Public School Bans Students From Bringing Lunches from Home

Miscellaneous General
1

forces them to eat cafeteria food. Believe me, I can tell you first hand, government school food is horrible for your health.

http://www.naturalnews.com/032047_public_schools_cafeteria_food.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/…

Individual responsibility and personal freedom are becoming a thing of the past in the nation’s public schools, as strict control over what students can and cannot eat – or bring to school to eat – escalates to near-dictatorial levels. The Chicago Tribune reports that for the past six years, Little Village Academy on Chicago’s West Side has prohibited students from bringing their own lunches from home, a policy that many say subverts parental authority and violates students’ rights.

Principal Elsa Carmona first enacted the food policy after observing some of her students drinking sodas and eating chips for lunch, instead of eating a well-balanced meal. By both mandating that students eat lunch at school and improving the quality of food served, she hoped to improve the health of her students.

While they appear to be good intentioned, Carmona’s efforts have actually angered many students who say they would prefer to bring their own lunches from home. And ironically, the policy has had the opposite effect, in some cases, of actually causing students not to eat anything at all, which is even worse for their health.

Students that have food allergies or other medical conditions that require them to eat something other than what is served in the cafeteria are able to be exempted from the policy. Most students, however, still end up being forced to eat whatever is served. And many students that do not have medical conditions, but that would prefer a meal from home, are stuck without a choice in the matter.

“This is such a fundamental infringement on parental responsibility,” said J. Justin Wilson, a senior researcher at the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) in Washington, to the Chicago Tribune. “Would the school balk if the parent wanted to prepare a healthier meal? This is the perfect illustration of how the government’s one-size-fits-all mandate on nutrition fails time and time again.”

Last year, a non-profit group known as “Mission: Readiness” came on the record accusing school cafeterias of being a threat to national security because they are allegedly making children “too fat to fight” in the military. The group has called for strict federal food legislation to control what children can and cannot eat (http://www.naturalnews.com/029226_s…). And late last year, the state of Pennsylvania’s board of education actually proposed banning all sweets from school functions, including birthday parties (http://www.naturalnews.com/030365_j…).

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032047_public_schools_cafeteria_food.html#ixzz1JJwBRjbq

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+1

3

Most people would consider it child abuse if you taught a child that poison was okay to eat. The way some people feed their children borders on toxic.

I wish it were more socially acceptable to do something about it. I sometimes imagine myself confronting parents with shopping carts full of sugary snacks and sodas. “You’re fat. Your kid is fat. You’re both going to get diabetes and heart disease and die at age 50. This is child abuse. You’re a terrible parent and you need to change right now”.

But it isn’t socially acceptable. There’s an implicit right to abuse your children so long as it isn’t violent.

The school is obviously wrong, but its not wrong to implicitly tell parents that they’re abusing their children.

4

On another forum a poster I ran into this exchange:

to that.

5

Kind of agree with Sieben here; doesn’t look like the parents were exercising much individual responsibility to begin with.

At the same time you know things are bad when a school board considers a french fry to be a vegetable.

6

There are at least 3 to 4 topics there that you know absolutely nothing about (weight gain, children, parenting, education, etc…). But go ahead, that’s no reason to not have such a strong negative opinion towards parents (and kids) who have fat kids that eat sugary snacks and sodas.

7

Such an useless policy to enact.

The kids will just go home and gorge themselves on junk food. Then what? Are we going to start controlling what food the parents will be allowed to feed their children at home?

8

Bardock: “Are we going to start controlling what food the parents will be allowed to feed their children at home?”

Yes.

9

My school controlled what I did at home.

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It isn’t a hard fix. Just keep packing lunches for your kids. Throw it in their bag. When lunch comes around, they eat it, get caught, get in trouble, but get praised when they come home. Repeat until the school gives up. What will they do? Give kids detention all day, every day? Arrest the parents for making a bologna sandwich? Okay, they might do that last one…but the rebellion will be instilled in the child. Hell, I’d pack lunches for OTHER people’s kids. “Hand out some of these Pop-tarts, Junior!”

I’d also bake cookies shaped like middle fingers.

11

That is what happened to me. They also had bars installed on the window in the detention room.

12

Same here. Seems I have a real problem with authority. By high school I was informing them of this before each semester, just to play fair.

Good thing, too. I never would have learned anything if I had to sit in a classroom. And it was self-exacerbating, too. When my teachers realized I knew more than they did, I got detention a lot more often. Win-win.

I met a man who shared my views on public education. He said he was going to start a free enterprise to crush that institution and make it obsolete. I am hoping he succeeds.

13

Weight gain: Is not intrinsically bad but is a proxy for diabetes and heart disease.

Children: Basically eat whatever their parents give them, esp if it tastes good

Parenting: You shouldn’t feed your children poison

Education: I already said the school was wrong because its a prison, not because it identifies child abuse and intervenes.

14

“I wish it were more socially acceptable to do something about it. I sometimes imagine myself confronting parents with shopping carts full of sugary snacks and sodas. “You’re fat. Your kid is fat. You’re both going to get diabetes and heart disease and die at age 50. This is child abuse. You’re a terrible parent and you need to change right now”.”

Instead of telling them what they are doing wrong, tell them the good things they could do. Suggest actual food and tell them why they are good.

I went to the grocery store yesterday, and I kind of wished I had a t-shirt that said, all the food is located in the produce section.

15

“It isn’t a hard fix. Just keep packing lunches for your kids. Throw it in their bag. When lunch comes around, they eat it, get caught, get in trouble, but get praised when they come home.”

Exactly. Keep doing positive things. Show the way. My kids are young. And they already know, I eat healthy and I tell them why its important. And I talk to them about why fruits and vegetables and seaweed and raw honey and the green drinks I make are healthy. I don’t expect them to eat all the stuff I do. But I tell them why I do it, how it gives me energy, it keeps me healthier and sick less. How it keeps my nose less stuffy at night.

I try to get them to make smoothies with me or fresh juice. I’m growing veegtables in our backyard. I want to grow more. If they put in the time to grow them and water them and pick them, they are much more likely to eat them.

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Just reinforces the fact that public schools are not into education, they are into conformity of the individual to the state.

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(?..?..??? WTF? No, seriously…what you wrote below…in response to me…what the HELL do you mean “exactly”? YOUR RESPONSE IS TO AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ISSUE. I mean, what the hell happened here? Were you hearing some other conversation in your head while replying to that? Are you so desperate to be a martyr of healthy eating that any suggestion of teaching something to a child must be related to this? If I bring up shoe sales in the 1940s, are you going to say “Exactly. You know, if people had sold healthier things in the 40s, we wouldn’t have as many health problems.”? I can’t even tell if your analogy is between the positive reinforcement of teaching kids to ignore authority and eating healthy, or if you genuinely thought I was talking about packing kids healthy lunches. I hope to god it is the former, because otherwise that just scares the hell out of me.)

“It isn’t a hard fix. Just keep packing lunches for your kids. Throw it in their bag. When lunch comes around, they eat it, get caught, get in trouble, but get praised when they come home.”

Exactly. Keep doing positive things. Show the way. My kids are young. And they already know, I eat healthy and I tell them why its important. And I talk to them about why fruits and vegetables and seaweed and raw honey and the green drinks I make are healthy. I don’t expect them to eat all the stuff I do. But I tell them why I do it, how it gives me energy, it keeps me healthier and sick less. How it keeps my nose less stuffy at night.

I try to get them to make smoothies with me or fresh juice. I’m growing veegtables in our backyard. I want to grow more. If they put in the time to grow them and water them and pick them, they are much more likely to eat them.

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“Are you so desperate to be a martyr of healthy eating”

lol. I’m hoping healthy eating will help me live a longer life, not shorten it.

: )

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Okay, you made me laugh. You can’t possibly be too crazy. I take it back. Fully rescinded!

20

“Okay, you made me laugh. You can’t possibly be too crazy. I take it back. Fully rescinded!”

I’m definetly into healthy eating, but unfortunately I still eat junk food.

One of the first times I tried my new green drink (vitamineral green…which is like considered one of the best, to even raw foodists), I washed it down with a thumb print cookie (white flour and sugar). stupid, I know. but my spouse buys that stuff, and I’ll eat it occasionally.

all you can do is keep trying. you’ll fall off the wagon, but you can’t let that discourage you.