# Chicago public school bans students from bringing lunch **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 12, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100 "2011-04-12T16:00:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/121 "2011-04-13T18:37:33Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > … Where do you get the idea that the state can’t impose rules about food in a government building? > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > What part of the Constitution do you believe is violated by placing restrictions on what people can eat in a government building? > [@Magiver](#): > > … an infinite list of personal freedoms … I would have gone with the 9th Amendment, but that’s my little quirk. CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/122 "2011-04-13T18:57:18Z")
Until last year, my daughter’s daycare did not provide food, so we always packed her a lunch and snack. At the beginning of the school year, the daycare changed policies and began providing lunch to all of the kids old enough to eat regular food. Now, at first, I wasn’t crazy about the switch. I have some opinions about what constitutes a healthy meal, and I wasn’t sure that the institutional food they would be serving fit the bill. Also, as a vegetarian, I wasn’t thrilled that meat was included in the meal four out of five days a week. It isn’t required that the kids eat the provided meal, but the cost is incorporated in tuition, so I’d be paying for it either way. My initial reaction to the policy was to start formulating my complaint to the daycare’s owner. However, after giving it some thought, I decided against complaining. Why? My primary reason is that many of my daughter’s classmates will be eating healthier lunches with the new policy. Sure, I’m giving up a little control over my daughter’s diet (and let’s be honest, that ends in kindergarten anyway), but other kids and their families are benefiting a lot more than any possible harm my daughter is coming to. The bottom line is that, as a group, the kids at my daughter’s daycare are better off with the school lunches. And that’s more important to me than my “right” to put a sandwich, yogurt tube, and a banana in a lunchbox every day. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/123 "2011-04-13T19:01:02Z")
A daycare, though, is different, because you’re choosing to send your kid there. If this were a private school, or even a charter school, I’d have no problem with it. However, this is a public neighborhood school, which puts it in a different category: poor parents have no legal option but to send their kids to this school. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/124 "2011-04-13T19:02:33Z")
It still has yet to be shown that such a policy exists - or ever existed - at this public school. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/125 "2011-04-13T19:22:17Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Actually, the text of the bill says > So, no, it is not mandatory prayer. > > Regards, > Shodan Yep, “The Silent Reflection and Prayer Act” only mandates a period of silence in which children are told they may pray now … or “reflect” if they wish. Nothing to do with prayer at all. Let’s go with that. The state has decided that reflection or prayer is something that every child must do every day, whether their parents want them to or not, whether they have “reflected” at home or not. Anyway. School systems at state levels require eye exams, dental exams, helath exams, immunizations … Schools force kids to exercise and force them to even … gasp, swim, over their parents’ objections in some cases. They force them to undergo the stress of being tested and told they are wrong. They discipline them. They assign students to teachers that parents do not their kids to have and to classes they do not their kids in. Individual principals make some very arbitrary decisions. What clothes are acceptable and which ones are not. Whether kids can hug in the hallways or not. Agree or disagree with the particular decision, if it exisits at all, (and if it does it was implemented during the Bush era), this hardly seems out of the range of the sorts of arbitrary and capricious decisions states, let alone individual schools, make. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/126 "2011-04-13T19:24:10Z")
LHOD, parents are not legally obligted to send to public school. They can send to Catholic school; they can home school, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/127 "2011-04-13T19:26:46Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > LHOD, parents are not legally obligted to send to public school. They can send to Catholic school; they can home school, and so on. True–but for families on free/reduced lunch, these options may not be realistic options. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/128 "2011-04-13T19:58:36Z")
I don’t understand why they wouldn’t give an opt-out option. It makes more sense to me to say that the lunches are mandatory unless your parent or guardian signs a waiver stating that they don’t feel it is in your best interest and they agree to either pack your lunch or send you with money to buy it that day for any reason, not just medical. I know for myself that I have never, ever liked fish and on breaded fish nugget day I would probably have just eaten the mashed potatoes and a roll and called that lunch. If the school food was just mediocre or there was something wrong with one or both of those things (like the incredibly memorable time that I got a roll with lunch in middle school that smelled heavily of mint, making me think it probably had a piece of gum in it) I might not have eaten anything at all. I think that would work against the entire reason they are instituting the policy, which is that they want to make sure the kids are eating a healthy meal during the day. A child who doesn’t eat fish (or turkey or tomatoes or whatever) would be much better off with a ham and cheese sandwich and an apple sent from home than they would be with a lunch that would be, at best, partially eaten. I know I would feel better if my son or daughter was eating something healthy from home rather than not eating at all on days that they didn’t like or want what was being served in the cafeteria. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/129 "2011-04-13T20:23:25Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It still has yet to be shown that such a policy exists - or ever existed - at this public school. It was already cited by a reporter at a reputable newspaper who was at the school and relayed first hand what the Principal said. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/130 "2011-04-13T22:36:07Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > I don’t understand why they wouldn’t give an opt-out option. > … > I know for myself that I have never, ever liked fish and on breaded fish nugget day I would probably have just eaten the mashed potatoes and a roll and called that lunch. If the school food was just mediocre or there was something wrong with one or both of those things (like the incredibly memorable time that I got a roll with lunch in middle school that smelled heavily of mint, making me think it probably had a piece of gum in it) I might not have eaten anything at all. I think that would work against the entire reason they are instituting the policy, which is that they want to make sure the kids are eating a healthy meal during the day. A child who doesn’t eat fish (or turkey or tomatoes or whatever) would be much better off with a ham and cheese sandwich and an apple sent from home than they would be with a lunch that would be, at best, partially eaten. I know I would feel better if my son or daughter was eating something healthy from home rather than not eating at all on days that they didn’t like or want what was being served in the cafeteria. Exactly. Nobody has a problem with schools _providing_ decent lunches. (I personally think the school lunch program is a lot more important than computers in classrooms, for example.) The issue is the _mandate_. What compelling interest does that serve that justifies worsening some kids’ meals? ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/131 "2011-04-14T00:19:25Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No doubt that’s true, but it is still not the school’s business. The bar for intervention needs to be much higher than “Mrs. Jones gives her daughter Twinkies for lunch”. > > Regards, > Shodan Yes, it FUCKING WELL IS. See, you want to grade the teachers on their performance. Well, if you send your seven year old to school with a lunch that consists of a sugar straw and cheeze whiz, then the child’s performance will suffer. Which Republicans will promptly blame on the teacher. I’m sick of this, “Treat government like private business!” then get mad when government ACTS like private business bullshit from the Right. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/132 "2011-04-14T00:21:25Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > I’m sick of this, “Treat government like private business!” then get mad when government ACTS like private business bullshit from the Right. As an aside, I worked briefly for one of the world’s largest corporations in the late nineties, writing training materials for their employees. I saw how private business works. And when people suggest that running schools like a private business will improve them, I laugh and laugh and laugh until I start to sob. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/133 "2011-04-14T01:12:01Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It was already cited by a reporter at a reputable newspaper who was at the school and relayed first hand what the Principal said. It was denied by the school district. The reporter claimed that this has been policy for the last 6 years. If that’s true, then it is not plausible that the district would deny it, and we have no other corroboration. Unless and until it’s actually corrobrated, I see no reason to give iy any credence. The school district has set the record straight and that should be the end of it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/134 "2011-04-14T01:37:39Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Exactly. Nobody has a problem with schools _providing_ decent lunches. (I personally think the school lunch program is a lot more important than computers in classrooms, for example.) > > The issue is the _mandate_. What compelling interest does that serve … While I personally think this particular decision is a bit heavy handed I can certainly come up with the logic. Schools that participate in any federally reimbursed meal programs are required by the 2004 Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act to have locally developed [wellness programs](http://www.schoolmealsmatter.org/resources/pdfs/schools/Local_School_Wellness_Policies.pdf). This act requires schools “to establish nutritional guidelines for all foods available on the school campus; assure that federally reimbursable school meals meet minimum USDA standards; and establish goals for nutrition education, physical activity and other school-based activities.” Certainly if the local circumstance is that the foods available on the campus consist to no small degree of empty calorie junk food choices from home then school is _required_ by law to address that circumstance. True, the enforcement of this law is nil, and many districts ignore it by and large, but it is still a law - not a Michele Obama law, a Bush era law. This principal was actually taking that law seriously. Mandating acceptable lunches brought from home, coupled with parental “nutrition education” would suffer from the lack of any reasonable means of enforcement. Principals like to be able to enforce. Being able to opt out was basically the status quo. Yes, in this case it was addressed in a heavy handed manner, as school administrators often do, but again, it was this way for six years without much complaint until the Trib’s report, originally planned to be a report on how kids liked the newer better nutrition choices in the Chicago Public school system, keyed in in this _one_ school’s approach, and it was picked up by Drudge, presumably for how it appeared to fit with the conservative storyline of how fascist Michelle Obama is (even though this dates from the Bush era). ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/135 "2011-04-14T01:42:48Z")
It has not been esytablished that this program ever existed. It appears to be a fiction. Why do people keep accepting it as established fact? ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/136 "2011-04-14T01:52:53Z")
When I was in school, the rule at our house was that we were allowed to bring a bag lunch to school once a year–on our birthdays. All other days we ate the cafeteria’s hot lunch, and IIRC most of the other kids did as well. Were we all sheep-like dupes of of a big government experiment to feed us soylent brown gravy over mashed soylent white? Sure, I oppose the policy. Parents should be able to opt out for whatever reason if it’s that important to them. For one thing (if true), they’re being forced to buy something from the school. Some parents apparently do pack their children a more nutritious lunch than they would get at school, but I suspect the majority of families who brown-bag it aren’t doing so deliberately so much as they’re trying to save money. But some here appear to be shocked, shocked that government schools run cafeterias that cook lunches with the expectation that most of the students will partake of them, while taking an interest in the nutritional makeup of said lunches. > [@sleestak](#): > > The point isn’t so much the lunches the school will provide, it is that it IS NOT THE SCHOOLS job. Of course it is and has been at virtually every school for a long time. Families can and should be able to opt out, but providing the student body with a midday meal has long been considered an important part of a school’s role, and it’s _normal_ for families to rely on that. The issue comes down to making what’s normal mandatory in a way that affects some people, but it’s not like school lunch is the imposition of something terrible overall. I for one think school uniforms are far more intrusive, but I think we do need to take care that we don’t let our obsession with abstract principles interfere too much with substantive issues. And I think we can use a little less of this thousand-cuts-on-a-frog-in-a-pot-of-boiling-water-on-a-slippery-slope anti-government paranoia. It’s just lunch. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/137 "2011-04-14T02:05:18Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It has not been esytablished that this program ever existed. It appears to be a fiction. Why do people keep accepting it as established fact? Isn’t it obvious? We love to fight about shit like this. > [@Magiver](#): > > It was already cited by a reporter at a reputable newspaper who was at the school and relayed first hand what the Principal said. It wasn’t _Anderson Fucking Cooper_ was it? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/138 "2011-04-14T15:35:40Z")
I’m in the UK so I can’t speak for the US but here are my thoughts FWIW. I think it is a good policy. My daughter is 5 and is allergic to egg so she takes a packed lunch on the days that egg products are present on the menu, otherwise she has school lunch. We see the menu well ahead of time and we know that on some days she will not want to eat her lunch…well…tough. On those days she does go hungry until hometime. It is not a bad lesson to learn that if you refuse food you will suffer for it. Being picky is a luxury and it does no harm to be reminded of that. Ultimately the school is teaching all the time. Everything is a lesson, assembly, playtime, toilet breaks and most certainly food. If we allow the school power to set the curriculum we can certainly allow them to set the meal regime. My wife is teacher training and sees the horror show that is most children’s lunchboxes, far better that these children are presented with decent food that they are expected to eat. And I don’t see this as a class issue either. This is a very middle-class area and wealth is no indication of lunchbox quality. We also know of many parents who pander to their children’s food whims constantly. They cook separate meals for them and give them exactly what they want for their lunches. In those circumstances it is certainly healthier (and more educational) for some element of their mealtimes to be taken out of the parent’s hands. This is all on the proviso that the meals provided have a sound nutritional basis and a reasonable choice. Also that reasonable accommodation is made for medical and religious issues. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/139 "2011-04-14T18:40:53Z")
How the French do [school lunches](http://blogs.babycenter.com/mom_stories/the-truth-about-french-school-lunches/). [Video here](http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6902333n). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100/140 "2011-04-14T18:48:00Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > LHOD, parents are not legally obligted to send to public school. They can send to Catholic school; they can home school, and so on. If they have the money or time. > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > We see the menu well ahead of time and we know that on some days she will not want to eat her lunch…well…tough. On those days she does go hungry until hometime. It is not a bad lesson to learn that if you refuse food you will suffer for it. Being picky is a luxury and it does no harm to be reminded of that. It can, it’s better to having something to eat than nothing; both nutritionally and educationally. “Hungry kids learn better” is Republican nonsense. And not eating lunch for years won’t do a kid good nutritionally. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chicago-public-school-bans-students-from-bringing-lunch/578100.md?page=8)