Mulling over Mike Powell to Steve Asher 20 Jul 2005

>One in five English secondary schools makes use of basic smart card
>systems for meal payment. This takes cash out of schools and reduces
>queuing times. The cafeteria at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School
>routinely serves around 1000 diners aged 7-16 and their system was
>upgraded for the study. For over a year, a full electronic audit was
>made of every transaction that took place and each food chosen was
>converted to its nutrient composition.

 MP> With the younger kids, in particular, there is no proof that they
 MP> actually ate what they bought.

While that is true, there are a number of issues raised in the use
of "smart cards", the collection of data, and secondary uses of the
data.

In my day, it was common for one or two of us to be given the task of
collecting the lunch orders from classmates, taking the money & orders
to the canteen, & returning shortly before lunch with the food & change.

I don't recall any major problems with theft, loss, bullying, unhealthy
choices etc. It was largely our pocket money; we were free to buy
whatever we felt like. The people collecting & studying smart card
data apparently have no concept of privacy and confidentiality; it
is noone's business but the child or the parent or guardian what
the child eats for lunch.

This is the sort of nonsense that people come up with to "encourage"
"healthy eating" ... a "junk food tax"....


Urgent call to tax junk food
Professor Brian Morris, Discipline of Physiology
Source: Herald Sun, Melbourne 18 March 2005

    A junk food tax should be introduced to encourage healthy eating
and boost the lifespan of a generation of children at risk of becoming
obese, Professor Morris (Medicine) said yesterday. Professor Morris
said research from the US suggested childhood obesity would lower life
expectancy as wars, flu epidemics and AIDS had done. Professor Morris
said a junk food tax should be introduced similar to cigarettes to
encourage people to buy healthy food. He said Australia's obesity
problem is as great as the US and junk food 'is killing the
population'.


Source - University of Sydney
http://www.medfac.usyd.edu.au/news/innews/2005/mar.php

Cheers, Steve..

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