I definately agree with the healthy lunches and not offering soda in school. I have a problem with schools not letting kids bring in cupcakes to celebrate a birthday and not allowing cookies for a holiday party. The other problem I have is to when a teacher ridicules a child because they may have brought chips for a snack one day. Send a note home to the parent, but don't take it away and embarrass a kid at school.

I agree a healthy lunch is important, especially to kids that don't get good food at home. I think it is also important to teach them what is healthy, but I also think schools have to consider how much time the kids are sitting in school and the amount of the homework that gets sent home - it leaves little time for activity at night.

Agree- this is nothing new, the government has been telling school how to feed their kids ever since the national school lunch program was founded.

They are doing nothing new, they are just making a few changes , thats all. And they DO tend to tell us alot of things of how to do and not do, in other areas as well.

I can think of speed limits, seat belts for kids, child molester laws, child abandmnet/endangerment laws, flouride in drinking water, flouride in toothpast, ie the govt does lots of things, TELLING us citizens what we may do/not do to our kids, with good intentions behind all the laws.

I guess if someone feels strongly about government meddling in school affairs/lunch offerings, they offer home schooling as an option. One can also send child in with a brown bag with the lunch of parents choosing.

NOte the goverment is NOT saying what you may or may not put in your childs lunch box. Big Nuance there.

Most schools (even in the most affluent areas of CA) run about 50% reduced or free lunches. (Dont know what the national average is, but you can find the data on the net.)

You are right, crewchief, those kids do NOT get the same choices at home that we cyberspace linked parents, can offer our kids.

I think the government is looking at the BIG picture,,,,,feed everyone in schools well, helps kids LEARN better (proven), maybe it even helps the teachers TEACH better (wow, how about running THAT study??) and also gives the less prividleged at least one square meal a day.

How anyone can bash the government for getting rid of sodas and candy in public schools, is hard to fathom. But this is AMerica, and I think you posted a quote that said it would be a sad world indeed if everyone were sane. That about sums it up, and thats what makes America great, the right to free speech.


If man made it, don’t eat it. – Jack LaLane

Wow, there sure are a lot of emotions swirling around this issue. It's almost like the seat belt laws - mostly about grown ups not liking it when someone else tells them what to do.

I'm guessing that if most of us are lucky enough to be in here - free time, computer access, etc. - then we're relatively financially stable. Sadly, many of America's schoolchildren come from families that are not so stable. Nutrition isn't always about intelligence, choices or common sense. Healthy eating is expensive!

Imagine the latch-key kid who's parents both work crazy hours just to make ends meet. Said child probably makes his own breakfast, goes off to school, gets his one healthy meal at lunchtime, comes home to an empty house, fends for himself for a few hours and then maybe gets a quick dinner brought home in a fast food bag or thrown together with quick, cheap pre-packaged foods. That makes the one chicken, green beans, applesauce, roll and milk he gets via the new healthy lunch program look a lot more important, doesn't it?

Agree wrote : "go find the fat people and preach to them...leave us with common sense alone! "

What do you suggest, putting all overweight kids into segregated schools and make only thier lunches healthier? I guess you would call their parent group the PTObese?

Healthy foods dont hurt skinny kids. It is posisble to be the right weight but unhealthy, too. The runner Jim Fix died an early death of a heart attack, he was thin, fit, but probably not healthy. Good foods in schools is not a bad thing, regardless of your wieht. The govt is not talking tofu and beansprouts and vegan milk, they are talking less sodas, candies and the like. Cant hurt anyone, seems to me. Give em candy for snack when they get home if you think they need their daily dose of junk.

Its not that poeple lack SENSE that makes them obese, its that they lack education in nutrition/heatlh.
Most people dont think that fast food is unhealthy, so they eat it.
Many people think smoking cigarettes is OK and that secondary smoke doesnt kill, so they smoke in their own home/car even if they have kids. Etc etc. WHy should anyone take offense to kids geting healtier fare in the cafeteria funded by their own tax dollars, is beyond comprehension. Iguess you could protest and tell teh govt 'We WANT our kids to eat junk food' this is America. You have the right to your opinion but kids dont know how to make proper food choices so we adults are in their lives to serve them only good choices until theyre old enough to decide, "yes, i would rather eat junk."