public school lunch programs

[steve mcqueen]

Why are our kids overweight? Does this rankle anyone else but me?....does goverment need to get involved?....or should parents keep the schools in line?

BOSTON The Fluffernutter -- the beloved New England lunchbox staple -- is sandwiched into a sticky political debate.

A Massachusetts senator whose third-grade son was given some white bread stuffed with Marshmallow Fluff and peanut butter for a school lunch is proposing banning schools from offering Fluffernutters more than once a week.

This is not popular with the representative from Revere, where Fluff has been made for more than 30 years. Kathi-Anne Reinstein (RYN'-styn) says she'll "fight to the death for Fluff" and wants the Fluffernutter designated the Commonwealth's official sandwich.

Which leaves an aide to Senator Jarrett Barrios to defend his boss as someone who "loves Fluff as much as the next legislator."

[sisca]

fluffernutters ROCK! not saying kids should have em all the time, just every so often. man those fuckin things are good.

[Raldo]

I don't think Fluffernutters are the problem with kids being overweight. It's what they eat throughout the day and not just for lunch. Plus, kids don't get enough excercise. Too much video game playing and watching tv. Kids need a balance of all that.

[ZeoBandit]

It's not the school's fault kids are overweight. It's the parents. They need to kick their kids asses outside and make them stop watching TV and playing video games.

[billy007]

How 'bout making the kids take gym class instead of saving more time to bone up for a stupid standardised test?

[loveevhsince79]

Why do we need another regulation? If you feel it's not a healthy choice, pack your kid's lunch. It's an overall diet and exercise that effects kids weight, not a sandwich served at lunch at school. Parents are the ones responsible for what their kids eat and it's stupid to try to correct someone else's stupidity with their kids. What's next, how many times you hit McDonald's a week?

[Scotty]

Flufferwhat?

[billy007]

A sandwich consisting of peanut butter and Durkee's Marshmallow Fluff.

[ZORBA5150]

It all starts at home. What is it, like over 60% of the population is overweight or obese- not exactly role models for the kids. Little or no exercise, and a poor diet- correct those things and you will live long healthy lives

[Guitar Shark]

Why do we need another regulation? If you feel it's not a healthy choice, pack your kid's lunch. It's an overall diet and exercise that effects kids weight, not a sandwich served at lunch at school. Parents are the ones responsible for what their kids eat and it's stupid to try to correct someone else's stupidity with their kids. What's next, how many times you hit McDonald's a week?

I agree with the concept that the focus should be on the parents. A healthy diet starts at home and we cannot rely on school lunches to force students to eat better. However, we all know that if a kid is given a choice between a home-packed lunch, and a slice of pizza, the kid will pick the pizza every time. Many school districts across the country are SEVERELY underfunded, and many have chosen to make up the shortfall by signing lucrative contracts with various food vendors and manufacturers. In those situations, kids at school are bombarded with very poor food choices from a health standpoint. Also, school budget cuts have forced many schools to cut gym and exercise classes. There is an extended discussion about this problem in the movie "Supersize Me", which I recommend to anyone who is interested in this issue. Kind of an overblown message in the movie for some, but it's rock solid on this point. I'm sure some of the teachers here have seen this happening. So while the parents have the primary responsibility, something also should be done to improve the food options at schools.

[graeme]

Schools in England now, after some serious pressure from a celebrity chef, have undertaken a radical change in the food offered. No more junk, burgers, fries, breaded meats, fizzy drinks etc. More vegetables, high quality meats etc now. Teachers have also noticed bi product of this is that the kids are able to concentrate better and are less tired.
While I agree, this starts at home and it is primarily the parents responsibility, I think (very strongly) that schools should not be allowed to serve garbage to our kids, exspecially because the parents are not there to oversee what they eat.
England is the second fattest country in the world, with growing rates of diabetes and other obesity related diseases and growing rates of serious behavioural and attention disorders, often attributed (though not proven) to junk foods. If the kids want junk they can do it on their own time, not helped by the state.
Phew.

[Texas Poundcake]

I agree with the concept that the focus should be on the parents. A healthy diet starts at home and we cannot rely on school lunches to force students to eat better. However, we all know that if a kid is given a choice between a home-packed lunch, and a slice of pizza, the kid will pick the pizza every time. Many school districts across the country are SEVERELY underfunded, and many have chosen to make up the shortfall by signing lucrative contracts with various food vendors and manufacturers. In those situations, kids at school are bombarded with very poor food choices from a health standpoint. Also, school budget cuts have forced many schools to cut gym and exercise classes. There is an extended discussion about this problem in the movie "Supersize Me", which I recommend to anyone who is interested in this issue. Kind of an overblown message in the movie for some, but it's rock solid on this point. I'm sure some of the teachers here have seen this happening. So while the parents have the primary responsibility, something also should be done to improve the food options at schools.

Exactly.... I know that at my school (elementary) we have a main food choice for lunch then there is an alternative choice. Pizza or chicken nuggets. So every other day they can get pizza. Chicken is only on Tues and Thurs! Look at some of the school menus. I know around here they put them in the paper. The food is not made from scratch anymore either. It is all processed. The hamburger patties come already cooked, they just heat them up. That goes for pretty much everything on our menu. Then we have the parents that come eat lunch with their kids pretty much every day and bring them some type of fast food. So it goes both ways! As a parent, I choose to not let my daughter eat at school. I pack her a healthy lunch everyday.

[loveevhsince79]

I think how far it's regulated is what is bothersome to me. I too want healthy choices for my kids and would be happy not to have an added chore of packing lunches everyday. And if the kids pack, they don't have the money in their pocket to choose something else (unless they're trading which I'm sure happens). It's more that we have to rely on someone else to make our decisions for us because we are unable to make them ourselves. Does that make sense? But I guess we are talking about limiting the decisions our kids are making, limiting them to better alternatives which is all good.

[LoveWalkinIn]

Here's the bottom line, kids are fat because of their parents. What happens when most kids get home from school every day??? Their mom asks them if they want a snack. I've found that it is not what you eat that makes you fat, but how much you eat. I keep it in moderation, eat all the terrible things I want (I just had a chili-chicken calzone for lunch and will be eating some sort of fried food for dinner), and am in good health. When adding work and school and everything, I have zero time to work out, and spend about 60-70 hrs on my ass working, and the rest on it relaxing. BUT I only eat 2-3 meals a day. For breakfast, nothing more than a snack, a good solid meal for lunch, and then pig out at dinner.

A few yrs ago I gained 25 lbs. in 3 months, because I was eating ALL THE TIME. Snacks galore and huge meals on top of that. A big problem kids have is eating when they're not hungry, they eat for the sake of eating, especially fat kids. I eat all the bad stuff I want during meals, and eat no snacks during the day, and lost all my excess weight, and have maintained that weight. There is no way in hell any one in their right mind can claim the kid getting a fluffernutter is making him fat. Bottom line is, that if the school is serving that and the parent's don't like it, then mom/dad should be packing the kid a lunch. Also, I'm quite certain that something healthier was offered, but the kid probably wanted the fluffernutter. Random people w/stupid ideas never cease to piss me off.

[Axxman300]

In grammar school, the first two years I was there they used to cook the meals at the kitchen. We'd get enchaldas one day, meat loaf another and we'd get half of an oragne or a couple of slices of apple and a carton of milk.

Not bad.

Then around 3rd grade they stopped using the kitchen to save money and brought in the meals from a central location and re-heated them. The quality of the food went down to pizza and something like gulash. I stopped eating lunch because it was awful, the problem was that I was on the free-lunch program and that meant I didn't eat at all, unless one of my friends got something he didn't like packed in his lunch. One day I passed out in class after lunch from low blood sugar and my mom found a wat to make me a sandwich in the morning. The other BIG MISTAKE was that they would give us whole apples and oranges instead of sliced. Whoever the dumbshit who thought that idea up had obviously never seen a young child let alone spent any time in a grade school setting. Why? First off, apples and oranges are aerodynamic and are easy to throw with great accuracy. Second off, half the kids at this age WORE BRACES and couldn't eat the apples unless they were sliced and they don't give knives to young children for some reason.

When I got to junior high, they had hamburgers and french fries and real milk shakes!!!!! I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. That whole combo would run you two bucks, and I'd save up so I could eat there on Fridays. The rest of the time I packed my own lunch, I was a good cook and had come up with a killer Tuna sandwich design. Plus, Zip-Lock bags had become available and I was also able to bring leftovers like my Grandma's chicken.

The thing is that we had P.E. and I also walked home every day from school, which was a mile or so from my house. Sometimes I rode my bike. After school, I was usually over at my friend's house and he lived next to the river (which was usually dry by April) and we'd play for three or four hours up and down the river bed, looking for toads or having adventures that 10 to 12 year-olds used to have. I was usually to wiped out by the time I got home that I'd usually fall asleep by 9:30pm. I also had I huge Oak tree in the backyard that I climbed every day and it was the location of my "Fort", I had a big goofy dog that need to be taken for a walk (my dog thought that he had a kid that needed to be taken for a walk) and my back yard was littered with balls incase I game of somekind broke out between my brother and me.

I don't know how I had the energy to be a kid, to be honest. I wish I had half of it today.

Anyway, while I'm for good nutrition I think that people need to be careful when they talk about unleashing the health nazis on our kids. Really healthy food is usually bland, and kids won't eat it. A smart grownup will sneak the healthy stuff in with the not so healthy stuff and I think that this is the way to go. If you ban all of the fun stuff then what happens? Some of the kids will bring it from home. California has already banned softdrinks from schools, if I were in highschool today, I'd pack an ice-chest and load it full of Coke, Sprite, Pepsi, Diet and Red Bull and then I'd sell them for a buck a can out of my trunk at lunch. A freshman these days could probably pay for his first year of college this way. They didn't have Costco when I was a kid, but today you can buy a case of candy bars and tripple your investment on the playground.

Screw drugs, sell junk food.

And who's the big looser? The schools! Why?

Because they are not allowed - by law - to sell soft drinks or candy anymore so that money goes somewhere else. You have to be a politician to be that galactically stupid. You watch, in California, they will pass a law against the sale of candy or softdrinks within 100 yards of a school. Candy will become equal to handguns.

Why doesn't California instead pass a law requiring and any house build must have a backyard 1/4 the size of the house OR LARGER? The biggest threat to our kids health, at least in California, are realestate developers. They design subdivisions where the houses are packed so close that they often have a tiny back yard. No wonder kids would rather play video games or watch T.V., their backyard is almost non-existant and if they have any fun the neighbors will complain because they are ten feet away. Then these houses are usually a part of a neighborhood association, who fine you for everything and make it impossible for kids to even go outside.

Sorry for the long rant, but I've seen this all before and all that happened was that a bunch of "Feel Good" laws were passed, nothing actually got fixed and the childred were essentually politcally molested to the point that we are at now.