THUMBS DOWN to the U.S. Department of Defense for not yet having American-made sneakers on the feet of new recruits.
The military announced in April 2014 that it would begin adhering to the Berry Amendment when purchasing athletic footwear to be used during training. The World War II-era amendment requires the Pentagon to favor domestically sourced and produced items, including food, T-shirts, socks and boots.
However, the military for decades ignored the rule when it came to sneakers, until U.S. manufacturers, including Massachusetts-based New Balance, successfully lobbied for a change in practice.
Since the announcement, however, little has been accomplished. The Pentagon was slow to provide specifications for sneakers to manufacturers, and now the testing process is lagging.
New Balance, which employs more than 900 people at factories in Norridgewock, Norway and Skowhegan, believes the military is dragging its feet on purpose, as payback for the company’s intense lobbying. Others blame the large military bureaucracy.
In either case, the process needs to move forward. The U.S. military has spent more than $180 million on athletic footwear since 2002. That taxpayer money should be going to U.S. businesses, just as it does for all the other clothing the military purchases.
THUMBS UP to the Augusta Police Department for adopting the “Midnight Team” ride-along program that has been successful in Waterville.
Just as in Waterville, crisis workers from the mental health agency Crisis and Counseling team up with police officers for patrols on certain night shifts.
When the patrols come into contact with someone with mental health issues — a more-than-daily occurrence in the Capital City — the crisis worker is better suited than police officers to de-escalate the situation, given their knowledge about mental health and, often, the very individual involved. That knowledge helps prevent needless arrests and hospitalizations.
The program has worked in Waterville, where it was instituted following the 1996 murder of two nuns by a man experiencing a psychiatric episode.
Waterville police say they have reduced involuntary commitments by 15 percent to 20 percent. Last year, the Midnight Team conducted 114 crisis interventions.
The program should see the same success in Augusta, where many interactions occur between police and people with mental illnesses.
“We deal with mental health consumers every day, every shift,” said Augusta’s police chief, Robert Gregoire. “As a department, we’re more responsive to the mental health community, having a rider (on patrol at night) that is a trained counselor. And it provides a mentoring opportunity for my newer officers, where they see case workers at work and the things they do.”
THUMBS DOWN to a report issued last month showing rapid growth in obesity in the U.S.
The report, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that 75 percent of men and 67 percent of women ages 25 and older are now overweight or obese, compared to 63 percent and 55 percent, respectively, 20 years ago.
The data from 2012 also show that for the first time more Americans are obese (67.6 million) than overweight (65.2 million).
Many factors likely play a role in the rise: increasingly sedentary lifestyles, poor diets marked by processed, sugary foods and large portions, prenatal influences, toxic environments. It is unclear, however, how much of a role each factor plays.
What is clear is the cost of obesity — an increase in heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and types of cancer, and an annual estimated cost in the U.S. of nearly $150 billion.
Aggressive policies that take aim at each of the factors are necessary to stem the rise in obesity, not the least of which is a change in the federal food policies that have led to the proliferation of cheap, calorie-dense but nutritionally vacant foods.
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