Food ban watch

School Food Trust: Schools should consider "lock-ins" at lunchtime to stop pupils from buying junk food

When I went to school we weren't allowed to leave campus for lunch. It's not that hard to enforce. That said, I cut school many a time with friends to go grab a Sicilian pizza.

My high school changed from closed to open campus midway through my tenure. However, in those days, the purpose of keeping students in at lunch was not to prevent them from eating fast food, but to avoid afternoon truancy.

Schools can prevent kids from leaving the grounds at lunchtime, but that still doesn't keep the school chip-free (if that's the goal).

One thing I hate to see on the train at 7 in the morning: elementary-school kids eating chips and soda. I am certain that, for some of them, this is their entire breakfast. When I used to teach college kids early in the morning, I'd see some of them having a chip-and-soda breakfast before class, too.

Is the school going to confiscate everybody's chips when they pass through the front doors? How about installing one of those new high-tech bomb-sniffing sensors -- set to detect Fritos? I just can't see this becoming a priority for any but a handful of schools.

I say this as a someone who, through two years of middle school, was unable to plan my own lunches. I'd buy a peanut bar or some ridiculous snack item for lunch nearly every day, because I somehow couldn't get it into my head that I was going to get hungry every day at the same hour -- and I was never going to like what the cafeteria was serving.

MariaTheresa wrote:One thing I hate to see on the train at 7 in the morning: elementary-school kids eating chips and soda. I am certain that, for some of them, this is their entire breakfast. When I used to teach college kids early in the morning, I'd see some of them having a chip-and-soda breakfast before class, too.

I have a friend who used to (and for all I know, still does) breakfast on a cigarette and a diet Pepsi. At least potato chips have some vitamin C.

we should just ban everything unhealthy instead of teaching nutrition to our citizens and then leaving it up to parenting, responsibility and personal accountability. Seems like the right thing to do.

I'm all for it

But on a serious note - whatever happened to making parents provide sack lunches for their kids? I remember i had to take a brown sack lunch with me everyday until high school.

Wouldn't this be a far more feasible option that doesn't require the "banning" of something? Not only that, but then the school can spend money on....i don't know....education and extra-curricular programs rather than a kitchen/cafeteria/staff.

Providing healthy meals should be the responsibility of the parent - and maybe the school could spend a little money they'd save from shutting down a cafeteria to provide nutritional information to parents who send their kids to school with a can of coke and a bag of potato chips.

After all - you can only do so much. If a parent is dumb enough to fuel their child with empty calories and fried chips - don't you think there are probably worse things going on outside of school anyway? You can't save the children by banning potato chips....or freedom of choice...or parenting.

Seattle Post Intelligencer wrote:Food policies: Justice or "nanny state"?

After removing a controversial provision that flirted with the idea of restricting fast food restaurants in Seattle, a City Council committee approved the "Local Food Action Initiative" by a 2 to 1 vote Tuesday, sending the measure to the full council for a likely vote Monday.

djenks wrote:we should just ban everything unhealthy instead of teaching nutrition to our citizens and then leaving it up to parenting, responsibility and personal accountability.

...Whatever happened to making parents provide sack lunches for their kids? I remember i had to take a brown sack lunch with me everyday until high school.

Providing healthy meals should be the responsibility of the parent - and maybe the school could spend a little money they'd save from shutting down a cafeteria to provide nutritional information to parents who send their kids to school with a can of coke and a bag of potato chips.

After all - you can only do so much. If a parent is dumb enough to fuel their child with empty calories and fried chips - don't you think there are probably worse things going on outside of school anyway? You can't save the children by banning potato chips....or freedom of choice...or parenting.

To me this article wasn't about a ban on specific foods, it was about keeping kids inside the school at lunch so that the kids don't go to restaurants. This seems fairly reasonable to me. Why do high school kids need to go off campus to eat lunch?

When I was in school we learned about nutrition--starting in grade school--and everyone had to take Home Ec for a few quarters. Learning about nutrition isn't incompatible with enjoying food. In fact, I think you enjoy food more and are willing to try new things if you learn about nutrition. Alice Waters' program is interesting. How cool would it be to have a school garden and then use the produce for school lunches?

http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/homepage.html

As far as school lunches, there are a lot of children in poverty and/or with terrible home lives. A decent meal at school may be all that they get during the day. Unfortunately, sending some information about brown bag lunches home to their parents or parent isn't going to help in those cases.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/

grits wrote:

djenks wrote:As far as school lunches, there are a lot of children in poverty and/or with terrible home lives. A decent meal at school may be all that they get during the day. Unfortunately, sending some information about brown bag lunches home to their parents or parent isn't going to help in those cases.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/

That is exactly right.

BTW - I bet some of those kids eating chips & pop on the train are eating part of their lunches.

Keeping kids on campus during high school is not new for me. My high school wouldn't allow anyone off campus for lunch, and there were no vending machines, no soda (it was water or orange juice only) and no coffee or tea. A treat during breakfast was hot chocolate - it was a treat because of the sugar in the dry hot chocolate mix. (And, no, this was not a Catholic school, or even the 1940s -- this was in the late '80s and early '90s.)

I survived.

CNN: 9 forbidden foods wrote:Government agencies have outlawed these forbidden foods, but epicures love them. Here's what restaurateurs and other business owners around the U.S. have to say about culinary contraband.

In high school we weren't allowed to leave the campus for lunch.

However, I can't say that I remember there being very many healthy options there. I brought my own lunch because I aided in a different area during my lunch period. I mean, yes, it is a parents responsibility to teach their kids to make more practical choices with food, but it's harder for kids to do that, when they aren't presented with many healthy options.

I can honestly say that a salad or cold cut sandwich wasn't even an option at my high school cafeteria.They did have a bowl of apples available and I think jello. It was generally things like pizza, cheeseburgers, french fries, and hot dogs. We had rows of vending machines for Soda and chips. One of the menu items was actually Doritos covered in Chez Whiz.

None of this is to imply that I'm entirely overly concious of what I eat, but back in the late 80's early 90's you didn't have a lot to pick from. I'd like to see healthier options available but I also don't want to see people policing what everyone eats either.

My upstate New York high school allowed upperclassmen (and sophmores with an "A" grade point average) to leave campus for lunch. However, my school required 9 periods of instruction with something like 41 minutes per period. 40 minutes was not enough time to get off campus, go down to BK and stand in line for lunch unless you were okay with getting a late mark against you for your next class (5 lates= 1 day of after school detention). Basically, off campus eating was really for kids that wanted to go home or have a picnic lunch in an nearby park. (Or, I guess those few that got in line first at BK and the local pizza joint.)

My New York school had no vending machings, no soda vending machines and candy during class was subject to confiscation (which happened a lot).

The cafeteria served typical foods like salisbury steak with vegetables, chicken and gravy, turkey, meatloaf, etc. I ate it a lot and it wasn't bad at all. Pizza and fried fish was available on Wednesdays and Fridays. French Fries were available 2 days a week. To drink, water, milk or OJ. You could purchase ice cream bars for extra if you had the change.

Every year, parents were sent nutritional flyers warning them about sending kids to school with chips, soda, candy, etc. Just a run of the mill small-town public school in the 80's/90's.

Interestingly, for my senior year, I moved to an affluent school in Orange County, California. There were at least 4 soda machines, vending machines galore, no ban on any foodstuff and (drumroll....) NO CAFETERIA! Students were expected to bring their own lunch, eat the microwave nachos, etc. at the school snack shack or go across the street where one could find Taco Bell, McDonald's, Burger King or Wok Express. Apparently, the taxpayers didn't want to pay for cafeteria service (they also shut down our school computer lab and library to pay for a football stadium...)

Anyway, I think this shows a dramatic change in how children are being fed. My "old school" New York school would never have shut-down the school cafeteria in favor of microwaved fat.

The Daily Herald wrote:Birthday cake banned in Arlington Heights schools

The Arlington Heights Elementary School District 25 school board has banned birthday cakes and cupcakes next year as part of a new wellness policy.

There will still be birthday parties -- parents just can't send cakes or cupcakes to school with their kids on their birthdays, said Superintendent Sarah Jerome....

The school board recently approved the new "wellness and allergy policy," which included the birthday cake and cupcake change. While limiting sweets, it rolls back a ban on allergens that wasn't being rigorously enforced.

The new policy does allow kids to bring in "sweet treats" on a few special days such as Halloween and Valentine's Day. Jerome called those holidays "traditional candy events."

However, on those days kids must also bring in something healthy. So along with the mini-Snickers bar, there should be a carrot stick, Jerome said....

The policy also prohibits teachers from using food as an instruction tool. For example, teachers won't be able to use M&Ms to teach counting.

Today's Daily Herald contains a letter from a dietitian, one Jacqueline King, applauding District 25's action in banning sweets from school celebrations:

Why must unhealthy food be a major part of celebration? Can't we teach children that a sweet dessert or high fat snack does not have to be the basis for every celebration or outing?...

I challenge District 25 to go further to eliminate all unhealthy snacks for all holiday celebrations. This will teach our children healthier behaviors, help curb obesity and diabetes and lower future health care costs.

Rather self-servingly, Ms. King also mentions her concern that rising costs are leading "hospitals (to) terminate diabetes programs and diabetes educators." She wouldn't want to see cuts in her own bread and butter.

I pity anyone who must take counsel from such a dour dietitian. All I can think is that if Ms. King had her way, children would be fed on the cheery, healthful diet alloted Oliver Twist.

They contracted with the water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll of Sundays.... The master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at mealtimes. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more--except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.

And he found it very educational, indeed.

Hi,

Remember the riot Oliver Twist caused when he inquired, "Please sir, more?"

Regards,

Bloomberg wrote:FDA urged to ban 8 dyes used in food

By Bloomberg News / June 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - The United States should ban eight food dyes, used in products including General Mills Inc.'s Lucky Charms cereal, because of links to hyperactivity and other disruptive behavior in children, a health advocacy group said.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said yesterday it petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to outlaw coloring listed on ingredient labels under names such as Blue 2 and Red 40....

I have no idea of the truth behind this claim, but this story is the kind of one-source journalism I hate, and the CSPI is so successful at provoking. Whatever CSPI says is apparently news, whether or not they're justified in saying it.

LAZ wrote:

The Daily Herald wrote:Birthday cake banned in Arlington Heights schools

The Arlington Heights Elementary School District 25 school board has banned birthday cakes and cupcakes next year as part of a new wellness policy.

policy also prohibits teachers from using food as an instruction tool. For example, teachers won't be able to use M&Ms to teach counting.

Many school districts, including mine, are attempting to teach children healthy nutritional habits plus attempting to come up with strategies for dealing with the alarming increase in the number of students with allergies, many of which are life-threatening. As you can imagine, implementing such changes is very difficult since communities have come to view birthday cakes as part of the school culture. However, they seem to be part of the "newer culture" of schools since many "older" people do not recall having any snacks or birthday treats in school.

Interestingly, when I worked in Seattle drinking coffee had become so embedded in the lifestyle that even schools participated eagerly in this activity. Mocha-Motion vans would pull up outside the schools (Middle and High Schools) and the kids and their teachers would line up to purchase their coffee. Can't imagine that happening here.

Jyoti

Hi,

FYI - I will probably fall into the 'older' population (which really hurts to say). Birthday treats were not uncommon, though it wasn't expected either. It was a every once in a great while someone's parent brought treats to the classroom. Once you were past grade school, then it never happened.

Regards,

jygach wrote:As you can imagine, implementing such changes is very difficult since communities have come to view birthday cakes as part of the school culture. However, they seem to be part of the "newer culture" of schools since many "older" people do not recall having any snacks or birthday treats in school.

If you read my post above, you probably won't be surprised to hear that birthday cakes were not allowed in my elementary school, either. (This was the very late '70s/early '80s.) I don't know how much of it was grounded in nutritional concerns (although I could see any strict New England school worried about the effect of sugar on the children's behavior). I think the ban was grounded in mostly economic and fairness concerns. Kids from poorer or less "participatory" families would feel left out and ostracized on their respective birthdays as other kids' parents would create a mini-party for their children. These are the types of mini-circuses my school wanted to avoid. After all, if it didn't have anything to do with education, it was tough for the principal to justify. (Very mild corporal punishment was also tolerated, too.)

Though our school made the eminently reasonable request that we downsize: they've asked that cupcakes be changed for mini-cupcakes. We also are asked not to bring candy for holidays lke Halloween or Valentine's Day, but are allowed to bring little toys or stickers - which I actually appreciate, because we seem to get overloaded with it anyway. It seems there's a birthday about once a week.

What concerned me was the suggestion that some schools are policing what goes in kid's lunches in the name of nutrition (the allergy thing is quite serious, but at our school is limited to the classrooms with allergic children. IIRC, we were in a peanut-free classroom last year, which meant only that there was a peanut-free table at lunch) I heard that some schools ask that children not bring candy for dessert in their lunches (this is from the school district that serves waffle sticks, syrup and a side of cookies as lunch.)

Dems oust fried foods from 2008 convention:

Cox News Service wrote:As part of the effort to make the 2008 national convention the greenest ever, the Democrats' catering guidelines include one that strikes at the heart of Southern cuisine: No fried food.

No fried chicken. No fried catfish. No fried green tomatoes. No fried okra. No fried anything.

The Democratic guidelines say every meal should be nutritious and include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, purple/blue and white."

"It's the new patriotism," says Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the driving force behind the greening of the Democratic convention.

New York's trans-fat ban is now extended to baked goods, according to Newsday. I hope that means somebody will start baking with lard, but I doubt it.

Cox News Service wrote:The Democratic guidelines say every meal should be nutritious and include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, purple/blue and white."

"It's the new patriotism," says Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the driving force behind the greening of the Democratic convention.

I thought it was determined that white food was least good for us (white bread, white bread, white rice, white potatoes)?

leek wrote: I thought it was determined that white food was least good for us (white bread, white bread, white rice, white potatoes)?

Nothing wrong with potatoes. An average potato (100 calories) contains 45 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C; 620 mg potassium (comparable to bananas, spinach and broccoli); 3 grams of protein (roughly equivalent to a half glass of milk); plus trace amounts of thiamin, riboflavin, folate, magnesium, phosphorous, iron and zinc. Leave the skin on, and it has fiber, too.

The Los Angeles City Council has just passed a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a 32-square-mile section of South L.A., according to the Los Angeles Times, reportedly in an anti-obesity move. However, the ban affects "any establishment which dispenses food for consumption on or off the premises, and which has the following characteristics: a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders and food served in disposable wrapping or containers," regardless of what it serves, so you couldn't open a quick-service salad stand, either.

I don't know L.A. well, but isn't this area a low-income region? So L.A. is paternalistically "protecting" its poorer citizens from cheap, convenient food options while allowing its richer citizens access to all the Big Macs they want.

If I were McDonalds, I would open restaurants with table service.

Doesn't downtown Evanston have some sort of rule about this, which is why you have to bag your own food at the Burger King there?

I was surprised to hear about the L.A. "ban", as well. As far as I can tell, it is meant to keep new fast-food places from opening and to limit the expansion of the ones already in existence. On the one hand, that seems like the sort of thing struggle that people who manage our cities ought to engage in. What sorts of businesses do we want to encourage? How, for instance, do strips of drive-through restaurants affect the quality of life for people who live near them? How do they affect other businesses, pedestrian traffic, and so on? However, I read very little about that aspect of the fast food businesses that are being targeted.

I was also disappointed to hear that this decision focused on the negative -- no new fast food -- rather than on the constructive. Getting more grocery stores to move into poor neighborhoods is a thorny problem. Do they have a good solution that Chicago and other cities should know about? And how are they going to attract restaurants that offer what they consider to be healthier food?

Note: the ordinance as described by LAZ would also directly affect the individual seller of home-made tamales, all vendors with food carts, and taco trucks (!!!). Can they really be banning taco trucks? Someone tell me it isn't true!

MariaTheresa wrote:I was also disappointed to hear that this decision focused on the negative -- no new fast food -- rather than on the constructive. Getting more grocery stores to move into poor neighborhoods is a thorny problem. Do they have a good solution that Chicago and other cities should know about? And how are they going to attract restaurants that offer what they consider to be healthier food?

This action will also 1) reduce the amount of money invested in an impoverished neighborhood and 2) denying a significant number of people an opportunity to get out of the cycle of poverty. Whether you like to admit it or not, places like McDonald's have provided the first job for a number of successful business people. Such businesses train people work skills that carry on well to other jobs.

In a past position, at the recommendation of a couple of my doctor friends, I used to recruit my staff from East St. Louis. I must have hired a dozen 25+ year old people who had never had a full-time job in their lives. With proper training, they became productive employees.

jlawrence01 wrote:This action will also 1) reduce the amount of money invested in an impoverished neighborhood and 2) denying a significant number of people an opportunity to get out of the cycle of poverty. Whether you like to admit it or not, places like McDonald's have provided the first job for a number of successful business people. Such businesses train people work skills that carry on well to other jobs.

Yes, including many who go on to be owners of fast-food franchises and mom-and-pop fast-food places in their own neighborhoods. I can't help but think legislation like this would have damping effect on minority-owned businesses.

Nor will it stop people from getting fat.