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My kids had allergies so milk wasn't a preferred drink from as young as two years old. And after one years old -- if it was milk -- it was 2% per cent -- not whole milk. Nobody needs that fat. As for getting the nutrients from milk...my kids ate enough of the other good stuff that milk was not needed. Yup.
In some areas it will be okay -- those kids will eat cheap crap. But I know the schools my kids went to -- parents made lunch because the kids won't eat the crap at school.
Yep! Years ago I want to say it was Jamie Oliver who went into schools and showed them how to prepare healthy meals and it was cheaper.
My oldest is in middle school and he only had to take 1 semester of PE. He's a very active kid. If he's not playing soccer he's riding his bike or skateboard around.
I remember watching that show with my kids. They were fascinated, and I credit it with being one of the things that got them interested in nutrition instead of just rolling their eyes at mom's nutritional advice. We all agreed that if we had school lunches like the ones Jamie Oliver prepared, the kids would happily eat them and I would happily buy them.
Here the middle schools also have only a trimester of PE. Since recess is optional for middle schoolers (they have the option to sit in the cafeteria if they don't want to go outside), many of them go a good portion of the year with no fresh air/exercise during the school day. Here in the north where it is dark by 4:30 for much of the winter and frigid, that can easily mean that many don't get much exercise out of school either. Add the processed school lunches to the mix, and that is a whole lot of unhealthy behavior.
They weren't getting terrible junk food before. Man did you get chocolate, candy and ice cream for lunch when you were in school?
They get basically the same stuff they have always gotten. I do like that there is more choices and more fresh fruit opposed to canned fruit or other deserts.
What is being proposed is some flexibility for individual school districts so they dont have to stringently stick to specific requirements to maintain funding.
I would categorize the majority of the food offered at my school's cafeterias growing up as "junk food" (pizza, fried food, chicken nuggets, french fries, chips, etc.). And possibly some of it as candy (sweet, highly processed, dessert stuff). That stuff is fine sparingly (and I'll admit, I wanted to eat some of the stuff sometimes, even if I know now how bad it was for me) - but it is not a staple of an everyday diet. Especially for young kids who are forging their tastes that they will hold for the rest of their lives.
I don't think we were ever offered fresh fruit or fresh vegetables (or if we were, it wasn't offered enough for me to remember it). Everything was obviously highly-processed food that was pre-packaged elsewhere, and re-heated in the "kitchen". Again, there was a reason why my parents packed my lunch almost exclusively.
Honestly, the biggest issue I have with school lunches is their reliance on processed/pre-packaged items (that are full of tons of terrible preservatives and are very high in sodium). I'm less worried about overall caloric intake (although, that should certainly be monitored and controlled in a smart way) than I am about kids not getting freshly-cooked food. I realize that this kind of food is very expensive. Which is a terrible side product of our unwisely-subsidized food system (the fact that it is cheaper to get corn syrup than it is fresh fruit/veggies is a travesty, really).
I'm certainly not going to claim that the lunches under Obama were really any better. School lunches have been awful for a long time.
Last edited by HockeyMac18; 05-03-2017 at 11:33 AM..
This is exactly why UHC won't work here. Everyone is fat...because freedom. You can't insure the obese without going bankrupt. For UHC to work, the government would have to strictly enforce food and exercise requirements. I just don't see that happening at this point. You can't tell me I can't have my fried pizza with chili cheese fries. You think those liberal snowflake protests in Berkeley were crazy, wait until you take away freedom fries from the Right.
This has zero to do with kids' health and/or even school lunches and 100% to do with Michelle Obama's work to reduce childhood obesity. If Laura Bush had advocated for healthier school lunches the right would be lauding it as the best thing ever.
That is the entire basis of this ridiculous nonsense spouted by the right that we should be encouraging our children to get fatter and fatter and fatter. Because what they're saying in this thread is, children's health be damned. This is all, and only, about their insane hatred of the former First Lady. Period.
I'm not on the right, but I think you food nazi's need to chill.
- 1% milk is awful.
- Skim is undrinkable.
- 90% of the food going into the trash can is a d*mn waste.
- 90% of the food going into the trash can (& 3/4s of THAT food is paid for by the tax dollars is an abomination).
- "Advocating" for healthier lunches is one thing....wasting federal dollars because a food nazi (or a snowflake nutritionist) says that kids have to drink skim milk (or have to eat 30 other awful items) is stupid.
We were told drink your whole milk, it's good for kids. Adults drank the skim.
Boys especially should be able to chow down thousands of calories, then burn it off. The problem is lack of consistent exercise not junk food or whole milk.
LOL...this country is as fat as ever. The kids are as fat as ever. Young people are getting high blood pressure. Go ahead, eat all the processed food, pizza, and burgers you want and then diet your way into oblivion later. Or maybe don't diet and get health issues. Maybe the parents need to do the right thing and promote healthy eating from the start, ya think?
We were told drink your whole milk, it's good for kids. Adults drank the skim.
Boys especially should be able to chow down thousands of calories, then burn it off. The problem is lack of consistent exercise not junk food or whole milk.
The other half of Michelle Obama's fight against childhood obesity was her Let's Move! campaign, that encouraged kids to get more physical exercise. That, too, was mocked by the right. It seems the right is okay with obesity. I guess that explains what you see wandering the aisles of Walmart these days. Often sitting in motorized carts because they are so fat they no longer are able to walk that far.
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We all agreed that if we had school lunches like the ones Jamie Oliver prepared, the kids would happily eat them and I would happily buy them. 
