"The problem is that selling high-fat sugar-laden cookies to an increasingly calorie-addicted populace is no longer congruent with [the Girl Scouts' aim to make the world a better place]... I spend my days telling patients to eat less, eat better and exercise... So to me it seems like the Girl Scouts are profiteering off an obvious public health problem."Wrote some heart doctor on his blog, but NPR returns to the concept that the cookies are a tradition.
April 1, 2014
Should the Girl Scouts give up cookie-selling?
"To some doctors and parents, the tradition increasingly feels out of step with the uncomfortable public health realities of our day," reports NPR.
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90 comments:
Grinches, the lot of them.
Somewhere, somehow, someone might be having fun and enjoying things.
We certainly can't have that!!
How about an option for “No, because f**k you that’s why.”
* No, because people need practice resisting sales pressure from busybody doctors.
There wasn't a choice for "No, because we are adults and if we want to buy a box or six of Thin Mint cookies, it's our own damn business, even though there are still two boxes in the freezer from last year."
I'd have voted for that.
Yes, because their parents are the ones who do it.
Stoutcat is one the right track.
The federal government should just pay the Girl Scouts not to sell the cookies. They could just take the money it has been giving NPR it give it to the Girl Scouts.
If we care about obesity, stop paying poor people to be fat and smoke.
The health Nazis need a new topic. Guns is not working out well.
Stoutcat, correct!
No because I am a F*CKING ADULT and if I can't say no to a F*CKING COOKIE then the country is truly in the SH*TER.
Really, WTF, Girl Scout cookies. Damn it, is there not ANYTHING that someone doesn't want other people to be able to choose if they want do partake or not? CRAP this stuff just Ts me off.
Somewhere deep within the bowels of HHS a staffer is working up a requirement to force insurance companies to charge higher premiums for girl scout cookie consumers.
Oh, let me guess, the Federal gov't would never abuse its power in just that way.
Oh, and Stoutcat, you are also correct in that the ONLY right way to eat Thin Mints is after they have been in the freezer for some time.
If only girl scout cookies could be "gay", then we would be forced to consume them, regardless of health consequences.
Yes, because the thin mints are black on the outside and white on inside. Uncle Tom cookies. Girl Scouts be racists.
//////////////////
No, because ... Food police.
I think the Girl Scouts should be required to give the cookies away for free. Why should I have to pay for them? They are denying me access. The Girl Scouts' rights end at my door when they ring the bell.
Health Services Detective "O": "So, where'd you come across the illegal contraband Mickey?"
Mickey: "Contraband? I don't know nuthin bout no contraband...or girl scout cookies neither."
Detective "S": "How'd you know about the cookies Mickey? We didn't mention any cookies...."
Mickey: "I don't know. I don't know. I, I musta read it in the papers. Yeah, that's it! I read it in the papers. Sure, sure, that's it. I read it in the papers......"(breaks down sobbing)
Camera pans out: Detectives Obama and Sebelius shake heads gravely.
If girl scout cookies can't be served with public school lunches, they shouldn't be sold anywhere. Young girls should not be pimping unhealthy foods that FLOTUS Michelle Obama has not approved. Besides, their cookies suck.
We worry because the cookies are harmful, not that what the cookies help fund might be killing the next generation in droves.
Funny world.
JOB
The health Nazis need a new topic.
Some familiar Nazis are boycotting the Girl Scouts.
An effort by Pro-Life Wisconsin to get anti-abortion supporters to boycott Girl Scout cookies is part of a national campaign by anti-abortion groups called "Cookiecott 2014.".
Look, the Girl Scouts have become the antithesis of their origin, just another pit of radfem ideology.
I don't care if they sell cookies or not, I won't buy them.
Garage Mahal just jump-sharked the thread.
How about, "No, because people aren't obese because of the existence of tasty cookies, moron."
That is, after the "Fuck off, food nazi", of course.
I'm bummed that the Girl Scouts didn't come to the door this year. (Neighborhood girls grew up.) I missed the chance to score some Samoas* (the most evil Girl Scout cookie of them all), for my slim and fit Samoa-lovin' husband. My God, how does he enjoy cookies and avoid waddling obesity? Must be freakish genetics, or something.
*Wait, they stopped making those, didn't they?
I'm with Thorley, except he doesn't seem motivated enough.
They could sell marijuana instead. Or broccoli. The Girl Scouts should cultivate advanced social consciousness and set an example for all.
The British has entertained a "fat tax" and legislation on the food industry, "using government purchasing power to expand the market for fresh healthy foods while counteracting the current subsidies supporting the ingredients in high fat/sugar/ salt products," as well as placing restrictions on "the marketing of junk food to children."
Their medical journals have also discussed compulsory consumption of a specified diet or population-wide use of a "Polypill" or even a "Polymeal" to reduce the national rate of heart disease.
Expansion of government control over "transport and rural development policies" was also recommended to increase the level of physical activity.
In 2004, then-Senator Hillary Clinton discussed the concept "our collective health." Citing productivity losses, health expenses, and national security, she endorsed a national policy to take into account social and environmental factors in designing neighborhoods and schools, to "control dangerous behaviors," and to implement "required responsibility" for individual health concerns.
Clinton, another Democrat neo-fascist.
Signed,
A Depressing Old Man
Yes, they can make you eat your goddamned broccoli.
Thanks again, Obama voters!
Thanks, Dread Justice Roberts!
...little girls need to practice how to sell things and raise money.
They're not going to learn anything selling high-fat sugar-laden cookies to an increasingly calorie-addicted populace anyway. Make them watch "Glengarry Glen Ross" and send them out to sell celery sticks.
1970: People following time-tested and common sense nutrition advice from parents and grandparents, are not obese and happily buy Girl Scout cookies for 'treats'.
2014: Now 2 decades into disastrous and totally erroneous Federal nutrition advice (primarily from McGovern committee), shockingly obese Americans, eating terribly at all 3 meals a day, are advised by Federal government to shut down one of the most welcome and endearing Girl Scout traditions.
McGovern legacy remains intact.
Progressives. Well-named.
Cancers progress.
How about they license and sell them in stores year round based on their merits instead of harassing you every time you take a step outside of your home.
No, because girls selling boxes of cookies is not a social ill, and why are we having this conversation in the first place?
I don't give a crap about tradition. How about, "No, I like me some Thin Mints and I can decide what I should or shouldn't eat."
Sometimes I have hunt down a girl scout just to get my annual cookie box. I love the single serving size, 1 box = 1 serving.
Look, just because the news can always find one or two people willing to say a given group (obese people in this case) should be nannied, it doesn't mean that the specific nanny-istic act is right. It just proves there are control freaks out there.
The whole problem is that the doctor is right about the health issue... right up to but sure as hell NOT including the point where he shifts blame for individuals eating habits off onto someone other than those individuals. Sweets are overconsumed nowadays. Girl Scout cookies are among those types of snacks. No one denies this. But moderation HAS to come from the individual, and that doctor isn't doing his patients any real good if he allows them to shift their personal responsibility elsewhere.
As one of the commenters on the NPR story posted, prohibition doesn't work. Why that lesson is lost nowadays is beyond me, but unfortunately it's lost to some. The evidence is right in front of us in this NPR story.
Well, our betters are telling us we should lighten up on our caloric intake.
So let's make the little green-clad bitches sell us healthy stuff, like vegetable crudites with fat free organic yogurt dip!
And let our betters be the first in line to buy the stuff, just pour encourager les autres & set a good example, you understand.
Yeah, right.
You're getting my Do-Si-Dos when you pry them out of my cold, dead, clammy, sugar-encrusted fingers!
SO, doctors have cured all cancers and Alzheimers and can now work on the dread Girls Scout Cookies. Good to know.
Shit like this is what gives progressives a bad name.
The people decrying the doctor and saying "nunna yer beezwax" are missing the point.
Everything can be cited as a "health care issue now.
Everything you eat, everything you do for fun, what you read, what movies you watch, what you drive. Tattoos, sunbathing, rock-climbing.
Every. Thing.
What you want is meaningless and of no import.
President HR Clinton sez so.
I seem to remember Girl Scouts selling cookies long before obesity was a major public health problem and long before public health busybodies starting telling us what to do.
It's a tradition if it's only both imposed and chosen.
You don't have to choose it.
The doctors in question are cordially invited to go fuck themselves.
No, because some of those cookies are pretty good.
Drago said...
Somewhere deep within the bowels of HHS a staffer is working up a requirement to force insurance companies to charge higher premiums for girl scout cookie consumers.
That would be hard and public. It's so much easier to control your options on the supply side.
So instead they'll outlaw the ingedients that make the cookies tasty.
1) I'm trying to imagine a time traveler going back to the 1970s and saying, "Someday, marijuana will be legal, and Girl Scout cookies will be illegal."
2) Recall that #banbossy IS a Girl Scout campaign.
3) Outlaw Thin Mints, and only outlaws will have Thin Mints!
They need to bring back home ed in schools so that people learn how to eat a balanced died with room for treats. I had to stop at a drug store that is next to a school on my way to work this morning and I saw a mother and a boy who was about 5 years old in front of the drug store. The boy was eating an ice cream sandwich and I assume that was his breakfast. Banning girl scout cookies is not going to improve the nutrition of people in this country.
Change to Grrl Scouts and sell Thin Blunts instead.
I agree with Thorley and Stoutcat.
Who would address the pothead munchie crisis?
I suggest that the Girl Scouts give up Planned Parenthood.
damn I'd love some of their shortbread cookies right about now.
If mcdonalds has to do away with trans fats and you can ban big sodas, why should girl scouts be able to sell fatty cookies?
I think Girl Scout cookies should be marketed separately from the girl scout activities.
I've heard horror stories about troops and the expectations on families.
I have a daughter and I like the idea of almost everything about the girl scouts, but I don't think I want to have to deal with cookie season and pressure.
There's too much sales expectations in today's world. The boys don't have to sell stuff, why should the girls?
Shit like this is what gives progressives a bad name.
It’s unfortunate that 99 percent of them have to ruin it for the good ones.
I only buy abortion-free cookies, thanks.
Much as I love the little kids, and as much as I crave Thin Mints, every year, I will not be supporting their organization anymore.
Camp Fire Girls were always... hotter.
It's the 'one size fits all' impulse again, from the usual suspects. Because it's GOOD FOR YOU. Nanny knows best. No surprise really that the 'one size' happens to be just the one that fits Nanny.
Ridiculous.
When did America become the place where fun goes to die?
Actually, I know the answer to that one. It was the late 1960s, when the personal became political and all the fierce bearded youths came of age.
Re: Althouse's pic: incredibly Teutonic. Me like! Rowwwwwwwr!
Patrick O said...
The boys don't have to sell stuff, why should the girls?
The boys do sell stuff: popcorn.
Maybe Girl Scouts could start selling abortions.
Those are pretty healthy.
Cookies as calorie-delivery devices don't bother me. But Girl Scouts have taken cookie-selling too far. Maybe they generate a lot more money out of it than the Cub Scouts do with popcorn or the Boy Scouts do with wreath-selling (well, that's what our family's Boy Scout troop does; they earn their money with this one, as delivering wreaths door-to-door is not easy). Maybe the Girl Scouts' parents don't have to pay as much in annual dues, or have more spending money for their activities. Or maybe it goes into a central administration pot. Or maybe they don't earn any more money, but just make a bigger deal out of it: cookie-selling badges, for instance.
I can recall when people routinely gave cartons of cigarettes as Christmas gifts.
It would still be a nice gift, if it was your smoke.
It's a tradition but that's not the only reason why they sell them. They're learning how to run a business. And, while money does go to the troop, it also pays for camp experiences for underprivileged girls. Plus a portion of what the troop earns pays for service projects that help people in their community. The real value of cookie sales lies in the skills that the girls learn: how to deal with people, manage money, set goals, which hopefully, helps the girls increase their self confidence. The value to the girls outweighs the negative. If you think the cookies contain too much sugar, you can decide not to buy them.
Ann,
No. First because in place of the cookie selling Girl Scout girl will appear a Nabisco or Nestle cookie selling organization. The cookies will still be sold.
We are only talking about who sells these cookies. Nothing else. Which industrial interest group gets the Girl Scout cookie franchise to exploit.
My question is this: Wy do we attempt to prevent heart disease, COPD etc? Let the consequences of un-healthy life styles fall upon the practioners of obese living paradigms. Let all the economic consequenses of unhealthy behavior shower the miscreants of cookie-dom generated obesity. They'll stop getting fat when they die or when they change their life style and embrace fitness and good diet practices.
At $3.75 for an 8 ounce box of cookies, I doubt too many people are going to become obese on GS cookies. People seeking to maximize their calorie intake would tend to buy in bulk at places like Sam's Club or Costco.
The Boy Scout/Cub Scout popcorn is way harder to sell. "$15 for a bag of cheese popcorn? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?"
Where I live the Boy Scouts sell Christmas wreaths that they make themselves. They do a very nice job and I buy a few every year.
They're learning how to run a business.
No they aren't. They are just set up at all entrances to the grocery store with their parents on guard, ambushing people who are trying to buy some groceries. There is absolutely no business skill in this. They might as well be begging on the corner with the WalMart bums holding cardboard signs and having pitiful dogs tied up along side of them. There is NO salesmanship or even attempts at selling the product.
And, while money does go to the troop, it also pays for camp experiences for underprivileged girls. Plus a portion of what the troop earns pays for service projects that help people in their community.
This is precisely why I DO NOT buy their cookies. (Besides the fact that they are stale and horrible). If I want to donate to OTHER causes I will do so. But to guilt trip people into paying for cookies sold by the local Girl Scout hustlers and then have the money go elsewhere, is false advertising. Most of the money goes to the national groups and to support political causes that, if the girls and parents knew, they would NOT support themselves. I know these kids and their parents.
The real value of cookie sales lies in the skills that the girls learn: how to deal with people, manage money, set goals, which hopefully, helps the girls increase their self confidence.
That would be nice if they actually did WORK at selling the cookies. Go door to door. Visit businesses and actually SELL the product. Instead they sit there like panhandlers or have their parents coerce people at work to buy the dreck cookies
The girls would be better off in 4H where they learn real skills and DO have to solicit for their funds.
My preferred choice was not presented. I would have chosen "Quit trying to tell me what to do, you controlling ninny."
The control freaks will never be sated.
Girls Scout Cookies are way overpriced and not very good - but they have much bigger problems than their fundraising.
The libs need to back off from an obvious campaign to mold minds of mush early on as witnessed here and here.
No, because cookies are not the cause, they are a symptom. They are also not unhealthy when consumed in moderation.
Medical insurance "reform", less the reform, claims another victim.
The issue which needs to be addressed is liberty is only suitable and possible for individuals capable of self-moderating, responsible behavior. It is this unrecognized issue which has led our society to normalize a diverse set of dysfunctional behaviors (e.g. murder/abortion), including gluttony, or eating to excess.
We quit Girl Scouts for a whole bunch of reasons, one of which being cookie sales. I got sick of spending every Saturday during cookie season outside Walmart selling cookies for $4 a box when the troop only kept 50 cents of that while the downtown head office had a gaggle of fatass ladies drawing salaries.
I got sick of spending every Saturday during cookie season outside Walmart selling cookies for $4 a box when the troop only kept 50 cents of that while the downtown head office had a gaggle of fatass ladies drawing salaries.
Ouch! There's a greater lesson, there for sure.
Things have definitely gone awry when I'm one of the least grumpy and cynical people in a thread.
I never buy them, so I had sort of forgotten about Girl Scout cookies until someone gave me a box of Thin Mints yesterday. The box is in the freezer right now.
Maybe the Cub Scouts should sell Thin Mints. Just the Thin Mints.
Standing outside the grocery store to sell cookies is lame. That's where you stand to do a food drive. Why does the store even agree to that? "Can you sell your cookies outside my store that sells cookies? No."
Okay, maybe if they only sold the Thin Mints.
@Anglelyne/
God Yes! All hail to the mighty Samoas! nam nam nam..
A week or so ago, a couple of girls knocked at my door around 7 or so. Their mom was down the sidewalk a bit. One was about 9 the other about 6. Selling candy bars. Rather marked up. Didn't tell me what they were selling them for. I bought two.
I suspect they were just selling them to make some money. I applaud that. Girl scouts should do that. I've also heard of how little goes to the actual troop and that's absurd way of supporting the activities. It funds a whole industry not related to the girl scout functions. That's why I say don't link them, sell the cookies, make money. girl scouts are funded, can do more productive tasks with their time besides work a lot of hours only to give most of the money away.
Though, I suppose the present system is a great way to get the girls used to living in Obama's America.
I do love Thin Mints.
I didn't vote because there was no selection for "People need to stop acting like complete imbeciles".
Frederick Burnham Russell weeps for the softness of modern life
Are these the same Doctors who said eat trans fat margarine instead of butter?
Boyscout popcorn is so expensive because75% goes to the troop. It's basically a donation with some popcorn thrown in as a thank you gift.
And now they have the patriotic "Popcorn for the Troops" option where you don't even have to acquire the popcorn.
WRT to the tradition argument - Why, when a conservative says something is a tradition, that's an excuse to tear it down, but when a liberal says something is a tradition, it signifies that that thing must be preserved forever?
The American Heritage girls don't have cookie sales.
Deidre, good point about the Boy Scout popcorn.
Yes the Girl Scouts should stop selling cookies because it brings in a sh*t-ton of money to an evil, subversive, perverted and stupid organization.
Signed~Former Girl Scout Leader of 9 years
The people responsible for the obesity epidemic are the nation's nutritionists. They made food companies take the fat out of food, so in order to make their products taste like something and get people to buy them they filled everything up with corn syrup and empty carbs. Now it turns out all of that was wrong, as your great-grandmother could have told them (except that she didn't go to Harvard so they wouldn't listen to her.)Leave the Girl Scouts alone.
Wow! Can you feel the hate? Yes, GSA has taken some positions I'm not in "alignment" (lefty speak from a righty) with.
However, if somebody offers to deliver a tasty treat to my door for a price I find reasonable, bring it on!
Politics vs. cookies? Cookies are a hands down winner. Why is this under discussion?
What we need is to stop calling the case where a person causes health trouble for himself and only himself a "public health problem". It's a private health problem. (If your "problem" is that your tax money is going to be spent treating that person, your problem is not that person's actions, but the actions of the people making you pay for it.)
A public health problem is one where actions by a person endanger the health of another person, like the anti-vaccination crowd.
(Obviously, the Althousian take is that anything that emotionally effects other than yourself makes those others a victim. Which is a warrant for absolute tyranny when logically extended.)
Girl Scout cookies are no more reasonably-priced than is Cub Scout popcorn. It's just that the dollar amounts for an individual box is less than for the popcorn. And the Cub Scouts don't talk about how popcorn-selling teaches boys to be entrepreneurial.
But the wreaths for Boy Scouts are another story -- at least, for my son's troop, the profit is split 50/50 between the general troop account and an account for the boy, and one of the dads is very ambitious about his sons selling enough wreaths to earn their way to summer camp, because, well, that's what he did as a kid, and money's tight in the family anyway. And a 5th grader can actually pay attention to this in a way that a Brownie can't.
I was in Girl Scouts for one year. One of our trips was to a mall two hours away. That was it for me.
I remember we visited a lumber mill, and I asked the guy if they got any of their lumber from the ever-vanishing rainforest. Thank you, public school Earth Day unit.
At the time I interpreted the lumberman's quizzical look as guilt and evasion.
Bitchtits, no cookies for you, fatass.
Because Moochelle.
Take this, health food fanatics!
If only there were a choice for "Why can't people mind their own damn business?"
No, because girl scout cookies are fucking delicious.
Yes, because their parents are the ones who do it.
My [now] ex-wife [and girl scout leader] went with our daughters, but they did the selling and delivering. I sold some boxes through work BUT only if they asked me to take the form in.
(The trick is to go into local businesses. My daughters consistently sold over 650 boxes every year.)
I'm with Thorley:
How about an option for “No, because f**k you that’s why.”
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