Teresa Mull

The new school year is just a few weeks away, and that can only mean one thing: right on cue, school districts are once again bemoaning a “lack of funding.” It’s the same story every year. Along with notices advertising the local high school drama department’s production of Grease come headlines announcing the school district is in dire straits and schools will literally fall to pieces if they aren’t pumped full of life-saving funding, stat. Year after year, it’s the same old song and dance: school funding increases, and the next year they need even more. Why is it never enough, though, and where does all the money go?

Being overweight, unless you’re a sixteenth-century Rubens model, ain’t the thing. But looking at America, where more than two-thirds of people are obese or overweight, you’d think thin is definitely not in. It’s well known extra pounds increase a person’s chance of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, along with the general discomfort of carrying around extra heft for which your frame wasn’t designed. Being overweight is also linked to increased cancer risk, and the New York Post reports: “In all, thirteen types of [cancer] were previously known to be associated with overweight body types — but now, that number has climbed to eighteen different cancers. And the risk of developing cancer begins when people are young — between the ages eighteen and forty.

Celebrity chef John Mountain made headlines last week for banning vegans from his restaurant, Fyre, citing “mental health reasons,” reportedly because a vegan customer complained about Fyre’s lack of plant-based menu options. Meanwhile, a vegan landlord in New York City forbids tenants from cooking meat in his $5,750-a-month apartments. What’s the deal with vegans? Are they all self-obsessed, birdseed-eating eco-warriors who are only able to wash down “cheese” made of arrowroot with a massive dose of ego? Or are they disciplined, clean-living champions whose commitment to the cause merits our admiration and imitation? Had you asked me my opinion of vegans a few years ago, I would have scoffed and made a soy boy joke.

The American Medical Association just announced its adoption of a head-scratching new policy that seems to be aimed not so much at improving people’s health, but at appearing sensitive and “woke.” The new policy is “aimed at clarifying how body mass index can be used as a measure in medicine.” BMI, apparently, has a “problematic history” because it “does not account for differences across race/ethnic groups, sexes, genders and age-span.” “BMI,” explains the Centers for Disease Control site (for now — they may not be up to “woke” speed just yet), “is a simple, inexpensive and noninvasive surrogate measure of body fat.