Never before has the term “Nanny State” been more applicable than it is today. The bill, HB1726 entitled “Improve Child Care Nutrition/Activity Standards,” is an intrusion on liberty that seeks to control food consumption at child care facilities.
For example, the bill would prohibit serving sugar-sweetened beverages to children of any age in addition to requiring that all juices be served in cups and not bottles. The bill would prohibit serving children more than six ounces of juice per day and bar serving whole milk to children over the age of two.
All flavored milk would be prohibited as well. No more chocolate milk in child care facilities! Furthermore, child care facilities would be required to have a “rest period” each day and ensure that all children spend time outside each day if weather permits.
As though the enumerated regulations in HB1726 are not bad enough, the Child Care Commission and the Division of Child Development are tasked with creating and implementing whatever other regulations might be deemed necessary. Such benevolence dictates what constitute nanny states. More fundamentally, this sort of legislation replaces parenting with regulation.
While it may be a good idea to refrain from serving children copious amounts of sugar-sweetened drinks, it is not the business of state government to make that decision; although Civitas does support fewer people drinking the “Kool-Aid.”
Reps. Weiss (D-Wake), England (D-Rutherford), McLawhorn (D-Pitt), and Yongue (D-Scotland) are responsible for this bill. If these legislators find the practices of child care facilities unacceptable, perhaps it would be best if each of them resigned from the General Assembly and opened sugar-free child care facilities of their own.
For its intrusion on liberty and expansion of the nanny state, HB1726 is this week’s Bad Bill of the Week.
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