The Center for Science in the Public Interest has a campaign to reduce the amount of junk food children eat. Part of this is asking for governmental restrictions on offering sodas and candy bars in schools:
I’m almost tempted to be anti-whatever the Center for “Science” in the Public Interest is for.
Parents should do their best to educate their children about nutrition and health. It would also be nice if healthier snack options were available, assuming they’re not already.
Most kids don’t have a strong sense of the benefits of a balanced diet over a diet composed entirely of Chee-tos and Dr. Pepper, at an age when the eating habits that they develop will affect the way they eat, and their overall health, for the rest of their lives.
If they were at home, they wouldn’t be allowed to eat whatever junk they would choose for themselves.
I think it’s a little odd that they can do so at school, where the school would seem to have some responsibility for keeping them reasonably healthy if it’s in its power.
Caffeine might be part of the answer to that. I see a fair number of coke junkies cruising the pop aisles for their daily sixpack of caffeinated goodness, but far fewer with a jones for applejuice. Applejuice is a somewhat natural product, coke is designed to make people want to drink it to excess.
-Just IMHO.
I’m all for kids having choices, but they should be presented with maximum opportunities to make good choices and minimal opportunities to make bad ones.
They should be able to choose from: Broccoli, peas, green beans, spinach. Freedom, choices. For dessert: Apples, oranges, bananas, or strawberries.
Their junk food availability should be limited.
If it’s available, they’ll eat it.
Kids don’t really think they’re ever going to get old and less that they might want to be healthy later in life. This is why they have adults to guide them.
They should definitely have their Boing intake monitored.
Well, is it that hard for kids to walk to the corner store and buy whatever they want?
I don’t get it. A coke machine isn’t going to cause kids to suddenly become adicted. Kids are getting their fix all over the place. Stopping schools from selling “bad” food is just going to have the kids walking a little bit more (not a bad thing really).
Well, yes, sometimes it is hard for kids to walk to the corner store, at least during the day. With ever-increasting restrictions surrounding school buildings, even in my rural area, kids can’t come and go from school like they used to be able to.
So, during the day when they’re trapped :), shouldn’t we (as adults and presumably people with more knowledge) try to provide them with healthier alternatives than nacho chips and cola?
I don’t know. I’m not a big fan of government intervention in most cases. In this case, however, I’d like to see kids encouraged to make good choices. Heaven knows I wish I’d started making better choices about food earlier in life. I wouldn’t have so many bad habits to break.
Like Juanita, I hope that healther options are at least available – they weren’t when I was in school.
I won’t hijack this thread by ranting about the nutritional atrocities leveled upon unsuspecting children in the form of school lunches. I have been known to rant about that in person, and it ain’t pretty.
In my son’s school, the children aren’t allowed off campus during the school day, so it’s not just a matter of hopping down to the corner store to buy a candy bar.
If momma doesn’t give them Coke, and they can’t access it at school, they probably can’t get it (at least not at all often).
At his school (admittedly, an elementary) you have a lunch choice of milk, water, or whatever mom packs in your lunch bag.
But I know when he goes on to middle and high schools, it will be another ballgame.
[slight hijack 'n thought]
This school distict signed an EXCLUSIVE contract with Pepsi to sell their products in the couple hundred schools in this county. Mrs. Plan is a teacher in the system, and tells me they have been told this exclusivity extends to soft drinks brought in for school events - no Cokes, no store brands - and even for your own lunch!
[/sh’t]
So far as I know, there aren’t healthy alternatives, nor are there ANY alternatives to the Pepsi Boing.
Why should schools be getting into the business of ‘endorsing’ specific mass-produced products and brands anyway? I know, I know, that’s the beauty and wonder of the free market, and schools do need the money, but still, it strikes me as wrong (though not nearly as wrong as those “teacher’s kits” that are advertising kits in disguise)…
As a high school student, I think people make too big of a deal about what the vending machines have in them. We are all responsible and intelligent to know that junk food isn’t good for us, and we have to be responible for what we eat. When we go out in the “real world” there will be junk food surrounding us wherever we go in our career. Kids have to learn and take responsibility sometime over what they consume. The one thing I don’t like is where high schools don’t have enough healthy foods to choose out of because then you might be stuck with junk food because you have to eat something. Also, elementary schools shouldn’t have junk food because they’re still young kids without the responsibility to make wise choices on their nutrition.
My knee-jerk response is that I don’t want that stuff in my kids’ school. Government intervention does give me pause. However, I am a very authoritarian-style parent, and if I don’t want my kids consuming crap, then I do whatever is in my power to keep crap from them. (Which is not to say that they don’t get junk food. But I like to monitor the amount they get.)
With schools getting less and less gvt funding, they sometimes really need the extra cash that Coke (or whoever) provides them. It’s not just food, either, that is corporate-sponsored.
Added to people’s commitment to individual choice - caveat emptor, “I can make my own decisions” kind of thing - it seems hard to support banning this stuff from schools.
That’s a nice example cowgirl and I’m glad it worked out for that school. If it works for the school and the kids want it, then by all means, include healthy alternatives. IMO though, banning junk food goes against principles of choice and personal responsibility. It’s just another example of paternalism gone wrong. Give kids healthy food choices in addition to the junk food currently available, but let them make the choice.
