Cupcakes Banned in MA Schools
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I think more people are upset at the fact that the rights as parents to give kids what they want at school is more the issue then the banning of food. Well, it is for me. I am all for the schools to have healthy choice and I chose to put healthy foods in any lunches I may pack, but as soon as the school tells me no, I get mad, it just me.:ohwell:0
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While I don't think this decision is going to prove very practical or effective, I do have sympathy for government personnel. When they do nothing, they are criticized for doing nothing. When they do anything else, they are criticized for interfering.
Public health is an incredibly complicated issue, further complicated by the fact that the government's interest in promoting public health competes against the interest of private companies, who profit from our overconsumption and profit again via the weight loss industry. Whenever there are attempts to bring in food regulation (for example, to reduce the sodium in processed foods) it is opposed by lobbyists who use the rallying cry of freedom of choice to defend their "right" to sell whatever food they want.
Another problem is that schools are chronically underfunded in the United States. School boards have not cut funding for gym class and after school sports because they're evil or hate children - they are responding to budget pressure, and they choose to cut gym to keep math. The solution is to properly fund schools, which requires taxing individuals and businesses. If people want to see more programs in schools, they have to be willing to pay for them.
This might be a silly law, but the underlying idea of public policy being used as a tool to encourage public health is not inherently bad.
^ This. Government (especially state and local) is the tool by which we, as a community, determine and enforce behavior. Looking at it as a 'me vs. them' situation will simply serve to make you always feel like a victim of the government, rather than a part of it. Policy is shaped by those with the loudest voices; if you want something done or changed then make it happen. If you want schools to be better and have more tools in their arsenal to improve the health of students, go out and push for higher taxes and education reform.0 -
I live in Missouri and they stopped the kids bringing treats to school to share with others on their birthdays a few years ago, even when they have snack time they aren't allowed to bring cookies or cakes they are banned from the classroom. There are bake sales still, and they have vegetarian Wednesdays. I think it is up to a parent to make choices on what their child should and shouldn't be eating, we all know that childhood obesity is a problem but what difference is it going to make in these children if they don't get any exercise while at school, and they are eating junk at lunch.0
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I think banning cup cake sales is a step in the right direction. And there are hundreds of other ways to raise money for a fund raiser.
Jamie Oliver (British Chef) has done a fantastic job of initiating healthy school lunches in England, so it can be done, and on a budget too.
Check out more info if you want to
http://www.jamieoliver.com/school-dinners/
As for fund raisers, please add you own ideas.....
sponsored walk/ run
pumpkin /watermelon carvings (prize for winner and sell them all)
grow seeds and sell the plants
fresh popped corn
fruit smoothies
fruit salad
I could go on and on with ideas
It's a coincidence that this post came up today, as I was thinking the other day that this is something I would like to get involved in, I used to be a chef, and cook for children in an outdoor adventure camp, Just making simple changes like calling something a different 'fun' name and disguising the veg made a lot of difference with out even changing the menu, but it was a pretty balanced meal to start with though.
I would also like to re-vamp hospital food (don't get me started there!)0 -
Other fundraising ideas could be selling books , magazines, or if you go to goodbitesstore.com they have a fresh fruit and snacks fundraiser that may work out great for your school.0
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Well in our primary school, when I was growing up, ALL junk food was banned from our school! I don't think it did any of us any harm. But on occasions we did have bakesales for fundraising!0
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A HUGE chunk of all of our taxes go to support the schools whether you have kids in schools or not. And, if you are 'lucky' like I am, you live in a state that has additional taxes and levys specifically for the public schools. The over reaching of government in regards to its role in the school system is the #1 reason, in my opinion, as to why the schools are having 'money' problems. That and the total misplaced priority of sports and astetics over education of the mind.
Our schools sent us home an 'approved' list of snacks for the kids and birthday and holiday treats that they highly encourage us to follow. Also, sodas and candy are not allowed in lunches. While I do not think it is a good idea for those things to be in kids' lunches, i find it intrusive of them to tell me what I can and cannot send for my child.0 -
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A HUGE chunk of all of our taxes go to support the schools whether you have kids in schools or not. And, if you are 'lucky' like I am, you live in a state that has additional taxes and levys specifically for the public schools. The over reaching of government in regards to its role in the school system is the #1 reason, in my opinion, as to why the schools are having 'money' problems. That and the total misplaced priority of sports and astetics over education of the mind.
Our schools sent us home an 'approved' list of snacks for the kids and birthday and holiday treats that they highly encourage us to follow. Also, sodas and candy are not allowed in lunches. While I do not think it is a good idea for those things to be in kids' lunches, i find it intrusive of them to tell me what I can and cannot send for my child.
This is not meant to be combative at all, but do you have a problem with the school telling parents what the children are and are not allowed to wear to school? Like it or not, a person agreeing to send their children to a 'free' school also agrees to the rules put in place by that establishment, within reason.0 -
Yes, as a matter of fact I do.
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people complain about how we live in a culture that promotes unhealthy living. How are you going to get upset when someone actually tries to do something about it?
Do you really think the problem is homemade baked goods. Exactly what is unhealthy about that? We aren't talking bags of Doritos and boxes of Twinkies here or serving up McDonalds.
I grew up with bake sales and was never obese and there was maybe one heavy kid in school and everyone knew who it was. We all had homemade baked goods in our lunches every day pretty much in fact.
My son failed gym one term. He was on the sports teams and in very good shape. I asked him how it was possible. He said they started grading on notebooks (Pass/Fail) so the kids who weren't good in gym and didn't want to participate didn't have to.
So....... the answer is to stop making the kids participate in gym and then blame the obesity problem on a cookie or cupcake once a week?
This is the gov't controlling what citizens do to raise funds for their local sports teams, music and art programs. Where is the funding going to come from now?0 -
Back to the food discussion, we need to get Jamie Oliver into our schools to get children to want to eat healthier and we need to do something about parents feeding their kids hamburger helper legit every night haha.
^^ This - I LOVE LOVE LOVE Jamie Oliver and his program. I am sick of big brother feeding crap to our kids in schools and when parents pack a lunch a school has the right to take it away claiming its unhealthy? I am trying to figure out when a turkey sandwich is unhealthy vs pizza and french fries???
All of this^^^0 -
I work in a preschool that recently got orders to switch up the menu planning options to all skim milk, all whole, grains, all fresh fruits and veggies (or canned in natural juice or water), no processed meats, no sweets. Our children and families are also no longer allowed to bring ANY food into the program (including birthday / holiday cupcakes or anything else for that matter). We are not allowed to sell food to our families or ask them to sell food for fundraising purposes.
We thought it would be a tough transition, but guess what...IT WAS HARDER FOR THE TEACHERS AND PARENTS than for the children. Sure, some of them pushed some of the new foods around on the plate a little before they actually tried it, but THEY LOVE some of their new meal components.
The hardest part is finding other great fundraising options... ideas anyone?
This pisses me off for one big reason.... You don't take whole milk away from pre schoolers! The nutrients in whole milk are far superior than those in skim milk, with more fat to balance out the sugar content. Kids need fat! Whole milk is not going to make a child fat, not will it give them heart disease. And I'm an adult who doesn't even drink cows milk.0 -
I do think school lunches should be better. States are banning bake sales, while still allowed to serve ammonia soaked fake meat to kids,., gross. I do think it's great that some states are trying, but some things are just taken too far. If I had a child I would be so upset if the school wouldn't allow me to pack whatever lunch I saw fit. And forbidding bake sales is silly. That just creates the notion of "bad food" that hardly teaches moderation. I don't think McDonald's and pizza hut should have ever been allowed in schools, but that being said, at my high school we also had a great salad bar, and even back in 1995 we knew pizza "would make you fat" lol. You were also only allowed to buy pop during lunch. The rest of the day the machines were locked and you could only buy water or juice. This was in rural Arkansas in 1995.....0
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I do think school lunches should be better. States are banning bake sales, while still allowed to serve ammonia soaked fake meat to kids,., gross. I do think it's great that some states are trying, but some things are just taken too far. If I had a child I would be so upset if the school wouldn't allow me to pack whatever lunch I saw fit. And forbidding bake sales is silly. That just creates the notion of "bad food" that hardly teaches moderation. I don't think McDonald's and pizza hut should have ever been allowed in schools, but that being said, at my high school we also had a great salad bar, and even back in 1995 we knew pizza "would make you fat" lol. You were also only allowed to buy pop during lunch. The rest of the day the machines were locked and you could only buy water or juice. This was in rural Arkansas in 1995.....
AMEN!0 -
While I don't think this decision is going to prove very practical or effective, I do have sympathy for government personnel. When they do nothing, they are criticized for doing nothing. When they do anything else, they are criticized for interfering.
Public health is an incredibly complicated issue, further complicated by the fact that the government's interest in promoting public health competes against the interest of private companies, who profit from our overconsumption and profit again via the weight loss industry. Whenever there are attempts to bring in food regulation (for example, to reduce the sodium in processed foods) it is opposed by lobbyists who use the rallying cry of freedom of choice to defend their "right" to sell whatever food they want.
Another problem is that schools are chronically underfunded in the United States. School boards have not cut funding for gym class and after school sports because they're evil or hate children - they are responding to budget pressure, and they choose to cut gym to keep math. The solution is to properly fund schools, which requires taxing individuals and businesses. If people want to see more programs in schools, they have to be willing to pay for them.
This might be a silly law, but the underlying idea of public policy being used as a tool to encourage public health is not inherently bad.
Honestly I don't buy the "poor government official" theory. For one thing, it's not the lobbyists for Organic Farmers that are listened too by our government officials, you only have to look so far as what is going on right now in Washington in regards to farmers all across this country, but big business farm industry such as the corn and soy industry that are in the back pocket of our government who then pushes "soy" and "corn" into everything we eat, through the FDA. People ask me all the time why I choose to use homeopathic medicines when they aren't approved by the FDA, no thanks, the FDA approves poison all the time, I'll take my chances.
No vending machines at all should be in elementary schools. They never were when I was in school, we got hot lunch or we brought our own. The only "drinks" available were white milk and chocolate milk and if you were in line towards the back you NEVER got chocolate milk it would be gone by the time you got there.
If you want to buy overpriced wrapping paper be my guest, but if approached to buy it, I wouldn't be interested in that and schools rely heavily on fundraisers, so hopefully they will find something people would actually want to purchase.0 -
Something else that people are overlooking is that, in the case of bake sales, all parents can get involved by doing more than just trying to convince people to buy things they don't want, like overpriced paper and candles. Everyone pitches in and bakes something at home, often times with their kids, and AGAIN it's HOME BAKED goods that no one has to buy. I don't know about you but I don't cook with MSG or corn syrup solids or any preservatives and chemicals. This is something that has been done since the beginning of kitchens - baking at home. So, we bake and we all bring it in and the kids know what their mom's baked. No one is selling a bag of Cheetos here. THIS IS NOT CAUSING OBESITY!
And for the person who was talking about what I feed my kids - I had 6 boys at home. To this day, not one has a weight problem and my youngest is a college freshman. I baked for them EVERY DAY for their afterschool snack. That's right! And their lunches, even with baked goods in them, had less calories and more nutrients than any school lunch.
The fact that some parents choose to feed their kids nothing but junk at home and let them spend all their time playing video games and then feed them the garbage "chicken product" nuggets and pastuerized process cheese food, instead of real cheese, that the school passes out does not mean the solution to these kids being fat (yes FAT) is to not allow parents to have bake sale, where they SELL healthy home baked goods to help fund the athletics programs that do more to fight child obesity than a class on MYPLATE or the FOODPYRAMID ever will!0 -
Something else that people are overlooking is that, in the case of bake sales, all parents can get involved by doing more than just trying to convince people to buy things they don't want, like overpriced paper and candles. Everyone pitches in and bakes something at home, often times with their kids, and AGAIN it's HOME BAKED goods that no one has to buy. I don't know about you but I don't cook with MSG or corn syrup solids or any preservatives and chemicals. This is something that has been done since the beginning of kitchens - baking at home. So, we bake and we all bring it in and the kids know what their mom's baked. No one is selling a bag of Cheetos here. THIS IS NOT CAUSING OBESITY!
And for the person who was talking about what I feed my kids - I had 6 boys at home. To this day, not one has a weight problem and my youngest is a college freshman. I baked for them EVERY DAY for their afterschool snack. That's right! And their lunches, even with baked goods in them, had less calories and more nutrients than any school lunch.
The fact that some parents choose to feed their kids nothing but junk at home and let them spend all their time playing video games and then feed them the garbage "chicken product" nuggets and pastuerized process cheese food, instead of real cheese, that the school passes out does not mean the solution to these kids being fat (yes FAT) is to not allow parents to have bake sale, where they SELL healthy home baked goods to help fund the athletics programs that do more to fight child obesity than a class on MYPLATE or the FOODPYRAMID ever will!
THIS ^^^^
My cousin is the same way, she bakes for her kids, she doesn't have processed stuff in the house like cheetos and crap like that. They eat homemade baked goods. Her kids are very healthy and very active.
I agree about athletic programs. When I was a kid we were CONSTANTLY outside playing, riding bikes, running around playing tag etc. and so forth. My babysitter in elementary school let us in to go to the bathroom or get a drink, other than that we were outside, if it rained then we were in the basement, but even in snowstorms we were outside, having snowball fights and building forts. I'd wager that many overweight children are coming home and plopping down on the couch to play video games, have TVs in their room and sitting on facebook all day. I didn't gain weight until I was an adult and become less active.0 -
This is not meant to be combative at all, but do you have a problem with the school telling parents what the children are and are not allowed to wear to school? Like it or not, a person agreeing to send their children to a 'free' school also agrees to the rules put in place by that establishment, within reason.
True. Even schools you pay for, the school tells the parents what their kids can wear, etc.
One thing I'm noticing is that there are a lot of people that have a problem with this rule, but claim that they never pack junk food in their lunches. OK, so what's the problem, then? I put my selt beat on every time I get in the car before it was the law. Did I get pissed off that the government told me that I HAVE to? No. I don't. I'm more concerned about books being banned from schools than I am junk food.0 -
This is not meant to be combative at all, but do you have a problem with the school telling parents what the children are and are not allowed to wear to school? Like it or not, a person agreeing to send their children to a 'free' school also agrees to the rules put in place by that establishment, within reason.
True. Even schools you pay for, the school tells the parents what their kids can wear, etc.
One thing I'm noticing is that there are a lot of people that have a problem with this rule, but claim that they never pack junk food in their lunches. OK, so what's the problem, then? I put my selt beat on every time I get in the car before it was the law. Did I get pissed off that the government told me that I HAVE to? No. I don't. I'm more concerned about books being banned from schools than I am junk food.
You can't compare public and private schools. A private school can do what they want, it's a private business. If someone doesn't like it, they go somewhere else, don't pay them anymore. If I don't like what the public school does, can I stop paying them? No, I have to pay them AND the private school I used for my son.
And, it has been ruled that schools can not tell kids what they can't wear unless it's offensive in some way or causes problems for other students. If my son eats a homemade piece of apple pie, no one is going to get shot.0
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