Public School Bans Students From Bringing Lunches from Home

 forces them to eat cafeteria food.  Believe me, I can tell you first hand, government school food is horrible for your health.

http://www.naturalnews.com/032047_public_schools_cafeteria_food.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...

 

 

Individual responsibility and personal freedom are becoming a thing of the past in the nation's public schools, as strict control over what students can and cannot eat -- or bring to school to eat -- escalates to near-dictatorial levels. The Chicago Tribune reports that for the past six years, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side has prohibited students from bringing their own lunches from home, a policy that many say subverts parental authority and violates students' rights.

Principal Elsa Carmona first enacted the food policy after observing some of her students drinking sodas and eating chips for lunch, instead of eating a well-balanced meal. By both mandating that students eat lunch at school and improving the quality of food served, she hoped to improve the health of her students.

While they appear to be good intentioned, Carmona's efforts have actually angered many students who say they would prefer to bring their own lunches from home. And ironically, the policy has had the opposite effect, in some cases, of actually causing students not to eat anything at all, which is even worse for their health.

Students that have food allergies or other medical conditions that require them to eat something other than what is served in the cafeteria are able to be exempted from the policy. Most students, however, still end up being forced to eat whatever is served. And many students that do not have medical conditions, but that would prefer a meal from home, are stuck without a choice in the matter.

"This is such a fundamental infringement on parental responsibility," said J. Justin Wilson, a senior researcher at the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) in Washington, to the Chicago Tribune. "Would the school balk if the parent wanted to prepare a healthier meal? This is the perfect illustration of how the government's one-size-fits-all mandate on nutrition fails time and time again."

Last year, a non-profit group known as "Mission: Readiness" came on the record accusing school cafeterias of being a threat to national security because they are allegedly making children "too fat to fight" in the military. The group has called for strict federal food legislation to control what children can and cannot eat (http://www.naturalnews.com/029226_s...). And late last year, the state of Pennsylvania's board of education actually proposed banning all sweets from school functions, including birthday parties (http://www.naturalnews.com/030365_j...).

+1

Most people would consider it child abuse if you taught a child that poison was okay to eat. The way some people feed their children borders on toxic.

I wish it were more socially acceptable to do something about it. I sometimes imagine myself confronting parents with shopping carts full of sugary snacks and sodas. "You're fat. Your kid is fat. You're both going to get diabetes and heart disease and die at age 50. This is child abuse. You're a terrible parent and you need to change right now".

But it isn't socially acceptable. There's an implicit right to abuse your children so long as it isn't violent.

The school is obviously wrong, but its not wrong to implicitly tell parents that they're abusing their children.

On another forum a poster I ran into this exchange:

Poster 2:

Poster 1:

(Complaining about this school's actions)

What we put into our bodies in inordinately private.

More private than what we put into our minds?

 to that.

Kind of agree with Sieben here; doesn't look like the parents were exercising much individual  responsibility to begin with.

At the same time you know things are bad when a school board considers a french fry to be a vegetable.

Sieben:

Most people would consider it child abuse if you taught a child that poison was okay to eat. The way some people feed their children borders on toxic.

I wish it were more socially acceptable to do something about it. I sometimes imagine myself confronting parents with shopping carts full of sugary snacks and sodas. "You're fat. Your kid is fat. You're both going to get diabetes and heart disease and die at age 50. This is child abuse. You're a terrible parent and you need to change right now".

But it isn't socially acceptable. There's an implicit right to abuse your children so long as it isn't violent.

The school is obviously wrong, but its not wrong to implicitly tell parents that they're abusing their children.

 

 There are at least 3 to 4 topics there that you know absolutely nothing about (weight gain, children, parenting, education, etc...).  But go ahead, that's no reason to not have such a strong negative opinion towards parents (and kids) who have fat kids that eat sugary snacks and sodas. 

 

 

Such an useless policy to enact. 

The kids will just go home and gorge themselves on junk food. Then what? Are we going to start  controlling what food the parents will be allowed to feed their children at home?

Bardock:  "Are we going to start  controlling what food the parents will be allowed to feed their children at home?"

 

Yes.

My school controlled what I did at home.

It isn't a hard fix.  Just keep packing lunches for your kids.  Throw it in their bag.  When lunch comes around, they eat it, get caught, get in trouble, but get praised when they come home.  Repeat until the school gives up.  What will they do?  Give kids detention all day, every day?  Arrest the parents for making a bologna sandwich?  Okay, they might do that last one...but the rebellion will be instilled in the child.  Hell, I'd pack lunches for OTHER people's kids.  "Hand out some of these Pop-tarts, Junior!" 

 

I'd also bake cookies shaped like middle fingers.

Give kids detention all day, every day?

That is what happened to me.  They also had bars installed on the window in the detention room.

Same here.  Seems I have a real problem with authority.  By high school I was informing them of this before each semester, just to play fair.

Good thing, too.  I never would have learned anything if I had to sit in a classroom.  And it was self-exacerbating, too.  When my teachers realized I knew more than they did, I got detention a lot more often.  Win-win.

I met a man who shared my views on public education.  He said he was going to start a free enterprise to crush that institution and make it obsolete.  I am hoping he succeeds.

DD5:

There are at least 3 to 4 topics there that you know absolutely nothing about (weight gain, children, parenting, education, etc...).

Weight gain: Is not intrinsically bad but is a proxy for diabetes and heart disease.

Children: Basically eat whatever their parents give them, esp if it tastes good

Parenting: You shouldn't feed your children poison

Education: I already said the school was wrong because its a prison, not because it identifies child abuse and intervenes.

"I wish it were more socially acceptable to do something about it. I sometimes imagine myself confronting parents with shopping carts full of sugary snacks and sodas. "You're fat. Your kid is fat. You're both going to get diabetes and heart disease and die at age 50. This is child abuse. You're a terrible parent and you need to change right now"."

 

Instead of telling them what they are doing wrong, tell them the good things they could do.  Suggest actual food and tell them why they are good.

I went to the grocery store yesterday, and I kind of wished I had a t-shirt that said, all the food is located in the produce section. 

"It isn't a hard fix.  Just keep packing lunches for your kids.  Throw it in their bag.  When lunch comes around, they eat it, get caught, get in trouble, but get praised when they come home."

Exactly.  Keep doing positive things.  Show the way.  My kids are young.  And they already know, I eat healthy and I tell them why its important.  And I talk to them about why fruits and vegetables and seaweed and raw honey and the green drinks I make are healthy.  I don't expect them to eat all the stuff I do.  But I tell them why I do it, how it gives me energy, it keeps me healthier and sick less.  How it keeps my nose less stuffy at night. 

I try to get them to make smoothies with me or fresh juice.  I'm growing veegtables in our backyard.  I want to grow more.  If they put in the time to grow them and water them and pick them, they are much more likely to eat them.

Just reinforces the fact that public schools are not into education, they are into conformity of the individual to the state.

 

(?....?....???? WTF?  No, seriously...what you wrote below...in response to me...what the HELL do you mean "exactly"?  YOUR RESPONSE IS TO AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ISSUE.  I mean, what the hell happened here?  Were you hearing some other conversation in your head while replying to that?  Are you so desperate to be a martyr of healthy eating that any suggestion of teaching something to a child must be related to this?  If I bring up shoe sales in the 1940s, are you going to say "Exactly.  You know, if people had sold healthier things in the 40s, we wouldn't have as many health problems."?  I can't even tell if your analogy is between the positive reinforcement of teaching kids to ignore authority and eating healthy, or if you genuinely thought I was talking about packing kids healthy lunches.  I hope to god it is the former, because otherwise that just scares the hell out of me.)

 

"It isn't a hard fix.  Just keep packing lunches for your kids.  Throw it in their bag.  When lunch comes around, they eat it, get caught, get in trouble, but get praised when they come home."

Exactly.  Keep doing positive things.  Show the way.  My kids are young.  And they already know, I eat healthy and I tell them why its important.  And I talk to them about why fruits and vegetables and seaweed and raw honey and the green drinks I make are healthy.  I don't expect them to eat all the stuff I do.  But I tell them why I do it, how it gives me energy, it keeps me healthier and sick less.  How it keeps my nose less stuffy at night. 

I try to get them to make smoothies with me or fresh juice.  I'm growing veegtables in our backyard.  I want to grow more.  If they put in the time to grow them and water them and pick them, they are much more likely to eat them.

 

"Are you so desperate to be a martyr of healthy eating"

lol.  I'm hoping healthy eating will help me live a longer life, not shorten it.

: )

Okay, you made me laugh.  You can't possibly be too crazy.  I take it back.  Fully rescinded!

"Okay, you made me laugh.  You can't possibly be too crazy.  I take it back.  Fully rescinded!"

I'm definetly into healthy eating, but unfortunately I still eat junk food.

One of the first times I tried my new green drink (vitamineral green...which is like considered one of the best, to even raw foodists), I washed it down with a thumb print cookie (white flour and sugar).  stupid, I know.  but my spouse buys that stuff, and I'll eat it occasionally.

all you can do is keep trying.  you'll fall off the wagon, but you can't let that discourage you.

Chunter:

Instead of telling them what they are doing wrong, tell them the good things they could do.  Suggest actual food and tell them why they are good.

This is not an intellectual problem. People KNOW that McDonalds is bad for them. This is a denial/rationalization/elephant in the room problem. People will turn a deaf ear to polite suggestions.

They're like all drug addicts. They make excuses to justify their daily routine. Fruit loops for breakfast. Vending machines for lunch. Fast food for dinner. A don't forget about the binging: Birthdays, holidays, sporting events probably add up to 7% of the time. Hur hur hur low time preference.

A time preference so low that you feed your kids poison is totally incompatible with child rearing. That's why you have to go "extreme" and tell them in public that they're abusing their children.

Sieben:

Children: Basically eat whatever their parents give them, esp if it tastes good

Children are not cattle that can simply be fed according to your own personal interests.  They are individuals with personal tastes and values.  They do not voluntarily subject themselves to your arbitrary whims.  Nor are they a piece of malleable plastic for you to mold down and shape according to your own image.   Similarities between parents and their offspring have more to do with genetic inheritance then probably anything else.

  The main point is this:  If you want to force them to change their behavior, you have to be ready to apply coercion.   Just like the State.  No difference!

Sieben:

Weight gain: Is not intrinsically bad but is a proxy for diabetes and heart disease.

 

Non sequitur.   

First,  you are just echoing the common nonsense repeated again and again by almost everyone who knows it all because everyone knows it all.  'Everybody knows McDonalds is poison, ......', blah blah blah......

Second, That 'A fat kid has bad parents and a skinny kid has good parents' is a load of crap that can only be measured up with stuff like "health care is expensive because there are profits".   

"This is not an intellectual problem. People KNOW that McDonalds is bad for them. This is a denial/rationalization/elephant in the room problem. People will turn a deaf ear to polite suggestions."

Ok, I just have found that being postive instead of being negative (especially to strangers) influences them more often.  I know it sounds stupid...be positive, don't be negative, but it really is true.  And its very difficult to be positive all the time.

"The main point is this:  If you want to force them to change their behavior, you have to be ready to apply coercion.   Just like the State.  No difference!"

 

I have 2 little boys and I know that is true, but, in the case of getting them to eat healthy, you have to lead the way first.  You have to practice what you tell them.  If you want them to eat healthy, you must eat healthy and stock your fridge and pantry with healthy foods.

Now this is difficult, because in my case, my spouse will buy some items for the kids that are not so healthy sometimes.  All I can do is control what I eat and lead by being a good example.  I cannot control my spouse.

 

chunter:

I have 2 little boys and I know that is true, but, in the case of getting them to eat healthy, you have to lead the way first.  You have to practice what you tell them.  If you want them to eat healthy, you must eat healthy and stock your fridge and pantry with healthy foods.

There are also calories in fruits and vegetables.   The child that is genetically predisposed to weight gain will gain weight on your healthy food also.  You will have to resort to calorie counting and other strict rules, which you then better be prepared to supervise and coerce your child into being hungry.   Are you prepare to do that?

 It's very easy for parents with kids that don't have problem X or Y to give themselves the credit for their wonderful parenting and to go on and judge others.  But they won't tolerate the judgmental bystander for their own child's problem Z.  These parents should know better. 

These problems are more complicated then "bad parenting".   And coercion by parents is also coercion.

 

"There are also calories in fruits and vegetables.   The child that is genetically predisposed to weight gain will gain weight on your healthy food also."

You will not gain weight by eating fruits and vegetables.  You're suggesting eating fruits and vegetables are bad for your health?  Are you joking or trying to be funny?

limitgov:

You will not gain weight by eating fruits and vegetables.

There are about 100 Calories in a medium sized banana.  If you need, say 2000 Calories per day to maintain your current weight, then eating 21 bannanas will make you gain weight.

 

 

A time preference so low that you feed your kids poison is totally incompatible with child rearing. That's why you have to go "extreme" and tell them in public that they're abusing their children.

Kids with cancer receive chemotherapy which is way more toxic than a twinkie.  Why don't you go to the nearest childrens hospital and confront those parents?

Your passion for healthly lifestyle choices is translating into bullying. 

This is going to create a black market for "unhelathy" foods. From what hear about prisons, many black market goods and services are traded for sexual acts.

DD5:

Children are not cattle that can simply be fed according to your own personal interests.  They are individuals with personal tastes and values.  They do not voluntarily subject themselves to your arbitrary whims.  Nor are they a piece of malleable plastic for you to mold down and shape according to your own image.   Similarities between parents and their offspring have more to do with genetic inheritance then probably anything else.

If people want to be like their parents, fine. If they want to put poison in their bodies, fine. But the PARENTS forfeit guardianship rights IF they put poison in their children's bodies.

DD5:

  The main point is this:  If you want to force them to change their behavior, you have to be ready to apply coercion.   Just like the State.  No difference!

Coercion is fine. You mean aggression. I don't see how its aggression if you're denying people guardianship rights after they forfeit them.

DD5:

Second, That 'A fat kid has bad parents and a skinny kid has good parents' is a load of crap that can only be measured up with stuff like "health care is expensive because there are profits". 

So you're saying I need better evidence. This is a red herring. My thesis is that GIVEN parents are feeding poison to their children, they forfeit guardianship rights. Maybe some kids can be fat and healthy idk/c

Hey there guys, I work at a grocery store, and about 65% of our business is from people on welfare. (Not including SS or Medicare at the pharmacy.) Every person I work with can point out a "food-stamper" just by looking at the contents of their carts. (Or their physique.) Every once in a while you can't tell, but it is damn near a rule that if they have food stamps, they are real fat, and their cart is filled with nothing but chips, soda, unhealthy frozen dinners, pastries, and meat, lots and lots of meat. (I'm not saying meat's a bad thing but damn, you should see this stuff.) I just want to scream at people who have kids as wide as they are tall, and have fat rolling off their knees.

I actually almost got fired because this little four year old's arms were almost horizontal, resting on his side fat - I told the parents that this is plain child abuse, and asked how they could do this to that poor thing. They got mad and told on me obviously. Never seen such a big little kid, luckily my boss saw him and was understanding of my concern for that boy's health. 

I figure it's because they don't value the money they're spending much because they didn't earn it. I guess if you get food and healthcare handed to you, you no longer have to accept the responsibility of taking care of yourself, you just shove off the costs to some random taxpayer. 

Just wondering is there an explanation for why this is so ubiquitous? Someone mentioned low time preference, is there a causal explanation for that?

 

Don't have food stamps in Canada but when I lived in the ghetto I only knew one fat person. As soon as you cross the border it's as if everyone's weight doubles. I don't know why but I also noticed that crap food was much cheaper. Here there's not much of a difference, in fact eating crap food might be more expensive than cooking your own food depending on what you eat, but in the U.S. the stuff is so cheap.

Do the food stamps work by unit of food or by monetary value? If it's by monetary value then maybe that's why they go for the cheap stuff, even if it leads to bad results. I'd like to know the explanation too cause I just don't see people getting that obese up here regardless of their income level or welfare status, and healthcare is more socialized here so it's even easier for people to shove off the costs to someone else.

DD5:

limitgov:

You will not gain weight by eating fruits and vegetables.

There are about 100 Calories in a medium sized banana.  If you need, say 2000 Calories per day to maintain your current weight, then eating 21 bannanas will make you gain weight.

Or you can lose weight by eating a diet of Twinkies, but you'll likely die of a young age nonetheless. The quality of food is more important than how much heat energy it gives off when burned.

Ultima, 

WIC operates by units of food, but "food stamps" is just money that can be spent on any type of food, besides hot food like a dinner at a restaurant.

I'm buying oatmeal, eggs, whatever meat is on sale, and some broccoli, while these people on welfare are eating New York strip steak and crab legs. So it doesn't seem they are just going for the cheap stuff, I think they are just satisfying their immediate taste buds while neglecting any thought of future consequences. My own experience here in the US though is that eating healthy isn't as expensive as eating junk food, hard to calculate really. 

Though you saying Canada isn't full of fatties is interesting, wonder what the difference is?

My mother I were talking about this today. We we're talking about health insurance and the government totally screw over the middle class.

If your really poor, all your health bills are taken care as of many things. They'll even pick your kids up and drive them to the clinic. If your rich, you can afford it. Meanwhile the middle class can't afford it because of inflated prices. Thanks statism! 

Most people would consider it child abuse if you taught a child that poison was okay to eat. The way some people feed their children borders on toxic.

Part of me wants to agree with you, part of me doesn't. Fact of the matter is that you're right; parents have a duty to make sure their children eat properly, excersize regularly amongst a whole load of other things (how to speak properly, how to shake a hand properly, how to use a bloody knife and fork properly etc. etc.) You're also right that too many parents renege on this right and let their kids stuff their faces with shit and actively encourage it by loading the shopping cart full of crap/

On the other hand, if people want to stuff their own face with crap. So be it, people have different preferences we all have our own vices, I smoke to much and drink too much beer, even if I otherwise live a relatively healthy lifestyle.

EIT:

On the other hand, if people want to stuff their own face with crap. So be it, people have different preferences we all have our own vices, I smoke to much and drink too much beer, even if I otherwise live a relatively healthy lifestyle.

Its not so much about the child's right to choose. Maybe some children have the capacity to decide for themselves what to eat. Its about the parents and guardianship rights. They forfeit their right to "guard" the child once they feed it poison, and the child becomes available for non-abusive guardians to claim.

Its a bit of a reductio calling it "poison" but that's the simplest way to sidestep the obvious grey area that comes with developmental nutrition. IRL its a case by case basis, yada yada...

But obesity is very common where I live. As far as I can see, it is a totally undocumented life-experience. There's just no awareness of the issue. If I had to guess, I'd say that heart disease and diabetes pale in comparison to the daily problems of being obese. The self image/depression effects alone could be catastrophic, not to mention the havoc it plays with your thyroid and HPTA axis.

I sometimes imagine myself confronting parents with shopping carts full of sugary snacks and sodas. "You're fat. Your kid is fat. You're both going to get diabetes and heart disease and die at age 50. This is child abuse. You're a terrible parent and you need to change right now".

Kinda reminds me of this:

CONGRATULATIONS TO MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 40's, 50's & 60's

• We survived being born to Mothers who sometimes smoked and/or drank Sherry, while they carried us, and lived in houses which included asbestos . . .
• They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, bread and dripping, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
• Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with brightly-coloured lead-based paints.
• We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.
• As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
• We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
• Take-away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Nandos.
• Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on a Sunday, somehow we didn't actually starve to death ! ! !
• We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
• We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner shop and buy toffees, gobstoppers and bubble gum.
• We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter, milk from the cow and drank soft drinks with sugar in them, but we weren't overweight, because we were always outside, playing! ! !
• We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.  No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
• We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we had forgotten the brakes.
• We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.
• We did not have PlayStations, Nintendo Wii, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY, no video/dvd films, or colour TV, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms. . . .  .  but
• We had friends and we went outside and found them ! !  !
• We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
• Only girls had pierced ears ! ! !
• We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
• You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time . . .
• We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th. birthdays !
• We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them ! ! !
• Mum didn't have to go to work to help Dad make ends meet because we didn't need to keep up with the Joneses ! ! !
• Not everyone made the football team. Those who didn't had to learn how to deal with disappointment.
• Imagine, . . getting into a team that was based on merit
• Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and throw the blackboard eraser at us, if they thought we weren't concentrating.
• We can string sentences together, spell and hold proper conversations because of a good, solid three R's education.
• Our parents would tell us to ask a stranger to help us cross the road. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.  They actually sided with the law ! ! !
• Our parents didn't invent stupid names for us kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'.
• We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility and we learned how to deal with it all ! ! !

And you are one of them ! ! !  CONGRATULATIONS ! ! !

"There are about 100 Calories in a medium sized banana.  If you need, say 2000 Calories per day to maintain your current weight, then eating 21 bannanas will make you gain weight."

You're looking at this through a very narrow, unrealistic way.  Who in the world would just eat bananas all day?  Who says that is a good thing to just eat bananas all day? 

There are plenty of people who have gone to a mostly plant based diet and have lost all their excess weight, and have reversed diabetes type II. 

You don't just look at calories.  in fact, there is no need to do that at all.  You look at where those calories come from.  

I'd really like to get a better look at this. If a principal has nothing else to do but watch what students have for lunch it means the school has tackled all other problems successfully: no drop-outs, no absents without justification, good grades, a balanced budget, satisfied teachers etc. Or perhaps there's something else at work. How many students in the school bring lunch from home? How's the catering contract? How much is a lunch? In short can the school get a better deal with the catering contractor if more lunches are served? Can the contractor make more money if more lunches are served? I wouldn't be too surprised if under the nutrional patina there's good ol' money involved.

I have very unpleasant memories of school cafeterias. Food quality was abysmal to say the least. Salad was often poorly washed (soil may have good nutrional value but pesticides do not), chicken had small bits of bone in it because it was poorly butchered etc. I can only assume things have stayed the same if not worsened in these decades. We used to joke they wouldn't have problems serving use "winged rats" (feral, disease carrying pigeons) if only catching them hadn't taken so much effort...