A postscript to yesterday's thoughts

I realized after posting yesterday that I was mixing up some facts and some generalizations, and leaving out some things, too.

First of all, when I say something like, "Everyone bottle feeds," that's not really a fully accurate statement. I have no idea what everyone does. I can report that I've never seen anyone breastfeeding, but what do I know? Maybe there's some cultural taboo against breastfeeding in public and maybe everyone is feeding their babies breastmilk in a bottle.

Second, B pointed out that we have little idea of what our students eat at home. It could be the case that they get mostly nutritious meals at home, and it's only at gatherings that all this unhealthy snacking is going on. In either case, it's still distressing to see a community consume so much unhealthy food, but I certainly don't have the full picture and shouldn't pretend to.

Third, the consumption of unhealthy food is a result of a number of events, most significant among those being the presence of western culture. I can assure you that no Yup'ik person ever smoked or chewed tobacco, or drank soda, or ate M&M's, before the qassaqs arrived. To me this doesn't serve as an excuse for parents to let their kids eat lots of unhealthy food, but it does create a more full context for this problem, and shares the responsibility around.

And speaking of sharing the responsibility around, we also need to look at where the food is coming from - not historically, but currently. Both stores in town sell nearly all processed foods, which includes tons of soda and candy. And guess what's for sale at the school store? Soda and candy - oh, and chips. And if it's a special event like a movie night, we'll throw in popcorn and ice cream, too. I find this especially terrible coming from the school. The stores are out to make a profit (and it's not within the scope of this blog post to tackle the myriad problems of capitalism), and candy and pop sell. The school store has a greater responsibility, to my mind. I know that trying to sell fresh fruits is a difficult if not impossible proposition here, but I'm certain we could replace chips and candy bars with dried fruit, pretzels, or graham crackers. Still processed foods, yes, but so much better. Then there's also the fact that in this state (I don't know about other states or federal law) recipients of public assistance can spend their food stamps on snack foods like soda, chips, and candy.

My point is, there's a lot of nuance here that I think I missed last night.