ecarland

Is anybody watching this show?

JP5683

I saw it. Can't believe he gave the kids so much leeway in their training. Hopefully everyone will step it up a little in the coming weeks.

slappypete

I think this has been the best show of the summer, but it's pretty discouraging seeing the stereotypes of lazy school administrators being upheld. From the principal who immediately says there's no way to find time or money for PE, to the 300 pound lunch "nutrition manager", to the lazy lunch ladies who complain if there's talk of requiring them to do anything more than throw some frozen chicken nuggets and fries in an oven, to the district administrator who says they can't buy healthier food because it's too expensive and the kids won't eat it.

The kids have been really inspiring. I never would have thought Walter (the video game kid) would have ever made it through something like this, but he looks like he might end up losing more weight than anybody.

MrX

When all the kids showed up at the end I couldn't help thinking about the lawsuit waiting to happen of putting a bunch of morbidly obese kids straight into an exercise program like that. No way that wasn't staged.

Layziebones

I couldnt believe someone would let themselves be at a BMI of 43%. Holy crap!!! Thats ridiculious.

kvrdave

Very little of this surprised me. Most of the money a school gets is earmarked for specific things, the lunch ladies probably make around $12 an hour, etc.

I did like seeing the solution they came up with last night, though.

slappypete

I can understand not being able to increase the cost per plate considering at the district level it was something like 150,000 lunches a day, but he acted like the only thing he could get for that price was junk food. He had a huge shit eating grin when he heard that the first lunch ended up costing $1.50 per plate as if it were validation that it's impossible to serve a decent meal for a buck a plate. He made no effort to share what he's learned to help make it successful.

Tyler Florence is as stubborn as the adminstrators and lunch ladies though. It's stupid to think everything has to be fresh. Preparing one fresh dish, like the turkey loaf, then using pre cut frozen vegetables or bagged salad would be fine. It would taste better fresh, but it's not worth the time or extra money to use all fresh ingredients.

The lunch ladies probably don't make much, but they really aren't currently doing anything that couldn't be handled by student volunteers. I remember my elementary school had one lunch lady and a few student volunteers (we're talking 8-10 year old kids here) prepare lunch for probably 500 students. If the schools can't pay enough to get people that can prepare a simple meal, they should just get rid of them and use students. Call it a home ec class and give them credit for it.

I can understand the principal saying they don't have the money for mandatory PE, but it makes me wonder what kind of classes they currently have. I had mandatory PE through 10th grade and still had electives to choose from, so I really don't understand what schools are offering instead of PE. I'm going under the assumption that there are 7 classes a day, but it's possible school days aren't structured that way anymore. If they do still have 7 classes you have the core classes of Math, History, English and Science, then you'll often have one required class like Health/Sex Ed or something, maybe a foreign language, but even with all of those you still have time for PE. I think it would make more sense to combine home ec with a comprehensive health/sex ed class. None of those topics require a full class period everyday.

MrX

It's really a problem that starts at home. By the looks of a lot of those kids, and parents, school lunch isn't the only place they're eating crap. If they don't learn good eating habits at home it's going to be hard to get them to eat something good at school. Right or wrong the schools thinking is what can we get that's cheap and that the kids won't throw away so they're not wasting money and hungry kids are a pain in the ass. The school I work at has a salad bar that most of the kids pass up.

I bring my own, I'm not touching that shit

JP5683

Anyone see Tuesday's episode? It was the season finale.

I guess they jumped ahead to the end of the 9 months, on last week's ep they said it had been 5 months, and they were extending another 4... So I guess this last episode was filmed pretty recently...

I applaud all the kids for all their hard work, even though they didn't do so great at the beginning.

dx23

What i wonder is if Shaq is going to lead by example and show up to training camp in shape.

slappypete

I wish this show hadn't ended so soon, It's the only summer show I've watched every week. Chris looked like a completely different person after losing over 70 pounds and Walter turned into a completely different person after actually socializing with people for a few months.

MrX

Chris' weight loss was impressive, as were Kevin, Walter, and Aeriel. James would be the only one that I wouldn't be surprised that if we saw him a year later he had put all the weight back on.