Attack of the snack assignments

by Angie Felton (Subscribe to Angie Felton's posts) Sep 25th 2007 1:02PM

Categories: Eating & Nutrition, Media, Education

When I was in kindergarten, snack time was a graham cracker and little carton of milk. Class birthdays were joyous celebrations because the birthday kid brought in cupcakes or faced shunning on the playground. (Also, we walked to school in our bare feet. In snow past our little ears! Uphill! Both ways!) After kindergarten, snack time was but faint memory, but the birthday cupcakes remained for a couple more years.

How times have changed!

On the first day of kindergarten (which is now an all-day, every day affair in our area) a snack chart was sent home. Parents are asked to proved TWO different snacks for 28 kids on their assigned day, one for morning and one for afternoon.
Earlier in the week I received a note about my snack requirement for the junior high Cross Country team. I'm to provide 55 individual bags of potato chips for after the next meet. This will be in addition to the sandwiches, granola bars, a fruit, and beverage other parents will be bringing. (There's a special notation that these are just snacks and the team bus will be stopping at McDonald's on the way back, so send money!)
There's even a snack chart for providing beverages for the HIGH SCHOOL Cross Country team for after their meets.

I'm not sure when or why snacking became such a socialist activity, but buying cases of granola bars (nut-free!) and Gatorade is getting a little annoying and expensive. Are you experiencing assigned snack burnout as well?

Comments (13)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

ninainindia 9-25-2007 @ 1:07PM

This is unbelievable, what ever happened to just providing a snack and a drink for your own child?

caitlin 9-25-2007 @ 1:13PM

That's odd. I remember local businesses would donate ice and Gatorade mix for our athletic events. I don't think anyone got snacks unless except for the year I was on the tennis team with the boy whose mom opened up a bakery. She always brought in the sweets that would expire at the end of the day, but there were only 10 of us.

I guess I'm a little confused as to why their snacks are basically a sack lunch (sandwich, chips, fruit, and drink) and they're going to McDonald's afterwards. The only time we went out to eat for our away matches was for regionals, state championship, and tournaments, when it wasn't practical to bring a sack lunch.

Marcia 9-25-2007 @ 1:16PM

My school district has a 'take care of your own' policy. You send your own kid with the snacks he/she will need for whatever reason. I think that's disgraceful the district does that to parents. I would move.

Courtney 9-25-2007 @ 1:40PM

And they are taking recess away on top of that. You wonder why kids are overweight and obese. Hmmm...let me ponder that!

Jamie 9-25-2007 @ 1:52PM

Its incredible what they expect parents to do. By doing this, it seems like we're encouraging kids to snack on unhealthy snacks. Why Gatorade? Why bags of chips? Shouldn't we be encouraging kids to eat apples for snacks?

Have you checked out Education.com? They have great tips for parents on getting your kids to eat healthy as well as some fun (and tasty) healthy snack alternatives....

Amanda 9-25-2007 @ 1:53PM

geeze! that would hack me off. I guess once a month wouldn't be so bad but a whole sack lunch AND McDonald's?!?!!? I agree with Courtney.

Nicola 9-25-2007 @ 2:07PM

We provide food for an entire week, twice during each semester. So, two weeks in the fall, two weeks in the spring, two weeks in the summer. His school sends home a huge basket and a list of what you are to provide. There is very little lee way, but at least that keeps things simple. It is a massive amount of food though. It costs me approximately $50 on each of my weeks for the required whole foods that they use in the classroom. And I'm sure that its only the teachers who eat it anyway! :-P

Lia 9-25-2007 @ 2:08PM

Stopping at McDonald's should not be ok, imo, and neither should gatorade and chips for snack. I just provided snack for my preschooler's class and I was happy to have guidelines/ideas that were all healthy. It makes me happy that they are committed to healthy snacks. It was rather expensive in the end, however, and I can only imagine how much more expensive it will be when there's 30 kids to provide snack for.

Eva 9-25-2007 @ 3:40PM

Unhealthy food, and what a lot of it! Wish you could do it individually.

Ann Adams 9-25-2007 @ 4:49PM

We did it in Kindergarten and possibly 1st grade.

I had one day a month (voluntary signup) to bring whatever I thought appropriate for the kids. They discouraged sweets except on birthday days. I usually found some kind of low sodium, low sugar crackers and the kids were happy.

It wasn't a problem for me; however, to be "assigned" foods would have been. That does sound like a lot of junk food for one day.

LS 9-25-2007 @ 5:28PM

Little Man's preschool follows the Health and Human Services guideline for snacks, which, in general, is ok. I have a problem with the "nothing homemade" requirement when they have on the list that "muffins of any kind" are allowed. (cookies and any kind of cakes are verboten as well)

In my experience, "muffins" are generally the size of Arnold Schwarzenneger's fist, and have things like high-fructose corn syrup and chocolate chips in them. But those are ok, and the nut-free banana bread I make in my own kitchen is "bad".

The rules are arbitrary and ridiculous. Once he gets into higher grades, you can bet that I'm going to be making a fuss if I get notes like you folks have, requiring the parents to provide full meals in addition to money for fast food.

What happened to good old common sense?

pbhj 9-25-2007 @ 6:25PM

Cross country I presume means running ... way to balance the diet there with salt slathered deep fried potato; high fructose corn syrup drink (Gatorade, shown to be about the worst thing for your teeth you can drink, http://www.webmd.com/news/20060309/gatorade-tough-on-teeth and having HFCS means it's a just as bad for the rest of your body (!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup#Health_effects); followed by food dripping with fat.

That's not to mention the colourings and preservatives ... for example gatorade has Allura Red (banned in many EU countries, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_40) and Sunset Yellow (aka "Yellow 6") which has recently been under investigation by the UK Food Standards Agency as one of the main colourants associated with hyperactivity disorders (banned in Norway according to Wikipedia).

Somebody needs lessons in healthy eating.