Posted on 09/23/2012 7:12:18 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Children and parents across the country are fed up with the restrictive new school meal regulations implemented by the Department of Agriculture under the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010,” which has long been touted by first lady Michelle Obama.
The standards — which cap meal calories at 650 for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, at 700 calories for middle school students and 850 for high school students — also dictate the number of breads, proteins, vegetables and fruits children are allowed per meal.
A spokeswoman for Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, who earlier this month introduced legislation to roll back the new standards, told The Daily Caller that King’s office has heard more complaints about the issue during the past few weeks than any other.
“This year, we’ll be hungry by 2:00,” one student, Zach Eck, told KAKETV in Kansas. “We would eat our pencils at school if they had nutritional value.”
Iowa mom Robin Wissink told TheDC that she now provides her autistic daughter Molly, a junior in high school, with a bag lunch because her school’s new menu is so unappealing. Students at St. Mark’s in Colwich, Kan. have also been “brown bagging” their meals.
And some student-athletes in Wisconsin are arguing that the calorie caps hit them especially hard, given their intense workouts and scrimmages.
“A lot of us are starting to get hungry even before the practice begins,” Mukwonago High senior Nick Blohm told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Our metabolisms are all sped up.”
The new lunch standards have led to the removal of some old food favorites, including a particularly popular item at one school in upstate New York: chicken nuggets.
“Now they’re kind of forcing all the students to get the vegetables and fruit with their lunch, and they took out chicken nuggets this year, which I’m not too happy about,” Chris Cimino, a senior at Mohonasen High School in upstate New York, told the Associated Press, which gave the rules a “mixed grade.”
Students in the Plum Borough School District in Pennsylvania are protesting the new federal restrictions on Twitter.
“everyone.. if you agree school lunches are expensive and small, RT this. we can fight the school! tweet #BrownBagginIt,” @TornadoBoyTubbs tweeted, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Administrators have scrambled to find creative ways to make the new menus appealing. A school district in Lake County, Fla., for example, is planning to conduct a survey to determine how to make vegetables more appealing to children, who often throw them out.
“[The regulations do] limit the food that you can put on the plate,” Alden Caldwell, the director of food services at a Brookline, Mass. school, told Wicked Local. “In theory, it’s a good idea, but in practice we’re finding that there are issues with it.”
Despite the outrage, some parents believe the ongoing obesity epidemic justifies the tight calorie standards.
“I think it’s smart to be pre-emptive and proactive at getting more nutrition fed into the kids,” Amos Johnson, a parent with students in the Lee Summit, Missouri school system, told the Lee’s Summit Journal. “I see that more as a multi-beneficial supporter for health and academic performance. I think that’s the thing I would look at. You should be healthier, and if you’re nourishing the brain and getting the fuel right, academic outcomes should maintain or improve.”
When the legislation was signed into law in 2010, it received bipartisan support, including a big endorsement from Michelle Obama.
“As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat, and ensure they have a reasonably balanced diet,” the first lady said in a statement at the unveiling of the new standards in January. “And when we’re putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria. When we send our kids to school, we expect that they won’t be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home. We want the food they get at school to be the same kind of food we would serve at our own kitchen tables.”
Obama welcomed students back to school this year with a YouTube video explaining the importance of the new meal plans.
King and Kansas Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp introduced the “No Hungry Kids Act,” which would repeal the USDA rule that resulted in the new standards, last week.
“The goal of the school lunch program is supposed to be feeding children, not filling the trash cans with uneaten food,” Huelskamp said in a statement. “The USDA’s new school lunch guidelines are a perfect example of what is wrong with government: misguided inputs, tremendous waste, and unaccomplished goals. Thanks to the Nutrition Nannies at the USDA, America’s children are going hungry at school.”
And capitalism conquers all.
I'm sorry but Godwin's Law has been imposed upon us all not by elected representatives but by fiat -- or was that by volkswagen or bmw or ...
It was Citroen.
Also Known as the “Lemon Law”.
LOL — now I’ll go sit in the corner.
A Pun A Day Keeps the Blues Away!
Even if the pun is in FRENCH! LOL!
I understand. My son has been classified as “morbidly obese”. He is 6’2” tall, 240 pounds, and has a 32” waist.
Yet, he is “morbidly obese”.
He plays football, and trained with the Olympic team this year in Denver for wrestling. His caloric intake is about 10k if I remember right.
He takes with him to school several protein bars, and some shake mixes to get by.
He is a sophomore, and has the body I wished I always had. Yet, he is classified as “morbidly obese” which means he needed a doctors note to allow him to play sports.
Insane.
He benches around 450, and can do 100 sit ups in about 2 mins. But he’s “morbidly obese”. His six pack you could bounce a ball off of.
These people are idiots.
““plus fires”? Dont know what you coach, but I’m AFRAID of them.
Hello, how do you think kids “burn” through so many calories!
It isn’t only American schools as this link shows. This child’s blog about her school lunches was even raising money for charity until the school censored the blog. Thanks to the internet, the censorship was lifted. Not sure it’s helped the quality of the lunches, though.
http://gothamist.com/2012/06/15/scottish_school_lunch_blog_censored.php
What a concept! Worked for more than a hundred years before the nanny staters arrived.
Oboma administration - forced production and consumption. It’s the same thing they do in communist countries.
Fire the Obomas. Replace them with wiser people.
We use Pack-it lunch boxes. They are frozen overnight and remain cold for most of the school day.
I understand that the free school lunches could be limited, but they won’t sell food to kids that want to buy it.
I rarely bought my lunch at school when I was kid 40 years ago because it was terrible. I would get a snack like french fries or chips, and my mom made sure dinner was ready right when I got home. In high school, I would go pick up food right when school got out. I don’t know how I made it that long.
I was tiny. I was 5’7” and weighed under 100 pounds.
Those are great ideas. I’m not creative, and my daughters hate plain sandwiches.
Maybe we should have another thread that gives ideas for lunches.
I want to buy a cheap food cart and get as close to the local high school as I can. I’ll sell grilled cheese, hot dogs, PBJ, homemade cinnamon rolls, etc. I’ll make a bloody fortune! My homeschool kids can serve the poor starving public school kids. Community service hours? I think so!
My wife gets up earlier at half past five to make all the kids lunches and hse takes great pride in it.
I've come across women, mothers, sorry who actually have the nerve to say they have no time and they don;t even work, they don't make their kids lunch, they are late either dropping off their children or meeting the school bus for dropping off.
I will never forget one supposed childs party, a woman, lets say Nat asked up to come for her childs party and bring my kids.
Her kid was going to be 5.
We drove up and saw the poor boy crying outside by himself.
My children got out and stayed witht he child whilst my wife and I went up to their house which has the garage down stairs and her living place up stairs.
Her, her husband, two other couples were all there sipping wine, twirling their glass in a circle and looking all stuck up.
I asked seeing my kids did not eat what time should I tell my children and yours the time they eat and cake.
This was after of being a hour there and not once did they bother with their son.
One Asian couple were acting so stuck up thus the other couples tried to out do them with conversations like this.
I never let my children eat junk food, no I never either, OMG I let them have a chicken burger once .
Now the party mother tells us all that she wished the school would give more healthy meals to which I then spoke up as we stayed silent all this time and said “why does one need the school, my wife has always made lunch for our children “ etc etc etc
The Asian woman asked my wife what does she give our children and she said turkey, cheese, yogurt, cooked meals as the school as a microwave and sometimes Tuna.”
The Asian woman said Tuna in a tin you mean, what a novel idea, HA HA.” to which they all laughed.
I asked about the kids food and the Asian woman and the boys mother told us that there were strawberries and blueberries.
My kids were stunned, this for a kids party.
The reason I;m saying some of what went down is because these liberals tell each other how smart they are, they tr and act all posh, they try and out do each other but when their actions come into play they show their true colors.
Good for you and what you do , you are a good mother and the kids are lucky.
I am so proud of my wife but that party certainly told us how stupid liberal parents are and trust me that was not even half of what went down.
I'm sorry if there is mistakes I'm on my phone and can hardly press these little buttons with my big fingers.
I’ve been packing tons of lunches for two out my three kids. We pack them the night before and refrigerate them. It looks like I could kick up the nutrition a notch, though, with some grapes or lettuce/tomato on the sandwiches.
I try not to over do it with my youngest because he wants to bolt his chow and run out to the playground. I’m glad we live in a rural area where the kids actually get recess and have dangerous things like monkey bars and swing sets to play on.
My daughter is a competitive swimmer, she swims 5,000-7,000 yards a day, eats around 5000-6000 calories of food a day. School lunches have never sated her appetite, so she packs a lunch. She doesn't have an ounce of fat on her, but she would starve if we didn't send lunch to school with her.
Shoot, when I played high school football I would eat two Wendy's triples w/ cheese, fries and a frosty for lunch. Go to practice and come home and drink 1/2 gallon of milk. Never broke 200 pounds on my 73 inch frame.
You can lead a kid to vegetables but you can’t make him/her eat them.
Like 10 pounds of bear liver in a 5 pound bag. Oprah, check yer six!
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