Posted on 10/23/2012 10:28:39 AM PDT by Kassandra
School lunches are now the hot topic as lunch trays are a bit lighter and calories are being limited. The so-called “nanny-state” has spread across America and into our schools as First Lady Michelle Obama, despite not being a nutritionist, has decided she knows what's best for our children’s diets.
This is part of her “Let’s Move” campaign, and it resulted in the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” which was passed into law by the lame duck, Democrat-controlled Congress in December 2010.[1] Now the frustrations that played out in the Occupy movement have moved into the hallways of our schools as our youth protest the reduced lunches that are making them go hungry.[2] [3]
New Rules
“Under the new regulations, cafeterias are required to serve twice as many fruits and vegetables while limiting proteins and carbohydrates. For an average high school student, that means two baked fish nuggets, a cup of vegetables, half a cup of mashed potatoes, one whole grain roll and 8 ounces of fat free milk is the fuel that served to get them through their last four hours of classes.”[4]
In one reported school district, the cafeteria staff are instructed to count out how many tater tots each student gets so they are in compliance with these new regulations.[5] Instead of making sure our children are fed, we are making sure we calorie-restrict them regardless of their weight, height, age and caloric needs. This is crazy!
From Riots in the Street to Riots in the Hallways
Students at Parsippany Hills High School held a strategy session in September to discuss a potential lunch strike over what they have called inadequately sized meals. These students were so outraged they planned a cafeteria boycott that will cost the school money. One noted comment echoes a perennial concern: these students want to know why they are paying the price for other people’s problems. “If somebody’s obese why should someone like me who’s not obese have to suffer, and eat a small meal when I’d rather have a bigger meal?”[6]
As a health and wellness business owner, I certainly understand the importance of ensuring our children and students receive nutritious meals at school. According to the Centers for Disease Control, childhood obesity has tripled in the last thirty years.[7] The answer to this issue is that we must start in the home by teaching our children the importance of an active lifestyle and healthy eating. Parents and communities, not the government, should find common ground in empowering these children with the tools needed for a healthy lifestyle.
Where’s the Beef? Not on Students’ Plates!
The result of this new school lunch law is that we end up with hungry kids. The new high school lunch limit of 750 to 850 calories is simply not enough for growing kids.[8] Like adults, kids vary in their size, activity level and metabolism rate. School athletes are finding that functioning in their athletic activities is becoming a challenge. I was an athlete in high school, and I remember walking that lunch line twice. I paid extra but my calorie needs were met. The school made their money, and I was nourished to play a 2.5-hour competitive volleyball game after school.
Let’s Look at the Collateral Damage of this Bureaucratic Decision
Students and teachers are both suffering under this new rule. Many reports claim children are complaining they are still hungry after lunch, leaving teachers with the challenge of teaching hungry students.[9]
Growing government regulation also makes it more expensive for all parties. This costs both the school more (even for less food) and the families more - the cost of school lunches has risen by $0.20-$0.25 per plate.[10] No one is receiving a good value in the long run. To make matters worse, new government-required paperwork consumes so much of the employees’ time that it is driving up labor costs.[11]
Even more interesting, students have reportedly begun a black market bringing food to school and selling it to other students.[12] Apparently even students have a better understanding of job creation and free trade than Washington bureaucrats!
Kids being food-restricted at school will lead to them finding the fastest food items after school to replenish themselves. If good nutrition choices do not start in the home, then children will follow their stomachs and find the quickest “pick me up” after school. Whether they stop for fast food or overeat on “baked” potato chips, we are setting them up for unbalanced eating habits. I can see government turning around and saying, “It’s ok, when you go to McDonalds just use thinner straws for your milkshakes.”
Beyond the classroom, the rapid expansion of government regulation is taking away freedoms from consumers like you and I. Do not forget New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has banned large-sized sugary drinks and all but eliminated the use of trans fats in restaurant food.[13]
The Final Rule
Americans should be outraged. The school lunch mandate and the progression of many other red tape decisions by the Obama administration are only a small taste of what’s in store for America if we allow his agenda to continue into a second term. Quite simply, it's none of the government's business. Parents, not politicians and bureaucrats, should decide what their children eat. Right now it’s “too much turkey” in your children’s lunch. What will it be tomorrow? Just imagine…
Share this article with your friends and make sure you get out to vote. We have a HUGE tide to turn, and restricted lunches are only one side effect of who we currently have in power. What we are seeing is surely not leadership, it is slow control, and even with “the best of intentions” all roads lead to… well, you know the rest of the story.
(By Kassandra Kuehl of American Citizens for Economic Freedom. ACEF (www.truecapitalism.org)
Resources
[1] Let’s Move Campaign http://www.letsmove.gov/first-lady-column-healthy-hunger-free-kids-act
[2] ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/hungry-kids-grumble-healthy-school-lunches/story?id=17324285#.UIW10o5X_dn
[3] You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IB7NDUSBOo
[4] ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/hungry-kids-grumble-healthy-school-lunches/story?id=17324285#.UIW10o5X_dn
[5] The Hill http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/258745-school-lunches-should-be-filled-with-nutrition-not-red-tape
[6] CBS New York http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/09/27/n-j-high-school-students-planning-cafeteria-boycott-to-protest-obama-guidelines/
[7] Centers for Disease Control http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm
[8] ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/hungry-kids-grumble-healthy-school-lunches/story?id=17324285#.UIW10o5X_dn
[9] Ibid
[10] Zero Hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-26/barely-literate-high-school-students-have-better-understanding-jobs-creation-
[11] Education Action Group News http://eagnews.org/appalled-school-cafeteria-employee-seconds-banned-extra-food-thrown-away/
[12] Zero Hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-26/barely-literate-high-school-students-have-better-understanding-jobs-creation-
[13] CNN Health http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/13/health/new-york-soda-ban/index.html
Romney ought to promise that Mooshell’s “Stay Hungry” lunch plan will be repealed the second day he is in office. (He has a lot to do on the first day, repealing ObamaCare and firing Helicopter Ben Bernanke.)
Families and schools across the fruited plain will be very grateful.
These lunches are awful.
My granddaughter wont eat them, just gets some fruit and yogurt (which is not bad) but she so hungry when she gets home.
My grandsons, buy two lunches because one isn’t enough.
No, in their grammar school district they are not allowed to bring lunches from home, and they are still hungry when they get home.
“LETS MOVE” B.O. & Moosechelle out of the White House on Nov. 6.
I would feel much more comfortable with Romney in office if he would give assurances that these Obama Executive Orders will be expunged:
* Executive Order 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
* Executive Order 11001 allows the government to take over all health education and welfare functions.
* Executive Order 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
* Executive Order 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
* Executive Order 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate and establish new locations for populations.
* Executive Order 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways, and public storage facilities.
* Executive Order 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issues over a fifteen-year period.
* Executive Order 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
* Executive Order 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute Industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
* Executive Order 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit, and the flow of money in U.S. financial institutions in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when the president declares a state of emergency, Congress cannot review the action for six months.
And school lunches used to be so delicious. Right.
The kids are getting fatter because their parents are getting fatter and lazier. Fast food rules America’s morons.
The students should all bring their lunches for one whole week and loudly proclaim they are doing it in protest of government interference in their lunches. Something like, “Women tell the government to stay away from their uterus, we say stay away from our stomachs!”
I always bought lunch when they had tuna melts.
I understand the “fat” thing, kids have shorter recesses, no daily PE, lunch periods are shorter. Even when they get to go outside they can’t run, or chase and some schools are pulling out all the playground equipment.
My daughter would make lunches but their school district prohibits home lunches.
I think fast food is better than school lunches these days.
I get offering a variety of foods, most kids like fruit but it is the mandatory junk that is weird....
why would anyone think two chicken nuggets works as a protein.
No lunches, but last year when I was visiting, I couldn’t even make cupcakes for my youngest birthday party at school.
No home made products. I could bring cupcakes from the store in a sealed box.
I’ll be there for Halloween, my daughter said they kids can only wear their customs (no masks, nothing scary, no hats..) one hour before school ends, no parades, no chocolate, no nut candies.....
Last year when they had their DARE program and I was there, I was so irritated by all those stupid rules, I bought Bob Marley T-shirts for the kids to wear during the assembly.
Ok, I’ll stop ranting now. ;-) Just ignore me.
That is a good idea, I could probably get my daughter to go along with that. (She, let me buy Bob Marley T-shirts for the kids during DARE week)
And the kids can’t stand the school lunch so they would love it.
I’ll be there next week, I might just do that. Thanks for the suggestion.
“If somebody’s obese why should someone like me who’s not obese have to suffer, and eat a small meal when I’d rather have a bigger meal?”
Because you must be MADE equal. Equally hungry. Otherwise, life itself is not fair.
My girlfriend is a 3rd grade teacher, and her class’s lunch is sometime AFTER 1:00 P.M.
She has taken apples from our tree to the school to feed the kids a healthy snack so they can stay intellectually engaged before they are even able to get to lunch.
I’ll have to ask her what happens on apple-free days.
The lunch fiasco is the perfect metaphor to represent obamacare.
What’s being handed out is lousy. It’s based on the images of all students as being the exact same in caloric need, growth patterns, physical activities, and hoped for outcome. Consequently, everyone is equally miserable. Problems are wholly unanticipated, such as the need for snacks. Solutions are, therefore, a patchwork, and they’re making it up as they go along. The ideals sound good, but when the treatment is given, people recognize it as crap. The money will soon run out. Home meals are being stolen by force from the kids by government agents.
Add your own similarities.
These are the guys who will start handing out your medical care.
Good for her.
She must be one of the good ones.
1pm, they are kids, they need a bite to eat every two hours or so.
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