With obesity numbers rising among children, the recent partnership between the National Education Association and Atkins Nutritionals shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

The contract, which isn’t being released (which is not the surprising part), will give the NEA a sizable amount of money, something between the low and mid six-figure range, said an Atkins spokesman. In return, Atkins will be allowed to market its diet information to school children.

The surprising part is that Atkins says it isn’t trying to market its product, but merely trying to battle obesity.

Sounds honorable, yet not exactly believable — kind of like low-carb rice.

The number of obese children has skyrocketed in the past 25 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a quadrupling in obese children. Technology has created a sedentary lifestyle that is only being passed on through bad examples set by adults. Something truly must be done.

But using a fad diet to teach children how to lose weight seems inherently wrong. Next thing you know, instead of choosing between chocolate or white milk, will students be deciding between vanilla or chocolate fudge Slim-Fast? How about some Dexatrim with those mashed potatoes?

Have we gone from craze to crazy?

The Atkins diet has swept the country, popping up in every aisle of the grocery store, cornering space in chain restaurants’ menus, even creating a low-carb bread — an oxymoron in itself. But the fad diet is just that: a fad.

Although the diet can be a successful tool for weight loss, it has also proven to cause other, more serious problems. The American Heart Association has warned that the diet can cause coronary heart disease, diabetes, kidney and liver disorders.

Are our youth slowly becoming solids? Will a mandatory triple-bypass surgery come with the mandatory high school physical now?

Children are getting less and less physical activity as they spend more time in front of the television and video games. In 2003, only 56 percent of high school students participated in physical education class.

Now more than ever it is important to instill good eating habits as well as physical activity into the minds of young children, and it is important to do it the right way. A fad diet is not that way.

Although the education system may be starved for money, it doesn’t have the right to market the future health of our country for something that in the end is worth little more than a six-figure contract.

After all, what are we without our health?