Projo Offbeat Blog

If you're an old woman or an old man, you might be able to wear purple, but you won't be able to eat doughnuts at the senior centers of Putnam County, N.Y.

The people who run those senior centers say they will no longer accept the doughnuts, pies and bread they regularly get as donations, because they're afraid it's not good for their charges.

The ban has prompted some of the seniors to stomp their feet. Seven of them, average age 76, recently protested the ban outside the Koehler Senior Center in Mahopac, N.Y., according to The Associated Press.

They wore sandwich boards proclaiming, "Give Us Our Just Desserts" and "They're Carbs, Not Contraband."

Joe Hajkowski, 75, a former labor union official who organized the demonstration said officials had implied that seniors were gorging themselves on jelly doughnuts and were too senile to make the choice for themselves, according to The Associated Press.

"I'm 86, not 8," said protester C. Michael Sibilia.

Don't Hajkowski and Sibilia realize what they'll look like in 15 or 20 years if they keep downing doughnuts and pies with their coffee?

We hear a lot about the childhood obesity epidemic, but how much attention do we pay to the waistlines of our seniors? Children are criticized for spending too much time with their video games, but when was the last time you heard somebody criticize grandma over her marathon games of mahjong? And how often have you seen a group of seniors limp onto a vacant baseball field for a pickup game?

Those senior caretakers in New York should be applauded for recognizing a potential problem and trying to stop it, but punishments such as outright bans amount to permanent time-outs and probably aren't good for the self-esteem of the seniors.

Maybe they could channel their effort at behavior modification in a more positive direction. Maybe they could create bumper stickers that kids could slap on their wagons or bicycles, saying, "My grandfather eats dried peas, not doughnuts at the Koehler Senior Center."

Comments

janet said:

The older I get, the more worried I get about the tendency of authority types to treat older people like idiots with no rights. The recent projo articles about the RI Dept. of Aging or whatever it's called made my blood run cold. I'd like to see them try to drag a young person off to a home because their house was untidy and dusty, but an elderly person, watch out.

Link | September 25, 2007 4:05 PM
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