Smart card monitoring junk food (school lunch

Children who fill themselves on a diet of chips, burgers and pizzas when it comes to school lunch are being monitored by an innovative system that keeps track of what they eat.

The scheme, which runs at South Bromsgrove High School in Worcestershire, sees pupils issued with a smart card that keeps track of what they consume.

Parents who are concerned about their child's diet can ask for an itemised print out of transactions made on the card listing all food items they have purchased.

"Parents can find out what their children have been eating while at school," said South Bromsgrove's headteacher Phil McTague.

"They can get a history of how much the child has spent in the form of a print out which lists exactly what they have eaten."

The system is designed to help youngsters and their parents think about their eating habits in the wake of alarming statistics suggesting one in ten six-year-olds is obese, with the figure rising to one in six among 15-year-olds.

"It is a disturbing statistic," said Mr McTague, as National School Meals Week drew to a close.

The school meals system at South Bromsgrove involves parents paying a cheque or cash at the start of the week which puts credits on the card allowing their children to pay for items at snack and meal breaks.

Every transaction is stored on a computer and the information can be easily retrieved on request.

The school, however, stops short of banning unhealthy foods such as burgers and chips.

Mr McTague said: "Unless we educate them so they can transfer dietary knowledge, it would be a rather transient victory to only serve some types of food.

"We have to encourage them to take more exercise and encourage them to be more careful about their diet."

The Local Authority Caterers Association - which represents the majority of state and private school caterers - has called for public money to be directed into supplementing healthier school meals. It followed a study which described school food as 'muck off a truck', with less cash invested in it than prison food.

**Obese children are more receptive to food adverts on television than normal weight youngsters, researchers said yesterday.

Psychologists at the University of Liverpool showed food and non-food adverts to children of varying weights.

Forty two children were then asked questions about the adverts. The obese children were able to recall a much larger proportion of the food adverts than the lean children.

This is just horrible!
Carrying your food police with you.

This is the worst government intrusion -- now you can't even eat in peace, without the government watching and keeping track.

They will issue those to adults any minute now.

And if you exceed your government allowed ration, you will not receive healthcare.

As currently being implemented this is just fine. Parents purchase the card with their own money to see that kiddos are eating the right things.

Of course parents who are that concerned are probably not the ones with the obese kids in the first place. The obese kids are obviously parented by those who haven't given enough care yet and aren't likely to care until little Johnny dies from a heart attack and they can sue Twinkie for a million bucks and an idiot-proof warning label.

As far as your comment about healthcare- it has always been my belief that if you want government money you ought to expect government strings. If I the taxpayer am paying your medical then you can bet I am going to be concerned with how you are taking care of your health. Stay away from my pocketbook and pay your own medical and I dont care if your calories come solely from Twinkies and Whiskey- have at it. Maybe if we treated entitlement babies like babies then they would grow up and start paying their own way.

Of course in a place like the UK they are already too far gone and have given those choices away....

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