So I was driving in to school, to park far off from the university where I could park for free all day, but before I could get to this parking place along the residential road was a public school. At the time students were being bused home, as I droved passed the school just one block I was stuck behind a school bus, it stopped and to my horror I saw several fat children get off the bus! "Holy fuck!" I thought, "They are one fucking block from school! Why the fuck are they on a bus?!?! This must be why these kids are so fucking fat!!!" and as I was trying to figure out how these kids must have dreaded walking so much that they would rather get on a school bus, wait for ten minutes for it to leave the school and then travel one block down and drop them off, the bus stopped again just two blocks down from the school, I could see the school in my mirror and it was in fact slightly up hill so the tubby children could have very well rolled home, and yet the bus open its doors and dropped off more obese children, I started screaming "AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH! *BOOM!*"
my head exploded once and. it kinda sucked; made a mess. though i did learn a lot while i was putting the pieces back together. if it's any consolation, i don't think people are going to have the luxury of obesity much longer.
actually the bus ride has very little to do with the reason why they're over weight. It has more to do with the other 99.99% of their lives spent on computers, video games, eating junk, texting and watching TV. Obviously it's the parent's who are the real problem. What's the answer? Not sure. If there were intellectual trade offs for such slovenly lives it would be worth something but Like,OMG, that doesn't appear to be the case. And just think, you may be required to support this behavior and the health care costs associated very soon.
Hmm Fodder for fat (boot) camp. You've got enough materiel there for a tv show! How far is a block, 1/4mile? Sheesh!
well that's true but i think it won't be long until we're all pretty much in the same boat, and nobody's going to be getting fat.
The reasons for the epidemic of obesity are many and complex. Aggressive marketing of unhealthy food products, substituting food for love, de-emphasizing of personal health and fitness, societal glorification of obese individuals, poor examples set by parents, common acceptance of a sedentary lifestyle, lack of education on healthy lifestyle choices, vicarious sports exercise, casual acceptance of obesity and poor lifestyle by insurers and similar.
During my Youth in the UK, Parent's would have to pay for a bus pass if the bus was collecting children from within 5 miles of the school, this caused a number of problems as obviously when picking a school most parents will want a free bus, so I got sent miles out of the way to a school I actually disliked purely because the bus was free. Perhaps a similar sort of incentive system is required, where by kids that are close have to pay to ride the bus, this means they would have less pocket money to spend on junk foods. Other methods is "Free Bicycles" for children that are only a short distance of the school, obviously they would have to be made a specific way so they can't be resold, perhaps Google (or some other large company) should fund it. Okay it's still not making them walk, but they still have to exercise to get somewhere.
Based on the OP it would appear EF that you were making the assumption that that bus was letting off kids from that school, but it may have been from an entirely different school. I know of no School bus system that starts picking up/dropping off kids 1 block from the school. All the bus systems I've dealt with (4) had a minimum distance they provided service for, but the shortest distance was 1/2 mile and that was for elementary school in a small town that had few sidewalks. Where I live now (more urban) the school bus criteria are: So EF, have you checked what the minimum distances are for your school district and does it say 1 block or more? Arthur