My kid. Your kid. Our kids. We send them off to school with money for lunch. The theory in my mind is that since, well, it’s SCHOOL, they will be informed and have some good choices to make at lunch time. In my mind the choice they get is carrots or broccoli, brown rice or baked potatoes, chicken or turkey…
Yeah, no, this isn’t the choice they get.
In Lake County it’s a choice between crap and healthy food.
Food laced with sugar and addictive chemicals or healthy food.
Food that makes them feel GOOD (at least for a while) and healthy food.
What choice is your kid making? I’m not even going to pretend my kid makes the right choice. He surely does not. What the heck??
In my sons school system there ARE HEALTHY OPTIONS! Salad and fruit is available. Do you really think a 10 year old going to choose salad over pizza? I… don’t….think….so.
What kid is choosing steamed corn over tacos? How about celery over pizza? That’s the choose Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Friday it’s Hot Dog or Hamburger. Mmmmm.. nutritious. No choice needed there apparently. By the way, this is all online:
http://lake.k12.fl.us/16511031095838583/lib/16511031095838583/October_Elementary_2010.pdf
What do we put our kids on the bus to do?
Really. Think about this. Do we put them on the bus to go sit for 6 hours and be bored and hate school? Do we send them off to learn or not?
At the end of the day what is the most important thing?
I mean THE most important thing. How about our health! Learning math and social studies is vital I do know. What good are they when you are dead at 50 from a heart attack?
I would argue that our health is the most important thing in the world. School is such a fantastic platform to teach our kids how to eat.
Instead we feed them pizza and get them addicted to crap.
So sad.
The overly processed and artificially flavored foods are good for several things. First off, and most important, of course, is that there foods are cheap and SOMEONE is making a wicked profit.
OHHH – KAY.
Maybe that really isn’t THE most important thing but doesn’t it seem like it?
What else? Yeah, the kids love the food! You wouldn’t want the kids unhappy, right? You wouldn’t want them complaining about all this healthy food! (You know they would!)
So the food fills them up because they like it. It gives them energy for a while so they can finish the day. Wahoo!
Of course it’s devoid of any and all nutrients and it puts them on the road to obesity, diabetes and heart disease…
So to sum up today’s article I will make three points.
1) The kids do have a choice but my guess is that they aren’t making the right choices because they are kids and not mini adults. The will take taste over healthy 10 out of 10 times.
2) The school and the governments are lap dogs to the food industry. Watch “Supersize Me”. There are school systems out there that make all their food from scratch and it doesn’t cost any more. It is a sad sham!
3) You should send your kid to school with a brown bag lunch. I’ll talk about that in Part 3.
The same people that supply our kids with lunch everyday also supply the prisons with food. That’s fantastic. Or not….
I completely understand your frustrations, but I must say that I disagree with you about serveral things.
ReplyDeleteFirst, let me tell you that I am a 3rd grade teacher here in Lake County. We teachers do our best to teach the students that come through our classrooms every year. Do you realize the ammount of information we have to impart on these students? It is overwhelming to imagine, yet we are required to not only teach the basics of Reading, Math, Science, Social Studies & Language Arts, but we have to teach music, art, physical education, character education, social behavior, drug resistance & how to behave in the classroom. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Adding on more would be like giving 3 books to the largest library you could imagine. Yes, those books are great, but how much of a difference would it make? It might benenfit 3 people out of 1000 or more.
What about the parents role? I grew up bringing my lunch to school everyday. I think I had a school lunch maybe once every two weeks. My parents made sure that I had a balanced lunch. (Not to mention a breakfast & dinner.) I was taught by them what kind of foods to eat & it made a difference in how I choose to eat now. I don't always make the best decisions, but I would say 4 out of 5 times I do.
At most schools the majority of students eat one meal. That leaves 2 for the parents to feed to their children. If 2 out of 3 times the students are being shown healthy food, wouldn't you think they would be more likely to eat better food the 3rd meal?
My school happens to feed the students 2 meals, breakfast & lunch. Our breakfast consists of cereal, milk, a snack, & juice. Probably not the most nutritious meal, but I can say they look at the nutrition content & it is much better than what they used to serve. For lunch students have to take a fruit & a vegetable every day. We also provide a salad bar 2 or 3 times a week. My students LOVE those days. At least 1/2 to 2/3 of them will choose the salad bar over the other lunch. The ones that choose the other lunch are usually the students that I see whose parents send in cupcakes or sugary items for a snack.
If you want to really find out about the choices schools make for foods, look at the budget they are given. Go into the schools yourself & try to find the most nutritious meal on the meager budget they are provided. Some schools are capable of preparing things from scratch, but not all schools are the same. You also have to look at how many workers they have & the fact that they have to prepare a breakfast as well as lunch. I am sure they would appreciate any help you could provide if you wanted to volunteer your time.
Schools are required to do so much for the students, yet every year the budgets for education are cut further & further. I know it isn't the case for everyone, but I feel that the majority of people are expecting the schools to raise the students instead of the parents. The students are with us 6.5 hours a day, 32.5 hours a week. That leaves 135.5 hours they are with the parents. Who should be the greater influence on the children??
Brown bag lunch sounds like the best option to me, but for those parents that can't afford it, those who students get free lunch, maybe you could take it easy on the schools. They are doing the best they can with the resources they have.