Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9504060013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Blame the schools, blame the guvmint. Round up all the usual suspects.
But if American children, ages 7 to 11, have developed horrible health habits, and are courting cancer and other diseases, not to mention tooth decay, shouldn't their parents take part of the rap?
To be sure, the survey findings reported last week by the American Health Foundation are troubling. Kids, the survey suggests, aren't eating fruit and vegetables every day, and aren't brushing their teeth. Many of them don't fasten their seat belts when riding in a car, and don't wear safety helmets when riding bicycles.
Among sixth-graders, a goodly number have smoked cigarettes, and even more have tried beer, wine and hard liquor.
Parents can't always be with their children, of course, checking to make sure they're not sneaking a cigarette or sips of booze.
And parents are up against enormously powerful, pervasive enemies, from the boob tube and mass culture to peer pressure and tobacco and snack-food ads.
Even so, can't parents do a better job regulating what their kids ingest, from commercial television to between-meal snacks? Can't they do a better job teaching their children good health habits, and why these are important?
We can provide healthy foods in the home and make sure the children are eating it, not just filling up on junk food. We can insist the kids brush their teeth. And floss.
And wear seat belts and safety helmets. Few things are quite so depressing as pulling up to a stoplight and seeing children unbuckled in the next car. Parents need to take their responsibilities seriously.
We'll grant that, when it comes to smoking, parents may need more help. Cigarette companies, the evidence suggests, have been using targeted marketing to lure ever younger people into addiction. (Someone, after all, has to replace adult customers dying from tobacco-related causes - about 400,000 Americans every year.) The Food and Drug Administration has gone so far as to label nicotine addiction a ``pediatric disease.''
Still, somebody's buying the stuff, and using it. No one's forcing them to.
We need tougher enforcement of laws against selling tobacco to minors. Higher excise taxes - especially in Virginia, which has the lowest cigarette tax in the country - also would help. Studies have shown that smoking drops among adolescents, who are more price-sensitive than adults, when the habit's cost rises significantly.
Needed, too, are public-information campaigns to match the sophistication of an industry that has made ``Joe Camel'' a cartoon favorite of preadolescents.
Yet, even with smoking, we need to understand that nothing that government or schools or anyone else might do can ever match the influence at home, in the family, from parents.
by CNB