Posted on 05/11/2011 3:06:56 PM PDT by Palter
Smile, Texas schoolchildren. You’re on calorie camera.
That’s the idea behind a $2 million project being unveiled Wednesday in the lunchroom of a San Antonio elementary school, where high-tech cameras installed in the cafeteria will begin photographing what foods children pile onto their trays — and later capture what they don’t finish eating.
Digital imaging analysis of the snapshots will then calculate how many calories each student scarfed down. Local health officials said the program, funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant, is the first of its kind in a U.S. school, and will be so precise that the technology can identify a half-eaten pear left on a lunch tray.
“This is very sophisticated,” said Dr. Roberto Trevino, director of the San Antonio-based Social & Health Research Center, which will oversee the program.
Parents will be required to give consent for their children to participate, and receive regular reports showing what foods their kids are filling up on at lunch. Trevino said only the trays, and not students, will be photographed.
Here’s how it works: students are assigned lunch trays with a unique bar code. After the children load up their plates down the line — mashed potatoes or green beans? french fries or fruit? — a camera above the cashier takes a picture of each tray.
When lunch is over and the kids return their plates to the kitchen, another camera takes a snapshot of what’s left on the tray. Software then analyzes the before and after photos to calculate calories consumed and, according to Trevino, a report of nutrients in the foods.
Researchers hope parents will change eating habits at home once they see what their kids are choosing in schools.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
So I take mashed potatoes to trade with my buddy for something else. Who will know?
Just another reason I am glad my children do not go to government schools.
What a way to spend $2M.
Say what now?
Good to know they are raking in the dough in San Antonio. Obviously, money is no object.
schools all across the country are crying poverty and yet we get these kind of stinking "studies" that will lead nowhere.....
private/religious/home school people ...your children are worth it....
So schools are broke and they spend money on this Barbra Streisand........
They are creating a generation of paranoid stress eaters....
If it were me and my parents opted in, I would ensure that the barcode is covered or put other people’s leftovers on the tray so that more calories were not eaten than the first photo showed on the tray.
“Local health officials said the program... is the first of its kind in a U.S. school”
First? I certainly hope it’s the last. Why don’t these health officials use their own money and set up this stupid program in their own homes and leave our kids alone? Utter foolishness.
To quote Any Rand: “By what right, by what code, by what standard?”
Yet the San Antonio schools can get 2 million from the feds for this nonsense? Why aren't they asking for money to support the things they claim are necessary?
If I were a student in the school, I'd be organizing daily sabotage efforts to ensure that the "results" were meaningless. Like the previous poster, switch leftovers with other folks so that some trays have none and some have more than they started with. Keep a list, so that the results can vary on a daily basis. Even better, make sure that the skinniest kids are consuming the most calories and the heaviest kids next to none.
Mess with their minds, and see how long it took them to catch on. When the teachers started having to do "tray duty" the school would decide the nonsense needed to stop!
“the program, funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant”
We are paying for this boondoggle.
Does this mean you can’t bring your own lunch to school?
The Food Fascist Feds are out of control!
What I am wondering is why the cafeteria is providing “unhealthy” food from which the kids can choose. Also, are they filming what kids bring in their lunch boxes?
Is there nothing the damned Department of Agriculture doesn’t have it’s bureaucratic fingers in?
“Researchers hope parents will change eating habits at home once they see what their kids are choosing in schools.”
Well, what if parents are absolutely thrilled with their children’s choices — fat-laden hamburgers, fries, pudding, soda, cookies, cake, potato chips, whatever?
What a stupid program.
On the other hand, they just might go down to the school and shoot the cafeteria staff and head dietician.
“Researchers hope parents will change eating habits at home once they see what their kids are choosing in schools.”
Well, what if parents are absolutely thrilled with their children’s choices — fat-laden hamburgers, fries, pudding, soda, cookies, cake, potato chips, whatever?
What a stupid program.
On the other hand, they just might go down to the school and shoot the cafeteria staff and head dietician.
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