I'm really hoping local news got this one wrong.
In a rare bout of usefulness, local news actually brought something to my attention that I was interested to hear. In the current debate in Congress regarding a national law limiting the degree to which American public schools can offer unhealthful choices to children, on the table is the idea that only diet sodas will be permitted--not regular sodas. This raised an eyebrow of mine, because the health risks associated with diet soda have long been believed by the scientific and medical communities to outweigh the gains of reduced calorie and sugar intake.
Diet sodas contain aspartame, a chemical about which we know little, but what we do know is almost all bad. Aside from being a calorie free sweetener, there's evidence to suggest it does everything from cause cancer, contribute to memory degradation, stunt development, and--ironically for the dieters--increase appetite. This is on top of a myriad of lesser health effects that we don't want plaguing our children as well (such as headaches and irritability).
I'm going to do a little more research, and if I'm still not satisfied, write my congressman and ask that he bring this issue to the attention of the debaters. I'd ask my reader(s) to mobilize and do the same if they care to.
That said, let me shift gears for a moment and praise the good parts of the bill--mainly the spirit of it.
Mandating good nutrition in our public schools is a great idea. It instills good habits early, and promises to be a national blessing. It will help fight our nation's obesity epidemic (as named by a surgeon general). It will save money on national healthcare expenditures in the long run. It will reduce the rates of everything from diabetes to heart conditions. And if done right, it can educate the next generation, who will in turn do an even better job raising their children.
It's important to note here that the ban would be on school-provided junk food. Parents still have the final say, and can send little Sally to school with a pound of gummy bears for lunch (I ate that for lunch once, by the way, and had a tummy ache later). But the schools couldn't aid and abet minors damaging their bodies through poor nutrition.
There's also a strong legal argument against the naysayers, the ones who say that this would be an infringement upon individual rights. And it comes in two parts:
1) These children are minors
2) When they are in public school, the schools have a fiduciary duty to take care of them
A fiduciary duty is the highest legislated ethical standard you can find in every day life. It essentially means the schools have a responsibility to give their students the same level and quality of care that a parent would. Essentially it's the legal equivalent of "treat these kids as you'd want to be treated were you in their position." Now that doesn't mean schools should be instilling religious values or disciplining children for falling asleep during grandma's 90th birthday party. But it DOES mean that they have a LEGAL obligation to not harm the kids and take every reasonable precaution to prevent harm from befalling the kids under their care. And with all the evidence regarding the effects of junk food, schools not only have every right to make sure that they're not providing the kids soda, chips and candy to gorge on, but some could argue they have the legal obligation as well. And this would be congress recognizing that, and making it nation-wide.
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3 comments:
While I agree that school lunches should be more nutritious than pizza with a side of deep fried tater tots, I am hesitant to pull out my pom poms for this legislation. It is the school's responsibility to provide good lunches, but candy, chips and soda are not part of the lunch. They are ways that many schools make up for insufficient government funding. (Marketing to children is a completely different matter, but let's not start on this tonight. I have a final presentation in an hour).
Let's think this through. Most schools have some sort of free/prepaid lunch program. At my school, parents sent in money on Monday (or were determined eligible for free lunch) and the kids were issued a little ticket every day of that week before heading to the cafeteria. The little pink ticket could only be redeemed in the cafeteria for a lunch. It would usually be some pizza or a piece of unidentifiable meat, some sort of vegetable and/or fruit, and a milk. The meal schedule was posted way in advance so parents could plan around allergies and picky eaters. I agree that these meals need improvement, but is it really the school's responsibility to remove all other junk food?
Let's be realistic. Unless third graders are stealing money from their parents, they have no source of income. If they are stealing money, then you have a completely different problem than obesity. Anyway, if a parent gives their child money in the morning for them to buy lunch or a milk, but the kid buys cookies or chips, this is not the school's fault. There are plenty of healthy kids who can and should enjoy Cheetos at lunch once a week when their parents give them the fifty cents for it. It's an easy way for watchful parents to let their kids enjoy junk without bringing it into the home.
Unless a kid is in the free lunch program, it's really up to parents to monitor their children's eating habits. How long does it take to make a turkey sandwich and throw it in the paper bag with an apple and 35 cents to get a milk (that's how much it cost while I was in school). If the kid saves their rations of change and buys a soda at the end of the week, then they learned a lesson about savings and they need more work on being obedient.
This is all so frustrating because we are now looking to schools to reverse a lot of bad parenting. Having spent half a semester in an elementary school lunch room, I am appalled at the lack of effort parents put in. Wild, misbehaved children learn that at home, not at school. Yes, it is exacerbated at school, but not learned there. Same goes for eating habits.
I think part of the problem is that schools are moving toward massive K-8 or K-12 structures, where resources like the cafeteria are shared. I didn't have the same kinds of junk food in elementary school as you see now. We had a snack shack, but it sold pretzels and chips in those tiny 25 cent bags. No candy, no soda. Candy only became available in middle school and our drink choices expanded to include strawberry Nesquick and some other juices. Now, both of those schools have been bulldozed and combined into a K-8. Since 8th graders eat with 3rd graders in the same room, all of the junk food is offered to everyone. Not a good system, in my opinion. Third graders don't need the option to buy a Choco-taco.
All this said, I'm not sending my kids to school anyway. After my foofy COMM education, I know too much about child development and all the possible ways sending your kids to school is counterproductive.
Queen Frostine, your argument is dependent on the hugely erroneous assumption that most schools work pretty much like yours did and that most families work pretty much like yours did.
Many many schools offer very unhealthful options as part of everyday school lunches, including chips and soda--especially at the middle school/junior high and high school levels. Vending machines are not the only source of these detrimental dietary options. Many school cafeterias don't work like yours, and feature many a la carte options kids can by with lunch money their parents give them every day. Many plans involving tickets such as your own, or some other credit/debit system, provide very unhealthful choices.
And many 3rd graders manage to get their hands on money without stealing. Some get allowances. Many parents make sure kids have some money on them in case of an emergency--covering everything from needing to use a pay phone to needing to call a taxi to take them home if they get stranded somewhere or something happens. Some get money as gifts from non-parental sources for birthdays and major holidays. And so on and so forth.
If a parent wants to send kids to school with a little bag full of cheesy greasy morsels, that's fine. This intent of the bill isn't to tell parents how to parent, but to make sure that the schools, which have a fiduciary responsibility to the kids, aren't providing dietary options which are ultimately harmful.
Plus, to address your child development argument, plenty of studies has shown that proper nutrition is not only good for the long term health of the children, but increases their focus in class, reduces behavioral issues, and raises test scores.
Your COMM major may have taught you about child development, but one thing which that watered down self-esteem raising "Counting for Dummies" version of a statistics class they made you take should have taught you is that anecdotal evidence--especially from a clearly non-representative example--is virtually meaningless and should be given little to no weight.
Just imagine if the politicians decided to set national public school policy based on their own elementary school experiences; we'd have a set of policies that would have been perfect for Andover and Exeter 30 years ago.
I don't know about a fiduciary duty...but they do have a responsibility of in loco parentis, to which you seemed to be referring.
~Chase
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