The Literal Nanny State

Looking over the horizon at the future of progressive policy, I will try in this space to give early warning of new mandates on the way.

In Minnesota, unions are hard at work, seeking to unionize in-home child care providers.

In seeing what’s next for Minnesota’s child-care industry, I came across this grant of $170,000 in 2011 from the Princeton, New Jersey-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Minnesota non-profit Public Health Law Center, located at St. Paul’s William Mitchell College of Law.

To bring the fight against childhood obesity to a new front, Grant No. 69299 reads in part,

“This project will provide new data about the potential for local governments to take meaningful action to prevent childhood obesity through policy implementation in child-care settings.  Because local laws often serve as drivers of state law, this research will help inform childhood obesity prevention policy both at state and local levels around the nation.

“This study aims to: (1) determine the scope of local government authority to impose nutrition and physical activity standards in child-care settings in all 50 states; (2) examine specific local government regulations and other strategies for addressing nutrition and physical activity; and (3) identify examples of promising or innovative local government practices.

You read it here first:  state standards for nutrition and exercise in child-care settings.  Because they know better than you.