You can't get away from the hot topic of childhood obesity these days. And you can't get away from obese children, either
Drive past any school in the morning and at tea time, and you'll see hordes of them flobbering out of Citroen Xsara Picassos (or in posh areas BMW X5s), usually shovelling the remnants of a king size Mars bar down their gullets, which will provide the energy they need not to play football or cricket, but power the stubby thumb they use for texting their equally lardy friends.
When I was a lad, there were hardly any fat kids, apart from the token one in every class whose parents invariably owned either the local fish shop or sweet shop. These flabby fortunates earned a place on the school social scale that transcended all rules by mere virtue of their folks' chosen profession. Friendship meant big portions of chips or free Anglo bubblies for life.
So what's changed? Well we used to either walk to school or walk to the bus stop (yes, even in the rain). On the odd occasion when I was dropped off at the school gates, it was the ultimate embarrassment necessitating a seat-belt-off, door-open, leg-it-fast manoeuvre. As for junk food, I don't think I ate a McDonalds until I was 15.
So here's my call to action: lobby your local headmaster to impose a one mile drop- off exclusion zone around their school and explain why it's a win-win situation all round. Little kids could be walked in and enjoy extra quality time with mum / dad / au pair. Teenagers could walk to school themselves and therefore have the freedom to fit in their first fag of the day before registration. Everyone gets fitter and thinner and the rest of us get to avoid the traffic clog around schools.
With logic like this, who needs a nanny state?