School Lunch

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Allow me to be liberal for a minute.

 

I have been working in a predominantly minority, low income public high school for the past several months now. The school has all sorts of problems, tests scores not least among them, but one of the things that has really bothered me is the food that they are serving to these kids. Most of the kids in the school are on free or reduced lunch. These kids are eating absolute shit every day.

 

Fries covered with cheese and chili with a slice of Papa John's pizza on the side is not an acceptable lunch for a growing teenager. The government should be ashamed of what it is doing to the health of the nation's youth. We are setting these kids up for an unhealthy life of diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, and heart problems.

 

I am currently interviewing for a job at a somewhat elite private high school also and I toured the building the other day. Their cafeteria, of course, had a lovely salad bar and a nice assortment of fresh fruits.

 

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/20.../ma_207_01.html

 

At a time when weight-related illnesses in children are escalating, schools are serving kids the very foods that lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. That's because the National School Lunch Program, which gives schools more than $6 billion each year to offer low-cost meals to students, has conflicting missions. Enacted in 1946, the program is supposed to provide healthy meals to children, regardless of income. At the same time, however, it's designed to subsidize agribusiness, shoring up demand for beef and milk even as the public's taste for these foods declines.

 

Under the program, the federal government buys up more than $800 million worth of farm products each year and turns them over to schools to serve their students. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the system, calls this a win-win situation: Schools get free ingredients while farmers are guaranteed a steady income. The trouble is, most of the commodities provided to schools are meat and dairy products, often laden with saturated fat. In 2001, the USDA spent a total of $350 million on surplus beef and cheese for schools -- more than double the $161 million spent on all fruits and vegetables, most of which were canned or frozen. On top of its regular purchases, the USDA makes special purchases in direct response to industry lobbying. In November 2001, for example, the beef industry wrote to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, complaining that a decline in travel after September 11, along with a lowered demand for beef in Japan, was suppressing sales of their product. The department responded two months later with a $30 million "bonus buy" of frozen beef roasts and ground beef for schools.

 

We are basing what we feed to our children on fucking LOBBYING.

 

"Basically, it's a welfare program for suppliers of commodities," says Jennifer Raymond, a retired nutritionist in Northern California who has worked with schools to develop healthier menus. "It's a price support program for agricultural producers, and the schools are simply a way to get rid of the items that have been purchased."

 

School nutrition directors face increasing mandates from their higher-ups to break even, or even make a profit, and therefore have no choice but to accept surplus commodities. "They help shape our menus significantly, especially if you're going to run a program successfully financially," says Christy Koury, director of child nutrition for schools in Freeport, Texas, where menus run heavy on hamburgers, cheese-stuffed pizza sticks, and pepperoni calzones.

 

School nutrition officials like Koury consider the free food so vital to their budgets that they have sometimes overlooked good nutrition to side with the beef and dairy industries, forming a powerful alliance that has blocked efforts to serve healthier meals to students.

 

School food directors say they have to serve fatty meals to satisfy the tastes of children raised on McDonald's and Domino's. "They'd love to have pizza and french fries every day," says Wheelock, the Huntsville official. "You can't eliminate french fries."

 

I found this quote particularly humorous, as many of the kids at my school eat pizza and fries everyday.

 

Here is what I would do about this. Feel free to challenge my proposals or make your own.

 

1. Ban soda and snack machines from public schools. Only healthy snacks, juices, or sports drinks.

2. The schools will no longer be a dumping ground for surplus beef and cheese. If we want all of our students to do well and succeed academically (No Child Left Behind, baby!), then they need proper nutrition.

3. Ban trans fats and high fructose corn syrup from the school cafeteria.

4. No more lazy-ass football coach gym teachers. Gym class should be mandatory and vigorous.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Sounds good, but it will never happen. This isn't anything new...seems like all we've been hearing about for the past twenty years is how school lunches and PE need to get better, we need healthier kids, blah blah blah. I remember in the '80s people complained that the Soviets had much harder physical fitness standards, but nothing was ever done then. What is going to change now?

 

This is why if I ever have kids, I won't be sending them to public school. They don't improve, they regress constantly. It's all controlled by lobbyists and teachers' unions, and nothing ever gets better. The children are basically an after-thought.

[SuperJerk 0]

The vending machines are allowed because districts get kick-backs from snack food and soda companies.

 

I'm sure cash-starved private schools get the same deal.

[Ravenbomb 0]

1. Ban soda and snack machines from public schools. Only healthy snacks, juices, or sports drinks.

2. The schools will no longer be a dumping ground for surplus beef and cheese. If we want all of our students to do well and succeed academically (No Child Left Behind, baby!), then they need proper nutrition.

3. Ban trans fats and high fructose corn syrup from the school cafeteria.

4. No more lazy-ass football coach gym teachers. Gym class should be mandatory and vigorous.

 

 

1. I dunno about banning soda and snacks, but having the healthy stuff as an alternative would be good

2. Yeah, the meat at my school was awful. I don't know about the cheese, cause I never ate it, but the meat sucked

3. eh

4. For the first two years, it IS mandatory.

 

 

and a slice of Papa Johns pizza? What school did YOU go to? If we got pizza, it was crayon-orange cheese on a square of chewy bread

[EricMM 0]

If I ever have kids, they will NOT be eating school lunches like I did.

 

Fries are NOT a veggie.

 

It's so sad that everything kids eat at school came from a cow of some kind, be it beef, cheese, or what have you.

 

Are apples and bananas so expensive? You'd think that every cafeteria in this country DOESN'T have a food pyramid, with Fruit and Veggies BELOW meat and cheese.

[Vampiro69 0]

Yes the school lunches suck, but even the crappiest of schools that I have been to still serve lettuce, bread, peaches and apples. The meat, if it is meat is nothing to write home about.

 

The kids need to know what is good to eat. Once they learn what is good for them they will learn to eat properly. Schools can only point them in the right direction on what to eat, not force them.

[Guest heyimbro]

I don't know about the schools that you guys went to, but at my school, it was about 2 and a half times cheaper to buy fries ($1.35) than a veggie tray ($3.25). Maybe if prices were acceptable, I would have been eating healthier food. Then again, in the US, aren't lunch prices covered by the government or am I just crazy?

[Vampiro69 0]

At my schools the meals were a total package. If they served hamburgers, everyone ate hamburgers that day, along with fries, salad some fruit, milk, and a vegetable of some sort.

 

I am sure it is quite different around the country though.

[Masked Man of Mystery 0]

I deliberately avoided school lunches until college, where we can eat a decent meal. I tend toward fast food naturally, but I try to eat some sort of healthy. But high school lunches looked downright awful, and I went to one of the best public schools in the country(or so we were told)

[MrRant 0]

I don't know about the schools that you guys went to, but at my school, it was about 2 and a half times cheaper to buy fries ($1.35) than a veggie tray ($3.25). Maybe if prices were acceptable, I would have been eating healthier food. Then again, in the US, aren't lunch prices covered by the government or am I just crazy?

 

Only if you qualify as low income. And to be honest, if the government is giving the food away free and unfortunately it is the food that costs the least, how much exactly can you complain since you can't afford to pack a lunch? I'm glad the kids are getting something.

 

I agree they could do better of course but the overly processed food is usually cheaper. At my middle/high school we had pizza, sub sandwichs, salads and the like which was partially paid for by soda and snack machines.

 

I will also mention that most of the kids in any of my middle/high school who got the free lunches were Mexicans that had recently immigrated.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Almost all of the kids (well over 60%) at my school are on free/reduced lunch.

[NoCalMike 0]

Well hell I went to a school where most of the kids PAID FOR THIS JUNK.

 

The only way things will change is when lobbyists don't matter anymore. I mean basically they just want the kids hooked on high-fructose corn syrup and other fatty sugars in time for adulthood.

 

It is rather disgusting when you think about it.

[Ravenbomb 0]

somewhat food-quality related:

 

On the walls on the ground floor, they have these concrete bricks, with space between them. Instead of sitting at the tables, where umpteen fights breakout on a given day, it's loud, and overly crowded, I sit outside the door to the gym, next to one of these concrete brick walls. On around October 8th, 2002, my sophomore year of High School, I put two french fries in one of the spaces between the bricks on the wall by the gym door. I sat there every day for lunch, every day they were there. A few weeks ago, I was there with my girlfriend for a school play she was going to, and out of curiosity I checked, and not only are they still there 3 1/2 years later, they look like they were bought fresh. So either fresh fries are put there every day, or the fries they serve the kids at that school are so loaded with chemicals and shit that they never age. I stopped eating the food at that school after the first 6 months that those things were there and hadn't aged, btw.

[Guest Retro Rob]

somewhat food-quality related:

 

On the walls on the ground floor, they have these concrete bricks, with space between them. Instead of sitting at the tables, where umpteen fights breakout on a given day, it's loud, and overly crowded, I sit outside the door to the gym, next to one of these concrete brick walls. On around October 8th, 2002, my sophomore year of High School, I put two french fries in one of the spaces between the bricks on the wall by the gym door. I sat there every day for lunch, every day they were there. A few weeks ago, I was there with my girlfriend for a school play she was going to, and out of curiosity I checked, and not only are they still there 3 1/2 years later, they look like they were bought fresh. So either fresh fries are put there every day, or the fries they serve the kids at that school are so loaded with chemicals and shit that they never age. I stopped eating the food at that school after the first 6 months that those things were there and hadn't aged, btw.

 

Yea, watch Super Size Me. You're getting those same fries at McDonalds, BK, Wendy's etc.

[Ravenbomb 0]

yeah, the only fast food place I get fries from anymore is Steak n' Shake

[Stephen Joseph 0]

At my high school, probably 50% of the kids were on reduced lunch. Healthy eating was no en vogue. People got fat.

 

Gym class was not mandatory.

 

I gotta agree with Smitty here. I think that we're saving pennies today and will be paying out the ass for health care costs in the fffuuuttttuu....wait, we already are. Wonderful.

 

The way the schools handle health related issues, is deplorable. It took me to the end of college to wise up about my health and get serious about eating fruits/vegs and working out. I'm one of the lucky ones, because I still have a few years left to hammer in some muscle and get my habits right.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I was always grateful that I could just bag a lunch and bring it to school. No way was I eating that crap. Give the reduced lunch kids a freaking sandwich/sub bar and you'll be doing everyone a world of good.

 

I get french fries from Five Guys, and that's about it. Watching them actually level and slice the potatoes in front of you is infinitely satisfying. They're woefully unhealthy, sure, but at least you know it's potato and grease.

[Hawk 34 0]

Maybe I was just lucky, but my high school had a wide and healthy variety of selections and we had a juice bar instead of a vending machine/fountain.

[EricMM 0]

I'm more upset that they're trying to eliminate PE in schools across the nation, not just once a week but entirely.

 

It should be daily.

 

And why?

 

So they can cram more for the NCLB tests.

 

What is the term? Fat readers?

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I think schools serving healthy food increases the number of kids packing their lunch with stuff thats worse than if the school was serving pizza and stuff like that.

[Hawk 34 0]

What? They are reducing/cutting gym?

 

Gym class was the best class and it sure as hell offered more for you then half the fucking other classes. It's only fitting that American public schools are afraid of keeping students in shape, so they can sit down for another 90 minutes and be forced fed more stuff that they don't need to know, just so they can can pass tests.

[MrRant 0]

I'm more upset that they're trying to eliminate PE in schools across the nation, not just once a week but entirely.

 

It should be daily.

 

And why?

 

So they can cram more for the NCLB tests.

 

What is the term? Fat readers?

 

Well it's more important you pass tests that will probably not have any bearing on life instead of being an active person. College is for skipping PE, not elementary -> high school. I'd send my daughter to a private school before I send her to a school that had no PE.

[Guest]

I'm more upset that they're trying to eliminate PE in schools across the nation, not just once a week but entirely.

 

It should be daily.

 

And why?

 

So they can cram more for the NCLB tests.

 

What is the term? Fat readers?

Everyone likes to complain about overweight children not having healthy food to eat, but that doesn't mean much of shit when the kids can't get up off their asses and do a few jumping jacks or pushups, much less walk around the fucking block. It's an exercise for some of these damned kids to get food out of the cupboard.

 

I thought everyone liked PE because they didn't have to sit in class and do bookwork. Guess not.

[The Niggardly King 0]

Back when I was in High School a few years ago, we had the option of having some healthy things along with the garbage, but there was a problem with it.

 

Salads would cost $3.50-$4.00. Fresh fruits/veggies as a snack would be $1.50.

 

2 slices of greasy as pizza = $1.50

 

Heart attack burrito that was loaded up with beef, beans, cheese, and some sour cream sauce = $1.25

 

Also, anyone that had the reduced/free lunch would get the most damned awful food that I've seen, but hey... they also had fresh orange/pear slices if anyone wanted to complain about it.

 

I usually just made myself lunch 20 minutes before I went to school.

[Guest wildpegasus]

Sounds good, but it will never happen. This isn't anything new...seems like all we've been hearing about for the past twenty years is how school lunches and PE need to get better, we need healthier kids, blah blah blah. I remember in the '80s people complained that the Soviets had much harder physical fitness standards, but nothing was ever done then. What is going to change now?

 

This is why if I ever have kids, I won't be sending them to public school. They don't improve, they regress constantly. It's all controlled by lobbyists and teachers' unions, and nothing ever gets better. The children are basically an after-thought.

 

 

I remember when I was in elementary school during the 80s. The physical fitness standards were insane. I remember the tests they would run to see how how much shape we were in. I just wish I could remember the specifics because the fitness standards were just so far out there. Unreal.

[Hawk 34 0]

What I found amusing was that during the physical endurance trial tests they forced everyone to take, our teacher would set certain levels for people in order to pass.

 

The fat people basically had to complete a mile around the track before the 75 minute class period was over, or at least hang on the pull-bar for 2 seconds or do 10 sit-ups in a 60 second span. The sad part? There were a few people who couldn't even do that.

 

 

I liked running the mile and then playing a full game of soccer in one class period while the fat kids were still on lap 2 of the mile run.

[The Niggardly King 0]

Even at my fattest I would at least hit a 10 minute mile.

[gWIL 0]

1. Ban soda and snack machines from public schools. Only healthy snacks, juices, or sports drinks.

2. The schools will no longer be a dumping ground for surplus beef and cheese. If we want all of our students to do well and succeed academically (No Child Left Behind, baby!), then they need proper nutrition.

3. Ban trans fats and high fructose corn syrup from the school cafeteria.

4. No more lazy-ass football coach gym teachers. Gym class should be mandatory and vigorous.

 

1. Sports drinks have is much shit in them as pop.

2.,3. Not possible. If you ban shitty food, people will just bring it in. At least this way the school makes money.

4. I barely have room on my schedule for Spanish. For me that would come down to a language vs PE. My senoir schedule for next year:

Precalc (mandatory)

English 12 (mandatory)

Physics (mandatory)

Seminar in Film (I have to have a fine arts credit to graduate)

Student Publication: Newspaper (Help me towards my intending career goal of writing)

Spanish III

Econ (mandatory)

Gov (mandatory)

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I had hillbilly gym class. We had an alcoholic fat guy teacher that would give us a football and some flags, then go sit in his office and get stewed.

 

Naturally, it'd turn into a tackle game. I took PE as a junior in HS, so I was about 6 inches taller than all the freshman, with about 50 pounds on them. Awesome class.

 

We had dodgeball, ran some laps, did some calisthenics. Wasn't grueling or anything, but I'd break a sweat.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Sports drinks are good for people engaging in intense athletic activity. There's a good bit of science behind them.

 

Maybe your point is valid, though, because they're not really all that good for sedentary people. But if you had vigorous PE classes, then it would make sense to have some sports drinks available.