I read an article recently (can’t seem to find it now but will keep looking) about a couple who pulled their children out of a public school because their unhealthy snacks had been confiscated. The school had a policy limiting what kinds of food could be sent, and the parents had (knowingly) violated it by sending chips and chocolate bars.
Do you think the school has the right to place these restrictions on snacks and lunches?
I’m somewhat torn, but leaning towards no.
I’m not going to get worked up with rage over the school violating the parents’ decision making rights. I do think it would be better if the school provided guidance and education on the matter and then trusted the parents to use their judgement in determining what is healthy, and how junk food in moderation can be worked into a perfectly healthy diet. But it’s the teachers who have to deal with the sugar highs and other beahviour problems that can come along with unhealthy eating, so sure, I do think a kid can go without candy during school hours.
However, my biggest concern is who gets to decide what constitutes a “healthy” snack, and what kind of education is provided to ensure consistency in the enforcement of it? Clearly in this case, chips and chocolate bars are not healthy. But what about juice? Yogurt? Pizza? Where is the line?
What do you think? Is it the school’s place to make this call? And how should they do it?
I find such policies irksome. As you point out, the line between healthy and unhealthy snacks is somewhat fuzzy. Pretty much everyone would agree that a bag of chips falls on the wrong side of that line. But there’s as much sugar in a sugar-sweetened yogurt cup as there is in a cookie, so why is yogurt OK but a cookie not OK? And at any rate, I think the schools should leave it up to the parents’ discretion as to what they choose to put in their kids’ lunch.
There’s no way in fuck I’d pull my kid out of a school over this issue, though. Not that big of a deal to me.
It’s not the school’s place to overrule parents. If I send my kid to school with something to eat, they’d better not try to confiscate it. However, it is within the school’s rights to ban the sale of junk food on their property. So if I sent my kid to school with a backpack full of candy that he tries to sell to other students, then they can take it off of him. But those are two completely separate issues.
I say let your kids get fat. It just gives my kids more of a social and physical competitive advantage, and one can never have enough of that.
While I acknowledge that childhood obesity is a serious problem, I used to get snacks in my lunch like Oreos, cupcakes and Cheetos and I wasn’t a fat kid. There were other kids who had similar items in their lunchbox who also managed to avoid obesity somehow.
I had the same issue a few years back in Glasgow, Scotland when my kids where told that the packed lunch I gave them was banned because it was unhealthy. Sandwich, crisps, chocolate and a yogurt.
I went to the school and told them that if they ever took any food from my kids that i gave them it was in my eyes thieft as they where my kids and I purchased the food and supplied it. I basically told them that if they wanted to feed my kids out of their own pockets then i may concider it. Also I told them they will get what i give them and if they tried to deprive my kids of nurishment for their own crap reasons it would be reported to the school authorities.
A bit of chocolate and crisps as part of a meal is fine - it gives them energy and I hate the pish about suger-rush - its Bollocks - kids are either hyper or not. suger is not the reason.
Sorry I didn’t have the article - I was thinking more of the concept of a policy as opposed to the details of the specific case that had me thinking. Thanks to those who posted some examples.
My daughter came home from kindergarten last week with the Halloween treat I’d tucked in her snack bag unopened, and told me there was no candy allowed. Aside from my annoyance that I had never been told about that rule, I find myself bugged about the concept in general. Like I said, in theory I don’t think I mind the school wanting the kids to eat healthy, but in practise there are too many flaws.
When I attended elementary and high school (the 90s, more or less), many of the meals cooked by the cafeteria were not especially low in fat or calories. At one point, pizza was being offered every single day as the “alternative” if you didn’t want the main course (and some kids loved to pour ranch dressing over it). Things may have changed since then, but at least at the school I attended it would certainly have been possible to pack a lunch with candy and chips and still put fewer calories into that paper bag than most students were putting on their trays.
The cynic in me wants to say that some schools are just trying to promote the School Lunch Program (or the equivalents in other countries) by making it practically compulsory. After all, students who bring lunches from home on many days of the year might cast a somewhat negative light on the cafeteria’s offerings. Packaged foods like chips are a convenient and safe option that won’t spoil or become inedible during the day (most students, I would guess, don’t have access to school refrigerators for home lunches).
I really disagree with the whole mentality of “X food is good, Y food is bad” that these schools seem to embrace. A child who eats a few Oreos on occasion is making a healthier choice than one who binges on granola bars. The more foods that get added to this or that “forbidden” list, the more that kids are going to say “Screw it all” and continue to eat whatever they want anyway.
I’m sure that these rules are going to be the subject of a lawsuit someday.
I think it’s a misguided attempt to deal with a real problem. I’ve never had a problem with not selling junk food, but disallowing it in general is silly. So the kid won’t eat it at school. The time of day doesn’t change the amount of calories in the food.
I just don’t see any evidence that keeping children from eating junk food at school accomplishes anything other than making people feel like they’ve addressed the problem. I’ll gladly point out that I almost never had junk food at school–I was on free lunch. I was still one of the largest kids at school. It was the uber skinny kids who seemed to eat the most junk food. But, you see, that was all they ate, and there are fewer calories in a candy bar and a soda than in most school lunches.
That’s weird. In my high school common fundraising activities included selling candy. In school, like all time. During one quarter the band sells candy, during another the teachers sell snacks, during another NHS sold lollipops, and one quarter all the smaller clubs sold candy bars.
A no snacks policy would cause my High School’s economy to collapse!
In this particular case, I think both the school and the parents are acting foolishly, but the main point remains. Is it the school’s business? And if so, how can it be maintained? Almost any traditionally healthy snack can (and often does) have so many additives mashed into it that it becomes unhealthy, and almost every traditionally unhealthy snack can be prepared in a nutritious way. Apart from saying “only raw, organic produce allowed” (which has issues in itself) I don’t see how there could be a list of acceptable snacks that everyone can agree on or even recognize.
In my school, nachos and fries were the alternative if you didn’t want to eat the main course. We also had soda machines and a snack bar that sold stuff like chips, cookies and Hostess pies.
My first grader brought home a print-out detailing the kinds of snacks that were acceptable within the school district’s healthy snack policy.
Among the prohibited items: homemade cupcakes and cookies. Among the “highly recommended” items: pre-packaged items like Little Debbie snack cakes. WTF??
The cupcakes that come from a boxed cake mix have less sugar & preservatives (i.e. trans fat, etc) in them than a Ho-Ho. Sometimes I wonder about the people in charge of educating my children…
I’m not surprised it’s come to this. Kids can easily find loopholes around school “No Junk Food” policies and bringing your own lunch is the most obvious one. I suppose the only way they can effectively enforce the ban is to have stop checks at the entrance so they can search every lunch bag for contraband candy, chips, and pop along with closely examining every sandwich to make sure it doesn’t have any salty meats, fatty cheeses, or oily condiments.
My typical bag lunch consisted of a half-sandwich, a small bag of chips, a cookie or candy bar, an apple slice, and (by the time I was in high school) a can of pop. I was not fat then and I am not fat now. I hated cafeteria food and would’ve rather gone hungry through the afternoon than be forced to eat it. It’s stuff like this that makes me glad I’m not going to school now.
I really can’t get worked up over this. On the contrary, my experience in schools makes me wish that there were higher minimum standards for being a parent pretty much in every area of parenting. Feeding your kid healthful food is just one of those areas. Yes, they’re your kid; no, I’m not going to lose sleep if you’re deprived the “right” to feed your kid junk food at school.
Who decides what counts as junk food? The same folk as decide on what counts as other proper school behavior. You don’t get to send your kid to school in clothes with pot emblems or in sexually revealing clothing. A kid doesn’t get to come to school with their own math books and refuse to use the school’s math books. A kid doesn’t get to bring their own chair to the classroom to use. A kid doesn’t get to decide they’re going to sit in a corner all day reading Harry Potter and ignoring the lessons. In all cases, the professionals decide what comprises proper action at school.
Why shouldn’t the professionals decide in the case of lunch, too?
If the professionals aren’t competent at deciding, then we need to improve their judgment in these cases, or else we need to decide that their incompetence in this area means they shouldn’t make such decisions. However, that’d be based on specific situations. There’s no principle of freedom that renders their judgment moot.
But like I said, I’m not real worked up about it. The above is slightly devil’s-advocatey, inasmuch as I want to put forth a defense for the school against which folks can argue. I can be persuaded otherwise.
I’d be a lot happier with it if I were convinced that school lunches were based on guidelines designed for maximum nutritional benefit rather than minimum cost. Schools are in the business of educating children; they are professional educators. I’ll buy that they’re professional kid-feeders when they exist and are funded for that purpose.
I certainly hope school lunches have changed since I was a kid, because I remember our school lunches being heavy on pizza, tater tots, burgers, those horrible sausage things, and limp canned veggies. There’s no way that stuff was nutritionally on par with the sandwich, yogurt, fruit and carrots I generally brought from home (which I did to avoid the disgusting lunches).
So, I just looked at a local school district’s high school menu for November. The main courses? Chicken patty cordon bleu, cheesesteak, meatball hoagie, baked ziti, barbecue sliders. All high-fat, practically fast food options. Fries are a veggie option every single day. I will, however, say that they are better than when I was in school, as tossed salad and fruit are options on the menu every day. While it’s an improvement, the menu does not fill me with confidence in the school’s dietary choices.