Too Fat to Fight & Sanitizers Questioned

Too Fat to Fight & Sanitizers Questioned plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. The Administration's proposal to boost child nutrition programs in schools got a shot in the arm from a new report saying the obesity problem in this country is threatening our national security militarily. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the Administration's proposal for a child nutrition bill is more than just improving school meals. There's an education component as well. VILSACK: Part of our proposal is to make sure there is a very healthy education component to this as youngsters learn more about the calories that are involved, as they learn more about the nutritional value that's available to them they're going to make the smart choice and the wise choice. Especially if we reinforce that in schools and when you combine this with physical activity it's a winning combination. And right now we don't have either the physical activity or standards that allow children to make the smart choice. We have become accustomed to sanitizing our hands. Everywhere you see small pump bottles filled with gel that we rub on our hands to prevent disease and illness. Hand sanitizers are a way of life but now an Olympia, Washington fourth grader says she can prove it doesn't work on E.coli. Nine-year-old Celia Vernon won her class science fair at Roosevelt Elementary with an experiment involving a live sample of E.coli. In a side-by-side comparison with common bleach, the E.coli on the sanitizer side survived. On the bleach side, it died. Soap and water are still the preferred method though. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. Corporate America has discovered that going "green" brings in the green. Today is Earth Day. A day originally conceived to tap into environmental concerns of the public and transfer the anti-war energy of the 1960's younger generation over to an environmental cause. Most people under the age of thirty -five recognise Earth Day as a day to do community cleanup, recycle, save the whales, save the trees, or save the world in general. Big business sees it as another day to make the cash registers ring ca-ching. In the last couple of years companies such as Wal-Mart, Macy's, Banana Republic, and J.C. Penney have championed the green movement and created their own lines of supposedly eco friendly fashions and home decor. And they're just a handful of the many companies who have turned Earth Day into a marketing bonanza. This begs the question; does all this marketing of going "green" help the environmental cause or just result in turning the general public off? Will there ever come a time of "green" over saturation? Until such time, corporations will continue to insist that we as consumers buy more in order to save the planet. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.