Editor: An excerpt from a recent newsletter from a school in the Langley district reads: “(Due to) provincial policy, students are not permitted to bringt pop/soft drinks, candy etc. to school. We know that nutrition impacts children’s ability to learn . . . At school, we are not permitted to sell or provide ‘unhealthy’ options and we ask that all families please comply with the provincial regulations please.”
Yet the same newsletter requested support for McHappy day the next week. We have all seen Supersize Me, so I need not extoll the lack of nutrition from fast food meals.
The newsletter went on: “The Langley School District Foundation’s proposal for $10,000 to support PALS (Parents as Literacy Supporters) has been approved by Pepsi, and is now featured on their www.refresheverything.ca.”
So you can’t bring these products to school, however somewhere in secret there is a whole cabal of Pepsi drinkers who may or may not be amongst you.
So which is it? I am so tired of how public institutions claim to espouse virtuous standards, and yet most are more concerned with the image of integrity than with integrity in and of itself, or the practice of it.
What are we really teaching our children at the end of the day? Is it that hypocrisy is a viable option, where money is involved? For the greater good?
Obesity kills people, hypocrisy kills morale and when the two intermingle, it is for the greatest good — greed.
Colleen Crawford,
Langley
