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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Anyone see this? RE: School lunches
My opinion is that banning home made lunches is absolutely ludicrous. I agree wholeheartedly with placing restrictions on school-supplied lunches, but telling parents they can't send a cheese sandwich to school with their child is bordering on insanity.
Also "banning" any type of food ("unhealthy" or otherwise), seems counter productive to me. Whatever happened to learning moderation and proper meal planning and nutrition? Instead of banning foods, why not make it a requirement for all kids to have health class where they LEARN the proper way to eat?
Restricting one meal a day isn't going to change the way children eat without backing them up with the knowledge of eating healthy.
updated 10.03.12
This was my initial reaction as well. I work in a school in a lower income area and we have one student in particular who brings his lunch every day. And every day it has the SAME thing: poptarts, quaker chewy granola bars and a variety of different fun size candies along with a capri sun. Yeah, he'd probably benefit from the restriction, however, does the school system really think that when he goes home he's not going to whip out the pop tarts??
It's like trying to fix a broken leg with a band-aid.
I hate to say it but I think it's BS. My parents worked in Chicago Public Schools for 35+ years having only retired recently. 1) There is no budget for the healthier food choices; the vast majority of kids in CPS qualify for free/discounted meals at school, therefore the food budget would be going up and there's no more money coming in to make up for it. 2) CPS has a history of jumping on board with crazes in the media to get attention or look like they're fighting the good fight for the kids, but then it just fades into the background due to "budgetary confinements"
In general, I think the idea of trying to tell parents that they have to pay for school lunches for their kids as opposed to brown bagging is ridiculous. What if you have 4 kids in school, you're supposed to shell out $40/week just for lunch for those kids when they probably won't even like what is being served, won't eat most if any of, and will be hungry/lack concentration the rest of the day...plus the wasted money. I can understand not allowing soda, kids shouldn't be drinking soda at school anyways or if they're young enough at all, but to try and dictate to adults how to feed they're children seems a little Big Brother-y to me.
/rant
Vanessa, you took the rant right out of my mouth!
Especially the Big Brother part.
I know school lunches haven't changed much since I have been in school... so they really can't be that much more healthier than what kids are bringing from home.
I agree that the school system is going about eating healthier in the wrong way. I think funding better health classes to educate children about healthy food choices is the way to go.
My Acme Box last update 3/28/11
There was a HUGE debate on P&CE about this. I think over 150 posts. Pretty good discussion.
I don't think that this should be mandated. I do however believe there should be more efforts in making healthier food options available to the families and more effort to contact parents about the students lunches.
Zuma Zoom
Not to bring in the sarcasm, but good luck with that. When you can't get parents to return a call about an overdue library book, show up for parent/teacher conferences, or return calls regarding the education of their children, what makes you (the general you) think that they'll respond in a positive or proactive way about a call about what they send in their lunches?? The parents that do care are the ones already feeding their children the healthy lunches. To change anything, you have to focus more on education about healthy eating as opposed to making the kids go hungry if they don't eat the school lunch.
This exactly. I agree that vending machine fare like Snickers bars and soda have no place in schools though I'm on the fence about parents bringing in fast food. What if they bring in a Subway sandwich for their kid who forgot their lunch? That's reasonably healthy -- that shouldn't be banned. Bringing in a Big Mac and fries? Not good, but are school officials really going to police who brings in what food? Also, I find it interesting that the article mentioned some schools allow kids to bring their lunches but they can't contain anything sugary, processed, refined, etc. Um, good luck going through every student's sack lunch and pulling out what they can't eat.
Anyway, this is fairly ridiculous since at most schools across the country, the lunches are not typically any healthier than what kids bring from home. School lunches are full of sodium and tons of processed foods. Their "vegetable" offerings are not necessarily veggies that are full of nutrients -- they might be canned green beans that are full of preservatives and salt (and taste like crud). Healthier than french fries, sure, but not great. I know there are schools trying to change their offerings, but right now, the state of school lunches in this country is pretty sad. (Jaime Oliver still has a long way to go in his Food Revolution -- it'll take a long time for schools to have the budget and willingness to fully turn around the kind of food we serve our children.) Food served in a lot of daycares is just as bad -- I was lucky I found one that has a focus on not serving things like french toast sticks every day to the toddlers.
Even if schools did only offer truly high quality, nutritious meals, banning brown bag lunches is still ridiculous. It's sad that some parents pack a lot of crap for their kids to eat, but parents are responsible for their children. Schools can ASK parents to provide healthier foods, provide a list of good alternatives, and hope parents will listen, but you can't ban lunches from home unless you're willing to pay for all those kids to eat at school every day.
This was part of the debate over there as well. I know it isn't as easy to get in contact with the parents. Often times, in inner city, low-income areas, the parents either just don't care, or don't make the time. In my high school in Oakland, that was the case. The teachers did not care neither did the parents. So the students ate crappy french fries with cheese goo over top. Nearly everyday. For a lot of them, that was the only meal they got.
Also to this point:
When you can't get parents to return a call about an overdue library book, show up for parent/teacher conferences, or return calls regarding the education of their children, what makes you (the general you) think that they'll respond in a positive or proactive way about a call about what they send in their lunches??
It seems to be going both ways. I mean, they don't care about what they pack in their kids lunches, until they're told they can't at all. They're not being positive or proactive when it comes to the meal choices that the parents are providing. The principal saw that and acted on it. Maybe not in the best way, but it is getting attention.
Here is another article about the same school from the Chi Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-school-lunch-restrictions-041120110410,0,4567867.story
Zuma Zoom
This is exactly what aggravates me (personally) about the public school system. Some parents DON'T care until there is a restriction, and those parents are usually the loudest in voicing their concerns. It saddens me for the future of some of these kids. There's only so much teachers can do with 6 hours a day...
And thanks for the other article.
Unfortunately, this is so true. My first job was at a preschool, and very frequently the breakfast offering was a pop-tart, sugary cereal, a donut, etc. The lunch offerings were often sloppy joes, frozen pizza, or chicken nuggets with canned fruit and vegetables. Snacks were cookies, cheez-its, popsicles. It was extremely rare that anything remotely healthy was offered, except that we only gave milk or water as beverage choices.
The bad thing about this is that our menus were checked monthly by the state education board. So, they were approved by someone. Sad.
The article Smo posted I think is the same one posted on WC today, and when I read that, my first thought was the school was reacting to a handful of kids who brought chips for lunch on a field trip. I really think this is more about kids making foolish nutrition choices because they can, than parents not feeding their kids properly. I think it's kind of ridiculous and overblown to suddenly ban all home-made food from school. I would be pretty pissed if I were a parent. Plus I think the lunches I'd give my child would be far healthier than what the school provides.
To me it seems like just another example of schools turning into babysitters and not institutions focused on learning- not that this is the fault of the schools.
And I fully agree with the point that kids need nutrition classes. It's frightening how ignorant so many people are about food and nutrition and health.