Do you want to help get junk food out of the schools?

Ha, this is a major hot button issue for me. School lunches are not the reason kids are becoming fatter. If you child eats 3 “squares” a day, times 7 days a week, your looking at 21 meals a week. There are 5 school days a week, 21-5=16 meals the parents provide (or simply shove McDonald’s down their throats) or roughly 75%. Parents continue to, not take responsibility for their lack self-discipline and blame state or government agencies. Also the 250+ lbs. adults (who have been overweight their entire lives) that can’t comprehend why their genetic offspring are also overweight look to point the finger. School lunches are significantly healthier than when I was in school, and I can only imagine the food my parents were eating in the 60’s. Parents want their kid’s lunch to cost $1.25 for freshly cuts vegetables, skinless chef prepared chicken, and squeezed OJ that cost $5.00 (labor + supplies) meanwhile feed 800+ students in less than 45 minutes.

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I think it would be much more productive in terms of health benefits to mandate 20-30 minutes or more of genuine physical activity per day.

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Keep in mind that there are some kids who eat breakfast at school, so for some kids that is 10 meals per week away from home.

We expect the schools to offer our kids healthy options in the cafeteria. I'm not too sure why we really need any vending machines in the schools at all????? What purpose do they really serve? There is a lunch line to go through or they can bring food from home. At my son's school, if a child forgets his money or forgets to bring his lunch, they can get a PB&J sandwich on credit once. They will get fed without a vending machine being on school property.

Granted, I used them when I was in high school. The rule then was that the vending machines had to be turned off during the lunch hour. BIG DEAL! I went and bought my Coke, candy and chips prior to when they would turn the machines off. So did everyone else. I *should* have been eating healthier. I *should not* have been binging on sugar. I *should* have been spending my money on the cafeteria's hot lunch instead.

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Oh yeah - about the physical activity -

My son gets gym class one or two times a week. (It's a rotating schedule with art and music so it varies week to week.)

They get a short recess every day after lunch. If the weather is bad or it's too cold, they stay inside and WATCH TV. I wish they would let them play board games or use the gym or something instead when going outside isn't possible!

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I'm with Nancy and Craig. I ate pizza and fries every day of my high school career (20+ years ago) and it didn't form my lifetime eating habits or make me fat (particularly since at home we pretty much ate all vegetables). However, the fact that I didn't have to take P.E. after 10th grade DID affect my exercise habits. It also didn't help that when I did take P.E. it was always volleyball day. What school children need is to learn how to exercise in a way that is fun, sustainable, and teaches them to compete primarily with themselves.

Check back to your own Blogging Baby post on the lunch ladies in England who are angry with Jamie Oliver for making them prepare fresh food on the same time limit with the same salary.

Also, many individual states (including mine) are working on removing vending machines from schools. Schools are community institutions, and I think decisions like this need to be made and implemented on a community or state level, not on a federal level. Our schools are already too focused on meeting a variety of federal rules which were made without thought of the practical details on how to achieve them.

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I don't have a problem with vending machines, either. In many schools the profits are used to fund the "extras" that tax dollars don't support. Like sports equipment, music programs, arts, etc.

There are plenty of "healthier" options for the vending machines, although many of the things people consider "healthy" (fruit juice, for example) are not much different in calories or nutrients than the "unhealthy" alternatives (soda).

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Jenny mentioned how PE classes kind of "drop off" after a certain point in school. For me, PE was required for freshmen in my high school and that was it. It wasn't even offered to higher grades. I really think that continuing PE should be another option for high school students who would prefer that to study hall/band/choir/etc.

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This is a hot-button issue for me and one of my biggest pet peeves. Why do people always go running to Congress to solve these problems? It's not a federal issue. Where does the Constitution say that Congress is supposed to regulate what we feed our children? Take a look at the 10th Amendment once in a while before you ask the Nanny State to solve solve the problem of why your children are so fat!

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