"Hungry is hungry no matter what the reason, and if the kids absolutely won’t eat certain foods, it doesn’t matter how healthy it is in the garbage can. "
Evidently no one in your family has ever been hungry. People who “absolutely won’t eat certain foods” aren’t hungry.
Farm subsidies for different kinds of foods being produced is a political issue in government.
Of course, in non-government arenas, the “diet ideology” arguments (low fat vs. low carb vs. etc.) are not really distinguishable from political arguments in how people act when arguing them.
It is sad when these issues cannot be discussed without the episodic smack at one political party or another. Maybe we should make a passing smack at some salty ethnic foods to balance out the negative commentary (take out your sarcasm detectors, please).
Hunt, your droll sense of humor cracks me up.
My kids dislike school lunches and have since long before now. I’ve eaten lunch at their school for years and there is no shortage of kids buying lunches. No segregation of any kind at their schools. I had a family member post “thanks Michelle. My kindergartner comes home starving thanks to you.” Upon asking, turns out the problem is the kid was upset to be limited to one hot dog and as much fruit and vegetable as he could he. He dislikes fruits and vegetable and just wants to stuff himself with hot dogs.
Also, I though school lunches were disgusting when I was a kid. Hamburgers were the worst, with globs of grease hanging off of them looking like grey snot. Ketchup counting as a vegetable. I think the guidelines are good, implementation is the problem. And school boards going for the cheapest ingredients, too few and poorly trained kitchen staff are the biggest problems.
Well, it’s institutional food. A monopoly with a limited budget, poorly trained staff, and a captive customer base is probably not going to provide great food. Why would we expect it to? School lunches are the current equivalent of Oliver Twist’s gruel. I actually appreciate any attempt to get somewhere on this issue. Jamie Oliver also tried to spearhead a campaign to reform school lunches and ran into all kinds of problems and backlash. Public school lunches have typically been terrible since forever and the only thing the kids ever want to eat is the junk. I could never get my daughter to buy lunch except on Fridays. What did they serve? Pizza and fries, of course.
This thread is what is wrong with our society. I read the original post as a political attack instead of a post to acknowledge the rapid rise of childhood obesity and present solutions to fix it.
To be honest with you, I have been horrified by what I’ve seen over the past 5 years of practice. Yesterday, I took care of a 95 pound 7 year old. Last week, a 190 pound 9 year old. and if I open my mouth about consulting a nutritionist, the parents get upset and complain about me. It’s madness. Prior to 2010, I rarely saw an obese child without a genetic disease. I guess that year was the tipping point.
I seriously think that kids coming home hungry may be the only way to fix this problem. They come home to the toxic Standard American Diet anyway so they are truly never hungry.
This thread was in part a political smack, frugaldoctor. The OP got edited. If the political garbage can be kept out of the discussion, we should talk openly and explore the problem you address. Not only is childhood obesity on the rise, but surely you’ve seen a rise in ancillary short and long term medical problems (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, orthopedic issues, etc). http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm
What happened to recess in elementary school? Kids need to be more active. Not sit in front of the TV or computer or cellphone. Regardless of who initiated it, and what side of the political table they happen to sit on, I applaud efforts to get kids to eat healthier and move more http://www.letsmove.gov/about Are there any outcome studies yet?
** eta: I watched most (but not all) of the video posted in the OP, and interestingly, I did not see ONE overweight kid in that video. Not one. That is a poor representation of the adolescent population these days for whom the nutritional changes in school are directed. From the CDC:
Agree that institutional food, combined with limited budgets and probably poor cooking training is a recipe for disaster (pun intended). This is a big problem (oops pun again) and should be addressed. As someone said above, this is not a political issue.
I honestly don’t understand why this is a huge issue. Pack lunches for your kids…or pack things to supplement the school lunches they get…or send just a packet of salt.
My kids bought school lunch once a month. For us, it was the economy of it. A bagel with butter/cream cheese and an apple and milk cost more than the purchase price of a half dozen bagels…and the ones we bought were better.
The lunch my kids bought was “breakfast for lunch”. French toast sticks or pancakes, sausage, hash browns, and some fruit for dessert. It was a once a month thing. Sometimes they skipped it.
When my dad became disabled we qualified for free breakfast and lunch for several years. Some people can cook and some can’t, so the same ingredients in different hands can become dishes of varying quality. I ate all of them. Children who are hungry don’t generally make a habit of tossing food in the trash. They do things like add tomato slices (which they secretly despise) to their sandwich because they know it will fill them up more than if they left it out.
I wouldn’t remove fruits & vegetables from the menu or replace steamed versions with their fried counterparts just because some kids won’t eat them. When kids get hungry, they’ll eat. Students who can afford to buy junk food in place of lunch are making a choice. I wouldn’t cater to their dietary preferences at the expense of the kids who have no options except for what comes out of the cafeteria.
http://www.livescience.com/51973-childhood-obesity-united-states.html
At least it appears to be leveling off, especially among poor young children.
Wise words from Frugaldoctor and Jym. The issue of children’s inactivity must be addressed also.
Years ago, when we were complaining about food in the college cafeteria, Jacqueline Grennan observed that we would not like cafeteria food, even if came from Antoine’s every day. Some people can cook and some can’t irrespective of the ingredients. Some people can and some can’t cook because of the ingredients. Sometimes food lacks nutritional value–a common lunch tray where I worked contained pizza, corn, a slice of bread and cookies. Kids left of the cafeteria with the gait of the Tinman. If you don’t like white hotdogs, try tunies.
As an antiquity, I remember the boxes of dried eggs lining the walls of the cafeteria and the salmon we crammed into milk cartons until that was discovered. Instead, we pitched the salmon and dried egss under the table and kicked them down to the end. In high school we brought lunch and added to it from the vending machines. I think that school lunches are important and should be healthy, but who has the magic menu that results in food everyone enjoys day-to-day. Favorite school lunch for me and my friends–fish sticks, tater tots and peas.
These are the things that are important to me: 1) a nutritionally-balanced plate that 1) includes food from multiple food groups, 2) inclusion of fresh fruit and vegetables, 3) a protein or meat that has at least a passing resemblance to its source, 4) a sweet of some sort and 5) the option of refusing some foods like corn however it’s prepared.
To me, the point of school lunch is fueling the brain for learning in the afternoon and providing students with the opportunity to interact with peers without close supervision. For some, lunch is the most important meal of the day and for others it means not compromising life by eating things contrary to dietary restrictions related to disease like Cystic Fibrosis and Diabetes. As well as…
If I had control over school, I would provide lunch for everyone with some choice (do you want lima beans or corn). I think we waste far too much time and money calculating who pays what percentage for lunch that could be better used to improve school lunches. My most memorable lunch-line experience–I was standing behind a little boy and his friends who were so excited because mom had gathered enough money for each child to have an ice cream in honor of her son’s birthday The cashier took the money and gathered up the ice cream saying that a child on reduced lunch should reimburse the school district for the cost of his food that he had received at reduced rates.
It’s my observation that institutional food is usually bad unless somebody, at the local level, is really devoted to making it good, and also has the skills and funding to make it good. If the food at your kid’s school is good, chances are you can find out specifically who the person is that is determined to make sure it is good. Top-down programs might make the food more healthy, but that’s a different issue.
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Presumably, you mean not just the typical American food groups of sugar, fat, and salt? 
To paraphrase Uncle Billy in the film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the three most important things about the American food groups are “…breakfast is served, lunch is served, dinner is served…” :))
No, they are not taking into account all kids.
They only take into account kids whose parents do not monitor their eating at home, and thus are significantly overweight.
Some of my kids are overweight, so we switch to 1% milk, they only get graham crackers as cookies, and otherwise we have cut down calories in other ways and worked on increasing exercise. One is now near normal weight due to a growth spurt. And one of my oldest’s friends was always at least 40 lbs. overweight in middle school and now is thin and tall.
It is very sad that, as in other cases, the rules change for the worst of us. Truly any child who is obese should be treated the same as a child with a hearing or vision problem, or scoliosis. They should be checked by the school, really quick weight and height, notify the parents, and send home information. Maybe even require a note from a pediatrician that the child is being followed up for obesity.
How DARE they make my athletic son pay upwards of $8 for lunch just so he can get enough calories to play sports after school? Literally they are giving HS kids 4 oz. of skim milk and tiny portions.
I feel like an athlete should bring snacks for after school. I always sent protein bars and fruit with my D. Her lunch was at 11:30 and practice at 3:30 anyway. I certainly wouldn’t expect the school to provide her with double lunch because she plays a sport.
IMO healthy lunches are not just for obese kids, they benefit all kids. “Normal” weight kids should also have veggies and fruit and protein and a balanced diet.
Dr. Neal Barnard’s YouTube lecture, Breaking The Food Seduction, addresses this topic excellently. He points out the silly notion that kids need to move more to reduce their weight. Our children would have to participate in daily Iron Man races to burn the extra calories they eat.
We removed all of the solid and liquid meat (cheese, eggs, milk) in our house. Our kids were always skinny (bmi 14-21). They weigh themselves daily just like I have since my childhood. The only snacks in the house are fruits and vegetables. We do not eat dinner together; there is no way we are all hungry at the same time and we do not want our kids to learn to eat when they are not hungry. As a parent, it is my responsibility to teach them the correct eating habits. I definitely do not leave that up to the schools. In fact, school lunch is their worse meal of the day; that’s if they eat it.
I predict the childhood obesity epidemic will get worse. We have not improved the Standard American Diet and we will continue to see its effect on our children for some time to come.
Why is it necessary for healthy children to weigh themselves daily? Seems like a good way to foster an eating disorder especially in an insecure and perfectionistic girl. Preoccupation with food, whether eating it or not eating it, is a sign of a problem.
Eating is a profoundly social activity. A “companion,” etymologically, is someone you break bread with. The social structures and rituals surrounding food help people from overindulging and give people a sense of what’s normal. Impulse-driven solitary eating is associated with obesity. Eat when you’re hungry, sure; but you can train your body to be hungry three times a day.