Re:Born to Rest
by Jtsummers on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @02:29PM
(#12392621)
Sure, they can be responsible for their own actions. Doesn't mean the schools have to provide them the option to be actively harmful to their health. They're adults (as mentioned in another comment). If they want to buy a few cases of Coca Cola and drink that instead of water every day for 4 years, that's their prerogative. No school should stop them from making such a terrible, stupid mistake, but no school should present that to them as part of the meal plan either.
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Yup, likewise I knew a guy who flunked out his sophomore year because he spent all of his time playing Quake 2 on the dorm's LAN. The university offered plenty of classes he could have been spending his time on, and he chose differently. Only so much you can do to save a man from himself.
There's a little bit of cognitive dissonance going on here. If they're responsible for their actions, and they're adults, why are you taking an option away from them in fears that they're "making a mistake"? This is universally seen as hand-holding.
The option isn't taken away. They can go to the grocery store if they want. That's still an option. There's no cognitive dissonance. As an institution, a university is not required to provide every option to its students. It, similarly, shouldn't bar students from making choices they want to make.
EDIT: And if they make choices that turn them into unsuitable students (poor grades, arrests, whatever), the institution is free to suspend them as appropriate.
This is a trinary variable, not a binary one. Sure, between the two options of giving people freedom to make their own mistakes versus applying coercion for their own good, I'm in favor of the first option. But there is a third: soft paternalism, giving people freedom to do what they want but setting things up so that the right choice is the easiest. Such evidence as we have, indicates that it works very well.
Re:Born to Rest
by thirstytho on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @03:01PM
(#12392901)
So should the meal plan serve alcohol, too, to avoid reacting to 'fears that they're "making a mistake"'?
That's a bit of a straw man. You can choose alcohol or no alcohol. But you don't choose mac n cheese or not -- you choose mac n cheese or some other food.
Re:Born to Rest
by thirstytho on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @05:55PM
(#12394266)
You can choose alcohol or some other beverage.
Re:Born to Rest
by eyelidlessness on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @08:34PM
(#12395066)
Choosing to offer only healthy foods at a location provided by the school does not preclude the students getting unhealthy food anywhere else. It's just making a healthy choice available, not making unhealthy choices unavailable.