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... ROBIN...THANKS
TANOING BEHIND
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Tuesday, November 29,1988
The Battalion
Pages
Latchkey kid’ problem spurs
reject Home Safe programs
CH GOT BOTH OF
HOSTILS.
ILETO THEM
HERE...
By Sandy Hastings
Reporter
^ children
H»jio care lor themselves while their
rents work — are not a new phe-
menon. Millions of American chil-
en return to empty homes after
ool. These children, ranging in
|e from 6 to 13, may be alone or
y have the responsibility of caring
for younger brothers and sisters.
| Dr. Sarah Anderson of the Texas
Agricultural Extension Service said
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that many of these children will take
responsibility for their own care,
sometimes cooking, cleaning and op
erating major appliances on their
own.
“We don’t have any real solid data
on the situation in Bryan-College
Station yet, but there are significant
numbers and they’re still growing,”
Anderson said. “A survey was taken
in schools in the area, and 75 per
cent said they were latchkey chil
dren.”
Crime awareness
cey to prevention
)f illegal activities
By Laurie Tomasini
Reporter
Awareness is a key to preventing
C I ® ut particularly on the Texas
1 BcM campus, there is a lack of
areness that anyone is a potential
tim of criminal acts, including
_ _*ual assault, said Bob Wiatt, direc-
| Brof security and University Police.
j "A&M is a part of the planet
, / irth,” Wiatt said. “This is the real
ZZZ arid. Students should quit acting
;s than requned jp. Alice in Wonderland and believ-
|gin the tooth fairy.
‘People think once they enter the
liege environment they are pro-
ted by a cocoon of academics
state monev anil f, ere everyone recites poetry and
ns around with roses between
|eir teeth,” he said.
“This is a congested area with
Dout 50,000 residents plus thou-
nds of visitors on campus every
eek. With that many people in a so-
ety there are going to be offenders
ho will victimize students,” Wiatt
lid.
Linda Castoria, director of the
razos County Rape Crisis Center,
lid that students often seem not to
lalize that a society exists outside
le A&M campus.
“The majority of students do not
ad the local newspaper,” she said,
o they have no sense of what is
ing on in Bryan-College Station
yond the campus. Therefore, stu-
[ents relate the occurrence of crime
the whole area to what they know
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Mark Perlmutter
Little, said she
t performanceeval l happening on campus. |
evious job. He said “Students hear about the theft of
the let ackpacks or bikes and think that is
within 2.5 monihilpe extent of crime in the area,” she
Hid.
As a result, she said, many stu-
lents have a false sense of security.
Incidents such as the sexual as-
kult and attempted murder of an
l&M student on Oct. 20 may make
tudents more cautious — but often
• J I nly until the offender is caught or a
jp* I length of time elapses, she said.
L JLdi National statistics show that only
me in 10 rapists is apprehended.
“It is probably more like one in
and Adams wertBV Castoria said. “So for every one
n a stolen car.
iv claims that Ada®
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who is caught, there are nine or 14
who are still committing the crime.
“Who’s to say those criminals who
are still out there won’t walk onto
campus or into a citizen’s home?”
Castoria said. “Students must be
aware that a crime may occur any
time, anywhere, to anyone.
“No one should walk around ab
solutely paranoid that they could be
come a victim any minute,” she said.
“But they should realize that as often
as sexual assault occurs on the na
tional level, it has to affect our local
community.”
Wiatt, also president of the rape
crisis center, said he wants students
to be aware that they are part of the
real world.
“Awareness is the best preven
tion,” he said. “Be aware th;
could be victimized.
Students have complained that
they cannot be aware of something
that officials and administrators are
trying to hide.
“It seems the police and the ad
ministrators try to keep incidents of
rape hush-hush,” Wendy Layer, a
senior elementary education major,
said.
Wiatt said the University Police
Department writes daily, monthly
and annual records of all the crimes
reported. The reports are available
for anyone to read.
“That is where the information
for the police beat comes from,” he
said.“If anything serious occurs it
usually gets headlines in the paper.”
However, not all sexual assaults
are reported, so the police reports
and newspaper stories are not actual
representations of how often they
occur.
Wiatt said sexual assault is one of
the least reported offenses to a law
enforcement agency. People are
more likely to report a robbery, bur
glary or vandalism, they said.
Four sexual assaults were re
ported to the University Police be
tween September 1987 and August
1988.
The difficulty in obtaining accu
rate statistics is directly related to the
emotionally sensitive nature of the
situation. For many families, leaving
the children at home alone while the
parents are working is a secretive ar
rangement, she said.
“Parents don’t reveal their chil
dren are latchkey for two reasons,”
she said. “One, fear of child abuse
and neglect charges and two, fear
for the child — possibly setting the
child up in a dangerous situation.”
“Because of parental feelings of
guilt and fear, the children are
taught to maintain a low profile, and
their presence may not even be no
ticed by friends and neighbors.”
Because of these factors, commu
nities are frequently unaware pf the
extent and impact of the latchkey sit
uation in their population, she said.
While children in self-care are not
solely products of the 1980s, the
magnitude of the situation is, An
derson said. Unsupervised children
must be considered at risk, she said.
For example, 6,000 children die
each year as a result of in-home alcci-
dents and fires, and in nearly every
case no adult had been present.
Recognizing the challenges faced
by latchkey children, the American
Home Economics Association, with
funding from the Whirlpool Foun
dation, established Project Home
Safe in an effort to find both imme
diate and long-term solutions to the
latchkey situation.
The three-year project includes
research, training, materials devel
opment and start-up or strengthen
ing of community school-age child
care programs throughout the
United States.
In addition to training home
economists and providing material
for use by trainers, parents and chil
dren, Project Home Safe offers a na
tionwide toll-free hotline and a na
tional Resource Center that makes
available research, books and other
resources on child care.
“I will be going to Washington,
D.C. for Home Safe Trainer’s train
ing,” Anderson said. “The four-day,
28-hour training program will train
us to teach volunteers at our training
sessions to provide a life-skills train
ing for children in self-care where
the community offers no alternative
to the latchkey arrangement.
“For example, we will pretend
there is a fire and practice for emer
gency. We don’t advocate leaving
children alone, but the program is to
help parents be sure the child is re
ady to care for himself if there is no
other option available.”
Texas has been chosen as one of
the six training sites for the pro
gram. Several criteria were used in
the selection process: a large popula
tion of school-age children with
working parents, a strong state
home economics association sup
porting the project, and a pool of
qualified home economists working
in the child development or educa
tion fields, Anderson said.
“Our training will target about 33
counties this side of San Antonio,
from Austin to Houston,” Anderson
said. “We won’t target the entire
state but the program is open to oth
ers in the state.
Texas dieters taken
by health plan f rauds
FORT WORTH (AP) — More
and more dieters are telling Texas
consumer fraud investigators that
they are being bilked by quick-
weight-loss plans that seem too good
to be true — and are.
Robert Kaman, director of pro
grams for Preventive Health-Pre
ventive Medicine at the Texas Col
lege of Osteopathic Medicine, said
dieters often want a quick fix to lose
weight. i ii
“But there ain’t no free lunch,” he
said. “You don’t eat, you don’t gain.
The trick is to keep the weight off.
Statistics suggest that within a year,
80 percent of all dieters gain their
weight back. If the diet does not pro
vide an education program to help
you change your lifestyle, then you
face a lifetime of what we call the yo
yo diet.”
Kaman suggests dieters be leery
of any weight-loss plans involving
food supplements or diets devised
by laymen without a doctor’s appro
val.
Consumers should be sure they
are not buying a marketing scheme,
but a legitimate program, he said.
Kaman said would-be dieters
should avoid substances that suppos
edly increase metabolism, ampheta
mines, and hormones that many
claim will lead to weight loss.
Another recent weight-loss fad is
a patch soaked with chemicals and
placed on the skin to allow slow ab
sorption.
“The so-called patch technology
has been recognized as safe and ef
fective utilizing some drugs,” said
Jim McDonald, compliance officer
for the Federal Drug Administration
district office in Dallas.
But for weight loss, the technique
has not been proven, and the Texas
Attorney General’s Office is battling
advertisements and sale of the prod
ucts in the state.
Some plans are fraudulent, one
state official said.
“We are just covered up with
health frauds right now,” said Den
nis Baker, a spokesman for the
Texas Department of Health’s Food
and Drug Division. “If it sounds too
good to be true, it probably is.”
The Dallas-Fort Worth Council
Against Health Fraud received 160
calls between July 14, 1987, and July
14, 1988. Of those calls, 46 percent
were on weight-loss programs.
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