No more junk food in schools

I have several thoughts on this topic. Obviously, we all want our children to have a healthy meal ~ every night in the school year I spend several minutes planning and packing their lunches. Never have wanted them to be a part of the processed foods that make up our school lunches. While this is great, many of the children who rely on these lunches come from homes where school lunch is the most substantial meal of their entire day. Children who qualify for assistance will not survive on 200 calories a day. Even if is a nutrient rich meal. Of course, school lunches should not be a 'whole day' meal. Obviously. However, this is the reality in this country ~ especially in many large urban public schools. My next thought is exercise. I believe the current administration needs to rethink the entire one size fits all as all children are different. I'm not talking testing - please - that is a huge category in and of itself. I am talking exercise. When I was a child, I benefitted from class-recess-class-lunch-recess-class-gym! Maybe not in that order but short quick breaks where we could run around, get our HR raised and lungs filling up was GOOD for us. The computer craze and sitting down for everything is not good. So, I like the idea of no more junk food. I believe there needs to be more research on the severity of how it will impact our most needy of children.

Not too long ago, I probably would be upset. Blah blah blah, freedom of choice, blah blah. But now, I think it's a good idea. These aren't adults making poor choices about their health, these are children. People who can't understand what short term choices mean for their longevity. I seriously think this is a step in the right direction. We need to be healthier in this country. If we are healthier we are more productive, richer (less medical bills), and are able to do more. If parents won't teach healthy eating habits, then we should remove the temptation as much as possible.

^this.

If we're talking about government provided lunches? Great, I support what they are doing.

But if they try to tell parents that they can't send foods to school for the kids that pack lunch? That is something I take issue with.

I think they mean at the cafeteria or in the vending machines etc. Barring any allergies, I'd be PISSED if I couldn't send whatever I wanted in my kids' lunch.

why not have all the kids start wearing school uniforms too, lets just remove all choices in the schools now. This would make commies, socialist and ultra liberals very happy,

A lot of articles are stating that kids can still bring whatever food they want in their own packed lunches. Seems they still have lots of choices.

and its only a matter of time before those lunches will be getting check. If the goverment wants to change those free lunches to be healthy then go for it, but thats where it should end.

In high school, I ate Little Debbie snacks and ice cream for munch, then fast food or pizza after school. I was 110 pounds and size 3.

You know what was different then? Gym class and not spending all day in front of video games and computers.

Get rid of all the junk, but as long as they keep getting rid of recess and PE, kids will be overweight. They aren't addressing the real issue.

yesss same here. i was never more than a size 5 which was big for me, on average a 1-3. i ate all the ****ty foods haha but they made us play softball, frisbee, do track, kickball all sorts of stuff. kids are lazy and the parents condone in. **** that.

I purposely have not read any of this thread besides the OP (the 2nd posts eye rolling was enough) and here are my 2 cents. I'm a teacher, a fairly young teacher, this is my 6th year teaching in a VERY poor school district (5th poorest in the good ole US of A). ALL of our students are on free or reduced lunch. Here is an example of a normal meal in one day, and they are the same every week; breakfast is a chocolate, full fat milk, a 'juice' box, a pre packaged waffle with the syrup already added in and and an optional fruit salad with heavy syrup. Lunch: another chocolate, full fat milk, a 'juice' box, a slice of cheese or pepperoni pizza, an optional side of canned green beans, an optional side of fruit in heavy syrup. Just in these two meals, my students are eating more sugar and fat than I eat in 2-3 days and they are in elementary school (2nd grade). All of the meals are served with the 'main dish' (packaged waffle, pizza, uncrustable, etc) on a Styrofoam tray and then they put all of the sides in separate little plastic cups so that the kids don't have to get it and they save money, which means almost no kids in the school get any veggies or fruit on their plates. It is a disgrace. I don't give a God dang if you support Obama, if you're a Republican or if you voted for the freaking tooth fairy, the way we feed our kids in public school is a shame and it has to change. My kids come in and have a mouth full of caps on their teeth b/c their baby teeth have rotted out from all the sugar they eat (and the free, traveling dentist bus is the one who puts the caps on and does their semi annual cleanings, during school ours, b/c they are all too poor to go to the dentist any other way). Half of them are on medication for ADD, ADHD, etc, etc, etc, and you cannot tell me that their diet, most of which is eaten at school, doesn't have a major impact. And the worst part is that these are kids who are getting their meals paid for by us, the tax payers, and that's what they have to eat. And I wouldn't dare deter them from eating it because many of them may not have dinner at night when they go home. So think about that next time you want to roll your eyes at people who are trying to fix this problem.

I purposely didn't read any either but your post was exactly what I was thinking. Do we work in the same school district? lol, we have the exact same thing at my school.

Confused...if you purposely didn't read anything beyond the original post and the eye-roller...how did you see this one?

I kind of have two thoughts on this issue. One is that I think it's ok that government-run schools refuse to be the "supplier" of bad foods. I've taught at a public school in Texas for 6 years and our kids have never had access to soda and candy bars.

BUT...(and this is a big but)

The government has absolutely ZERO business telling parents what they can and cannot put into their children's lunches that they bring from home. Don't want schools to sell Cokes? Fine. But if parents want to send it with their kid, that's their business and their problem. No lunch Nazis, please.

Government-run schools use government approved curriculum and maintain their own rules. They can and do prohibit certain items from being brought to school, ranging from weapons, spray paints, cell phones, to junk food. If you don't approve of their methods you either vote someone else into the government, or homeschool your kids. Many parents homeschool where I live.

I support educating kids in healthy eating habit by restricting junk food at school. When they become adults they are free to engorge themselves with as much crap they can swallow.

The only items a public school should be allowed to restrict are items that can cause distraction to the learning environment, a privacy concern or bodily harm to other students. That covers dress codes and restrictions on cell phones and weapons. But the government should never have a say in the types of food a child can bring from home. That has no effect whatsoever on the overall learning environment or the safety of other kids. It's an infringement on parental rights. And I say this as a teacher.

Schools should be accountable to parents BECAUSE they are a government institution. In the US the government in general is accountable to the people. Not the other way around, as you seem to imply that is should be.

Coming from experience as a high school senior currently, what they have done for public schools is merely decreasing the amount of calories of the food by giving us less. The school food is still absolute junk, we are just fed less of it.

I'm all for reforming school lunches but it needs to be comprehensive and well thought out with a lot of parental/family involvement so that the kids, parents, and schools can work to being on the same page...not just "hey we're offering a salad bar now and no more Cokes kiddies!" There must be a massive marketing component behind it throughout the curriculum. I think the process of bringing awareness and education to children and many families is going to take decades and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the most resources and revenue should be spent making comprehensive healthy food changes in preschools and earlier grades in elementary schools and supporting 100% these changes as these kids age up. Starting with them when they are very young is going to bear the most fruit. I'm not saying to forget about the middle schoolers and high schoolers or that they are a lost cause, but the focus at the older ages needs to be tailored quite differently than for younger kids given that older kids have already experienced the dark side over and over and over in school - fried chicken nuggets, chocolate milk, etc. :devil: We need lots of incentives to help modify their choices. I'm ok with removing the vending machines but banning all unhealthy foods (like not letting a mom bring cupcakes to class) is just dumb. Our kids need to learn that desserts are ok in moderation. A chocolate milk at lunch is not going to kill our kids.

I agree with other posters that many kids who were or are used to a certain kind of lunch (i.e. fried chicken fingers) just dump the "healthy" food in the trash. My own 13-year old kid has done this. We live in a school district that has sought tens of thousands of dollars in donations to implement a healthy school food project. Our district also has much lower obesity rates than most. My extremely picky eater absolutely refuses to eat the school lunches for a couple of reasons. He says they never give him enough food and he comes home starving. This is a common complaint by both parents and kids in our school district - active kids need more food than the strict guidelines allow. Second, my son is picky so lukewarm fruit or brown apples for example just gross him out. I pack his lunch - leftover dinners that have to be reheated. I gladly admit that I am one of the moms who packs small desserts in my kid's lunches along with his main meal and fruit. I don't believe that totally removing something is the answer.

I also agree with those posters about P.E. - BRING BACK DAILY P.E. and decent recesses in elementary school. We can modify the school lunches until we're blue in the face with no real results without frequent P.E.