Question: There are 57 peaches hanging from a tree. Four of them are beautiful and ripe; 53 of them are rotten.
True or false: All 57 of the peaches on this tree are rotten, so the tree is fruitless.
If you answered “true”, a career in journalism may be awaiting you. On the front page of Thursday’s Miami Herald: "Feds Fruitless In Getting Kids Off Junk Food." The gist of the story is that despite the federal government spending more than $1 billion this past year on nutrition education, an Associated Press review of scientific studies examining 57 of these programs shows “mostly failure…Just four showed any real success in changing the way kids eat -- or any promise as weapons against the growing epidemic of childhood obesity.” The article runs about 1,000 words, and details the numerous obstacles and disappointments that school nutrition programs at the 53 schools have encountered. Not a single word is mentioned, however, about those four programs that showed “real success”. Guess we wouldn’t want the secret of that success to leak out, as before you know it other schools would be copycatting the effective programs, and then those schools might become effective too, and then it would become more difficult for the APto put a negative spin on efforts to improve childhood eating habits. --Lee Klein
