New Haven Independent

Posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS | May 27, 2008 2:31 PM

They can force all the beans and lettuce down the kids throats all they want, but it will never work until the parents serve healthier food at home. As long as breakfast and dinner consists of junk food, then the schools are just swimming against the tide. Everyone knows it's all about home cookin'.

And what about the kids who won't eat from the healthy menu? There are lots of kids who take their own barbecued potato chips and orange soda to school. You can't force them to eat this healthy crap, can you? And in the end if only SOME kids get healthy, then is that fair to those who didn't? Do we really want to create two student bodies - a fat one and a healthy one? Aren't we in danger of creating a "health gap" by doing this?

And aren't we as a society maybe just a bit too focused on the importance of fruit and vegetables in a healthy diet anyway? Perhaps a healthy lifestyle isn't for every single child. This sounds like another version of NCLB!

Health isn't just about diet and exercise. It's also about how you feel about yourself. And show me a kid who doesn't feel GREAT after a pounding down a double scoop soft serve chocolate ice cream cone!

I think thew answer is portion allocation. Most studies show that kids need more caloric intake than adults. Maybe if we just double up on the current food menu, then kids won't be so hungry after school and forced to eat gummy bears.

I don't know who these City Seed people are but I'm pretty sure they are just a front for some sinister, multi-national, agra-business.

Posted by: dana b | May 27, 2008 11:02 PM

A better plan would be to offer parents voluntary education and free groceries for attending sessions on how to better feed their children. Let's stop the social engineering that uses school children as the delivery point. If you want to change hearts and minds, eating and exercise habits, etc., go directly to adults -- in this case, the parents. Parents are the best shapers of their children's life-long habits, not some exotic food offering on the cafeteria's hot plate.

Also, instead of providing expensive and largely wasteful school breakfast and lunch programs that feed far too many children who don't really need it, let's simply give more food stamp money to people who do need it. And let's tie a big percentage of that food stamp money to the purchase of fresh foods, whole foods, etc. And let's offer communit-based nutrition education programs that teach the willing cooks in poor families how to provide better meals to their families.

Let the schools get back to their core mission: teaching.

Posted by: robn | May 28, 2008 8:33 AM

FTS,

Any time a kid can get good food is a good time. City Seed runs farmers markets in town and they only sell CT grown food...they also accept WIC coupons.

Posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS | May 28, 2008 11:53 AM

ROBN,

I get it. Do you?

Posted by: icarus 12 | May 28, 2008 4:49 PM

ROBN:
I can't afford most of the food at the farmers markets in New Haven. It's organic and expensive. I don't think the City Seed markets are the answer. Cheap public transportation to grocery stores like X-Pect in East and North Haven or the establishment of discount supermarkets in New Haven are both things that are more likely to help poor families with their nutrition. I wish the farmers markets were less expensive than supermarkets, but as of yet, they just aren't.

Posted by: -fairhavener- | May 28, 2008 9:33 PM

FTS, obviously you don't.

And it may be true that the farmers markets are more expensive to a degree than mac & cheese, mickyD's, and doritos, but if you have been following current events you may be surprised to learn that this may not be true for very long.

I think the kids deserve good food even if it is only one good meal a day. Maybe one day when our taxes increase even more, we can have a program for all the people who don't pay property tax to learn how to eat healthy.

Posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS | May 29, 2008 9:30 AM

FTS is fully in support of healthy food in schools. Go City Seed!!

I was trying to make a satirical point (rather inartfully). The insane logic that I posed above against healthy food in schools, is the same logic that some people use when arguing against creating more great urban charter schools.

Posted by: robn | May 29, 2008 9:48 AM

I12,

Organic groceries are unfortunately expensive but thats a real unsubsidied cost. Cheap supermarket goods are are subsidized by unsustainable farming and transportation policies....generally all based on cheap oil (petro-based fertilizers which poisen water supplies and gasoline which pollutes our air)

Posted by: abdul | May 30, 2008 5:57 PM

hey, fix the schools, i agree with your bit on how it wont make a difference at school if home food is not healthy.
i also believe that this isnt just an on/off school problem, this is a U.S.A problem. I have been living in the US for over 8 years now, and never (before i moved to the US) have i seen so many people eating from mcdonalds and fast food places.
back when i used to live overseas, going to mcdonalds was a once-a-week to a once-a-month deal. families would consider going to eat at mcdonlads "going out".
the reason is, in most (if not all) countries outside of the US, people buy fresh veggies and meat and ingredients and cook food from scratch at home, and they do this everyday so they consume much healthier food than the people in the US who go to stop and shop and buy premade pizza, and cream cheeze and hot pockets. if you compare these premades with freshly cooked food at home, you will see that there is a big health difference between the two.
Not all families in the US buy this premade food though, foreign families that arrive newly everyday keep their traditions of fresh home cooking everyday with the entire family eating together. I myself, after 8 years in the US, still eat freshly cooked food daily at home.
part of the reason why many american or americanized families buy all the premade and fast food everyday is because of jobs, people who work in this country dont have time for much else, its wake up, go to work, go home, eat and sleep. people here arent working to get some money to be able to go have some fun over the weekend. people that are mostly in the middle and lower classes in the US basically work to pay off expenses. so if someone would become homeless and not work, they wouldnt notice much of a different except that they are living in the street and not in a house that they have to pay the expenses of, and the second difference they might notice is that they dont get food as often as they used to before. other than that, it would be a very similar life, because nothing else is being done while the person is working.

Posted by: toys4dad | June 2, 2008 3:42 PM

Looking at the food is great what about a little excercise. get out and walk, save fuel in the busses. Not saying get rid of bussing but limit the stops and drop off points.
More time is spent looking for the remote then getting out of our chair and walkig to the TV to push a button!
Get moving!