children as food to the rich, he did so with a moral purpose and moral clarity that has resonated down through the ages. When Limbaugh suggests children dumpster-dive, belittling the situation of hungry kids in America, he positions himself at the opposite end of the human spectrum from Swift. Swift's satire closes by mock-condemning such solutions as "taxing... introducing prudence and temperance... learning to love our country ... [and] quitting our animosities." Limbaugh's stance, in contrast, is to actually belittle human decency.

 
 
 
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12:56 AM on 06/19/2010
He went over the top on his rant show with his attack on children in need. He probably has no compassion for the school programs that offer meals to children in need.

He hides behind his microphone spewing venom and hate, lives in his walled 40,000 square foot private village, and from the looks of him has never missed a happy meal. He is a poor excuse for a person and I'm wondering why he's still a citizen. He promised America that if health care passed he would move to Costa Rica. I was really counting on that.
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LukeTunyich
Biomechanics and Health
06:31 PM on 06/18/2010
Quote:
“Hunger spikes in the summer months, and so does childhood obesity when kids don't get healthy school breakfast and lunch.”

The fact that children on average gain more weight trough skull holidays doesn’t mean that children eating more or that they are eating less healthy food. Some another factor is responsible for increased weight over schools holidays.

The fact is that obesity effect the great percentage of adults’ population clearly shows that the causes for obesity misunderstood.

Before any future campaign to combat obesity it is necessary to re-examine the basic science of weight gain – weight loss.

The solution for obesity is laying in the real understanding of the cause for obesity. It needs to bear in mind, that apart form last a few decades; obesity in children was unknown to any previous generation in recorded history.

The established scientists in the field of obesity and the government officials involved in prevention of obesity have to confront with the fact that the basic science of obesity is wrong! …. Let’s talk about that!

The basic science of obesity is embarrassing wrong! … Let’s talk about that... After that we can talk why children are more affected with obesity over school holidays and as well we can talk about all other issues related to the cause, prevention and cure for obesity.

Luke Tunyich
http://www.biomechanicsandhealth.com/
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propitiousmoment
the journey is the destination....
07:25 PM on 06/18/2010
The problem is that cheap food is loaded with too many calories and not enough nutrition. Big agro has completely taken over our food supply and with the help of long-term mass marketing campaigns, sells the least value for the highest prices. In the absence of greater emphasis on organic and locally produced food, I'm not sure the stuff these kids get when they are in school is much better for them. But at least they do not have to pick it out of the trash can to get something to eat. Rush and all his cohort are a bunch of tools.
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LukeTunyich
Biomechanics and Health
08:40 PM on 06/18/2010
The fact that obesity is more prevalent among children from low socioeconomic background is not sufficient evidence to make conclusion that obese children consuming food “with too many calories and not enough nutrition”

Obesity is more prevalent among children from lower socioeconomic background, but on the other hand autism is just one of many conditions that are more prevalent among children from higher socioeconomic background.

Before any conclusion why children from lower socioeconomic background are more affected with obesity let’s talk about the basic science of weight gain/weight loss.
04:59 PM on 06/18/2010
It would be a good gesture, if he gets wind of this, for Elton John to donate the $1 million he earned from playing Rush's wedding, toward feeding the hungry.
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propitiousmoment
the journey is the destination....
07:20 PM on 06/18/2010
Rush & Elton - two people I totally cannot stand. Also Elton John's music.
04:30 PM on 06/18/2010
Limbaugh's comments are designed solely to promote Limbaugh.
I guess he got you.
I didn't know his comment existed until I read your blog.
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mommadona
I paint. I blog. Therefore, I am.
04:50 PM on 06/18/2010
Exactly. ANY attention is good attention to a misanthropic shockjock