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A new study of teen eating habits found that young vegetarians tend to eat healthier than meat-eaters, consuming fewer calories from fat. It found that young vegetarians are less likely to be overweight than their peers who eat meat, and that the vast majority of young vegetarians have ho history of binging, purging, or other forms of disordered eating.
But here’s how Time magazine framed their story on the report:
“Is Vegetarianism a Teen Eating Disorder?”
Yup. Despite the evidence that most teen vegetarians make healthy choices in eating from both a nutritional and a behavioral perspective, Time chose to raise alarms that vegetarianism is itself an eating disorder.
What’s the basis for this claim? Well, it turns out that teen vegetarians aged 15-18, particularly those who don’t stick with vegetarianism over the long term, report higher incidences of certain eating disorders than those who have never tried a vegetarian diet. In one study of Minnesota teens, for instance, 25% of vegetarians said they’d taken weight pills or diuretics or vomited to lose weight in the past, as opposed to 10% of meat eaters.
This is an interesting finding, and if it’s backed up by other research it may suggest that a small — but significant — minority of teen vegetarians are at higher risk for eating disorders than their non-vegetarian peers.
But some or all of the effect may be explained by other factors. For instance, Time itself notes that vegetarians may be more sensitive to unhealthy eating habits, and thus more likely to report them to researchers. Perhaps some teens choose vegetarianism as a result of having become more conscious of their food choices after overcoming an eating disorder.
And since girls are more likely to (1) be vegetarians and (2) have eating disorders than boys, one would expect to find higher rates of eating disorders among vegetarians just because of gender, whether there was any correlation between the two issues or not. (One article suggests that in Britain girls are ten times as likely to be vegetarian as boys.)
Time‘s conclusions, in other words, are mostly without basis — even if one accepts the findings of the studies it relies on.
And the article doesn’t just mangle the science on vegetarianism, either. It takes gratuitous shots at non-vegetarian young people as well. It refers to vegetarianism as a “common teen fad,” for instance, and likens it to “experimenting with foolish things like dyeing your hair purple.”
Another “foolish thing” teens do, according to Time? “Going door-to-door for a political party.”
Sheesh.
A high school student in Virginia’s Fairfax County has received a two-week suspension and a threat of expulsion … for taking her birth control pill at lunch.
Oakton High School considers bringing prescription drugs to school one of the most serious violations a student can commit — it brings a harsher punishment than use of heroin or LSD, and the same penalty as possession of a handgun on school property.
The student’s mother was aware of, and supportive of, her decision to go on the pill. Birth control pills are most effective if taken at the same time every day, and the student began taking them at lunch over the summer. Neither the student nor her mother was aware that the punishment for continuing to do so in the fall could be so severe.
The student faced a hearing before school officials on Thursday, and has yet to hear whether she will be expelled.
Thanks to Amplify Your Voice for the heads-up on this story.
August 5 update: Stephen Colbert ran a segment on the incident on Monday night’s Colbert Report.
“If you want to try for those young voters, first of all, you’ve got to stand for something, because one of the things that stands out with a young voter is originality.”
That was South Carolina governor Mark Sanford right after the 2008 presidential election. Today, in a move that is widely seen as positioning himself for a run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, he’s saying he’ll turn down $700 million dollars in federal education funding for his state.
Sanford says the government should be paying down debt, not running up new bills, but his refusal of the stimulus money only makes sense as a symbolic gesture … and it’s an odd one. The stimulus money has been allocated. It’s not going back into the general fund. If South Carolina doesn’t accept its share, it’ll go somewhere else — California’s Governor Schwarzenegger has already said he’ll be happy to take it.
And as Senator Lindsay Graham — a South Carolina Republican, and no fan of the stimulus — has noted, South Carolinians will footing their share of the bill for this expenditure, whether any of it returns to the state or not.
So Sanford’s approach is definitely original. He’s the only governor planning to refuse the education money. It’s an approach that’s getting a lot of attention among conservative activists. But his position is costing him support at home — his favorability rating in South Carolina now stands at 40%, nine points below President Obama. And it’s hard to see it doing him much good with young voters in 2012 — in the primary or the general election.
More than a thousand teachers and students marched on the South Carolina state house yesterday, with a simple message: “Take the money.”
Sanford has until midnight tomorrow to listen.
Frustrated with students’ use of cell phones in class, a British Columbia high school principal took action last week — he bought a signal jammer online, and plugged it in at his office.
Unfortunately for him, jamming cell phones is illegal under Canadian law.
Principal Steve Gray installed the gizmo on Tuesday. By the end of the day Wednesday rumors of the jammer’s existence were beginning to spread. On Thursday, more than a quarter of Port Hardy Secondary School’s 343 students skipped classes in protest, and on Friday morning Gray took the jammer offline.
“We did our research on the Internet,” said Amber Wright, an eleventh grader who helped organize the student strike. “Breaking the law is not a good way to send a message.”
Students said that their parents use the cell phones to keep in touch with them, and that relaying messages through the school is slow and cumbersome.
Principal Gray told the Toronto Globe and Mail that he himself carries a cell phone at school, but that he only uses it in emergencies.
A big victory for students’ rights: a federal judge has blocked a Pennsylvania prosecutor’s plans to file child pornography charges against three teenage girls who stored suggestive photos of themselves on their cell phones.
Two of the three were wearing opaque bras in the photographs at issue, and the third was topless. None was engaging in sexual activity. The three were among twenty students in Pennsylvania’s Tunkhannock School District who were contacted by the prosecutor after school officials confiscated their cell phones, searched them, and found nude or revealing photos on them.
The prosecutor told the twenty students that they had a choice — they could sign up for an ongoing educational program on “what it means to be a girl in today’s society” and mandatory drug tests, or they could be charged with possession and distribution of child pornography, a felony.
Seventeen of the students signed up for the program. The other three sued. And yesterday a federal judge took their side.
The prosecutor, reached for comment yesterday, refused to say whether he would appeal the judge’s decision.
studentactivism.net 
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