"Chicago School Bans Homemade Lunches"

Post Reply New Topic

I used to get really annoyed with my daughter's school who would allow them to take snacks in but insisted that they were 'healthy'. 'Healthy' can be absolutely anything depending on how it fits into the rest of the diet. A bar of chocolate is 'healthy' if it's the only one you're likely to have this year. They seemed to decide what is healthy based on appearance. For example, they could have a shop bought cereal bar marketed as a healthy snack but they couldn't have a slice of homemade flapjack. Or they could have digestives biscuits (plain) but not jaffa cakes (fancy), but jaffa cakes have less calories, less fat and less sugar than a digestive.

I would agree with you until you realize that we ALL collectively pay for those fat kids who grow up to be fat adults and have fat related health issues. Thanks to poor individual choices we collectively pay the consequences in society.

What a really bad policy. I understand the reasoning, but there are much better ways to approach the problem. Better nutritional education for one. Maybe something like the scared straight program where they show the kids graphic images obesity-related diseases, or maybe just bring them to the Twinkie or hot dog plant so they can see what the crap is actually made from.

I pack my kid's lunch almost every day to avoid the overpriced, fried garbage they serve at the cafeteria. My kid gets a much more nutritious meal from me for less than half the cost of a school lunch.

What makes you think dim-wits can educated?

ruveyn

Love the irony of this post.

Organic farming is healthier? Not according to my chemist husband. He says that organic farmers are not allowed to use modern chemicals and pesticides but that they are allowed to use traditional chemicals and pesticides. He says that part of the reason modern ones were developed was because the traditional ones were so nasty.

Then there's organic like the stuff in my garden, which has nothing at all added. Mostly because I can't be bothered faffing with it all.

It's good policy but stupidly implemented.

Encouraging healthy eating, and encouraging the use of nutritious food is excellent public policy--the long term benefits are solid. However, the approach of banning outside food and requiring parents to pay for school lunches has a number of potential impacts.

The exception for allergies is essential, but it enourages parents to seek allegy diagnoses. Most food sensitivities are not allergies--if your body is producing IgE in reaction to a food protein, you are allergic. No IgE, no food allergy. Many food intolerances, like celiac disease and lactose intolerance are not food allergies but do impose dietary restrictions.

Meanwhile there are many other medical circumstances (not least of which is diabetes) that dictate special approaches to diet.

If we want to get kids off junk food, then maybe what we should be doing is providing parents with the means (both in time and in money) to provide nutritious food for their kids, instead of paying lip service to the notion by imposing an arbitrary standard on a mere five of their weekly meals.

Why do you assume that a school lunch consists of healthy and nutritious food? In my recent experience with 2 different districts in 2 different states it's been tater tots and corn dogs all around. The article mentions that they've switched to low fat condiments but so what? There's still dipping french fries in it. They also mentioned a reduction in sodium by 5%, so lunch that had 1200 mg of sodium now has 1140 - I'm not impressed.

There's a show about school lunches (Jaime Oliver's Food Revolution) and what shocked me the most was seeing the resistance of the school personnel to change the menu. You would have thought chicken nuggets were sacred. There's actually a lot backroom procurement challenges that most people are completely unaware of. It's a myth that we can't afford an upgrade to real food. Instead, there's a push by the prepackaged food industry and in some cases they literally give the food away, knowing full well the addictive properties of these high fat, high sugar foods.

My husband is in food service and during a recent employment search we came across and ad that said, "School cafeteria manager needed, no cooking skills necessary - we only serve heat and eat food." The problem is larger than most people realize.

Then educate them. If they want to remain ignorant, that's their choice at the end of the day. Some people are just like that. Unless you're advocating that the state takes yet more control over children's lives?

There's nothing wrong with salt. You're better off having too much salt than too little.

You know what? I really don't have a problem with this. If I send my children to a babysitter's house, I expect the babysitter to feed them. In the same way, children are left in the charge of schools and schools need to provide.

Even when the food is frequently sub-standard and, in many cases in Britain, worse than prison food? In fact, hospital food and school food is often known to be of very poor quality here.

How do you know *this* school has bad food?

I don't. What I am saying is that might be one of the reasons why they want to opt out.

Also, healthy/unhealthy in a lot of cases is subjective, not objective.

The other thing as well is freedom of choice. When I was at school, I never liked the food that was given to me as part of school dinners - I used to nick other people's food when I was five! So mum packed me a lunch instead. I was much happier after that.

I realize all this. I'm not entirely sure you understand how the American public school system works, though.

It's one school, and if parents have an issue with it there's generally a way to enroll the child/ren in another school, and sometimes an entirely different district if it's a district policy that's causing a problem.

It's also worth noting that many schools here in the US have been serving mainly healthy stuff for years now. Sure, healthy/unhealthy can be subjective for people (such as myself) with food allergies and sensitivities, but they've accommodated for this wrinkle.

These are public schools, and as such are already run by the government. Putting stricter guidelines on food consumption on their premises is hardly 'more government up our ass'.

In Britain we have public schools (as you do in the US) but there is more freedom of choice generally in what schools permit. Schools telling parents they can't put X (whatever it is) in their packed lunches does not go down well, trust me.