At yesterday’s Martin Luther King Jr. service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga, some of Mike Huckabee’s big-government impulses got a nod from Bill Clinton. As Huckabee sat stoically with a painful look on his face, Clinton quipped, “We don’t much agree on anything . . . But we worked together for several years on something that concerns everybody in this church: trying to turn the tide on childhood obesity and childhood diabetes.”
Certainly, it is sensible to pay attention to children’s health, but Huckabee’s foray into one Arkansas children’s anti-obesity program was anything but sensible. A Sept. 11, 2007 Arkansas Democrat Gazette article, reported the history of Act 1220 of 2003, which mandated that four years of “body mass” data be collected from Arkansas students to determine whether or not they were obese. The individual student data was later sent home to parents for review. State Surgeon General Joe Thompson admitted that “protocols” for collecting the data at various schools were varied during those four years, which of course, means inaccurate analyses.
The Gazette further reported that “The percentages of children considered overweight or at risk of becoming overweight inched up in Arkansas … from 17.1 percent in 2005-2006 to 17.2 percent in 2006-2007.” Huckabee’s goal was to “reduce the percentage of obese children to 5 percent by January 2007.” And as for the fiscal management, Thompson said he didn’t know how much the program cost. Where is the accountability?
Later in 2007, Arkansas Act 201 changed Huckabee’s original law in favor of taking the body mass index less frequently. At the same time it gave parents the right to opt their children out of the measurements. Ironically, Act 201 began originally as HB1773 which intended to repeal the original Act 1220 of 2003. So why is Arkansas now letting parents opt their children out of the program and taking the body mass index less frequently? The Gazette says “the measurements hurt kids’ self esteem and haven’t accomplished much.”
So let’s recap this boondoggle: For about four years Arkansas set aside parental rights by not letting students opt out of the body mass program; it failed at collecting accurate data; it completely missed its goal; it didn’t accomplish much, and it couldn’t judge how much the program ultimately cost the taxpayer. Then, this inept, failed, government program is finally sidetracked by the pop psychology pitch of “self-esteem” not because it has created a foolish program. What a way to run a government. Who knew Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee shared so much in common? Parents do the best job of monitoring their children’s health not the state. Lord preserve us from the pet projects of the 2008 presidential candidates should they be elected president.
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