Earlier this week, we covered the news of a recent study reporting that some children who participate in the New York public schools Breakfast in the Classroom program may end up eating two breakfasts. Yet despite the city health department s fear that such double-dipping may be contributing to childhood obesity, many remain skeptical and Dispatch reader Thomas Vitullo-Martin is one of them. In an email to us, he writes:
I have seen no claims that an appropriate study of in-class breakfasts has produced obesity, or gross weight gain, in affected children. Is this how the Department of Health makes its policy decisions, on the basis of some advocacy claims for attention rather than on its own, careful evaluation? A proper study would not be difficult... It is not a problem that children may be eating two breakfasts, unless of course they thereby become obese. No such evidence has been presented.