Politics: Feds spend $500,000 to study whether mother-daughter dancing can cure obesity
Published by: Herman Cain on Sunday July 13th, 2014
Herman Cain
And the worst part is: It's not the first time.
I told you on the radio Friday that the National Institutes for Health had spent nearly $500,000 on a study to see if getting mothers to dance with their daughters could help reduce obesity. I even offered to help the federal government out by recording a promo – for only 500 bucks, mind you! – saying, “Put down that pork chop and no one gets hurt! Back away from the banana pudding!”
That’s how you cure obesity!
But there is more to the story. This particular study, conducted with the aforementioned federal grant to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, was aimed at African-American girls with the theory that those in the lower-income, urban setting might be more likely to retreat from physical activity, so maybe they would do more of it if their parents were involved.
Thus the idea of teaching mothers and daughters to engage in “Afro-Centric” dance together.
Hey, why not? It’s only a half a million dollars, right?
Wait. Here’s a reason why not. The federal government has tried this before, and they already know it doesn’t work! Fox News reports:
The government has spent $11,158,004 on similar projects examining dancing as an obesity prevention method for minority groups since 1999.
Dr. Tom Robinson, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University, has led two multi-million dollar studies focused on African-American and Latina girls and the “innovative” way to get them to lose weight by dancing.
The first study was conducted between 1999 and 2006, at a total cost of $6,802,779.
For two years the project followed over 200 low-income African-American 8- to 10-year-old girls and their families who participated in after-school hip-hop, African, and step dance classes. Robinson conducted “in-home surveys” of the families, and measured their “height, weight, skinfold thicknesses, [and] waist and hip circumferences.”
The results of the study were not promising with regard to obesity.
“A culturally tailored after-school dance and screen time reduction intervention for low-income, preadolescent African American girls did not significantly reduce BMI gain compared with health education but did produce potentially clinically important reductions in lipid levels, hyperinsulinemia, and depressive symptoms,” results posted in the National Library of Medicine read.
So on the basis of $11 million the government has already spent, we already know that government programs to encourage young girls to dance do not reduce obesity. I could have told them that and saved them the $11 million, but whatever. Now we know. No reason to spend any more money on studies like this.
Except that we did go ahead and spend more money on a study like this. And we will probably do it again.
Now some of you will point out, and fairly enough, that this was not solely a Democrat boondoogle, as the original study was initiated during the Clinton Administration and proceeded through more than half the Bush Administration. It’s true. President Obama did not sit in the Oval Office and think up this idea (nor, I’m sure, did President Clinton or President Bush). But that is not the point. The point is that government has a maddening tendency to throw away money on nonsense like this. Professional bureaucrats are constantly looking for new excuses to fund the latest study or concept to try to solve your problems, because they are convinced you can’t solve them yourself.
And the reason this matters in a political sense is that the political class is convinced big government can come up with solutions to every problem that ever existed, provided the rich pay enough taxes and we continue to elect the party of big government to keep these big ideas rolling right along.
http://www.caintv.com/feds-spend-500000-to-study-wheI’d just like to remind you that the government in which these people invest so much confidence is the one that spends millions to find out if you can cure obesity by getting girls to dance. And then, after finding out you cannot, spends more money on another study seeking the exact same information.
I think I’ll just stick with my original strategy: Put down the pork chop, and no one gets hurt!
