Food for thought

Re “Super-sizing the student body,” March 23

Here we go again. The Times’ article reporting that teenagers who attend classes within one-

tenth of a mile of a fast-food outlet are more likely to be obese than peers whose campuses are located farther away is just the latest example of how we as a free society have left behind one of our most basic foundational strengths: personal responsibility.

It doesn’t matter how close a fast-food joint is, or how big their meals might be or even how nutritious they are. No one forces anybody to buy fast food or to eat it. People make those choices on their own.

Until we get back to taking responsibility for our own actions and choose not to gorge ourselves daily, we will continue to eat more fattening food than we should. It is our responsibility to regulate ourselves, not Taco Bell’s.

Kinon Crawford

Los Angeles

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I don’t understand how to evaluate the situation you describe in your article without a side-by-side examination of what the schools require in the way of physical education classes.

Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for the school system to address the problem of obesity in-house instead of policing activities outside its control?

Or am I wrong about the decline of physical education in our school system?

One needs only to look at Olympian Michael Phelps’ notorious 12,000-calorie diet to grasp the relationship between physical activity and diet.

Geoffrey

Cushing-Murray

Studio City