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Old 04-12-2011, 01:39 PM   #16  
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To answer my own question, I'm torn. I believe that a parent's right to feed their child as they please (or really, control any choices for their child's life/health/well-being) ends when they start significantly and measurably impacting the other students in the kid's class. If the food they are eating makes them overhyper, resulting in bad behavior and interrupting the class, that's fundamentally unfair to all of the other students.

It'd be very hard for the school to define that "line", though, or definitely show that it was the food contributing.

My friend the Kindergarten teacher handles this by teaching nutrition to her kindergarteners, having them talk to their parents about healthy lunches, etc.
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Old 04-12-2011, 01:46 PM   #17  
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I think it's a horrible idea. My daughter has issues with school lunches so she must take homemade lunch banning it would cause a huge problem for us.
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Old 04-12-2011, 02:07 PM   #18  
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I must be REALLY old. We had a lunchroom staff who cooked. When I looked at the picture of the prepackaged crap in the photo in the article, my stomach turned. I can remember walking to school and could tell what we were having for lunch that day. Sloppy Joe day had me yearning for lunchtime. We had veggies and greens when we had Sloppy Joes. We didn't have potatoes or potato salad because the bun was the starch (as we called it way back when) and milk. There were no sodas in elementary. There were soda machines in JH and HS.

We had several choices in JH and HS. I remember having my tray and going through the line. I loved the greens and could get 2 of those instead of a starch if I wanted. We didn't get the menu in advance. My mom would ask me what was served and start tracking the pattern so we'd know in advance if I was brown bagging it or not.

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Old 04-12-2011, 02:18 PM   #19  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Munchy View Post
This isn't school, but I recall being in community youth theater as a kid and one particularly hyperactive boy who was sent with JOLT (extra caffeinated soda) was banned from bringing any soda at all because of his behavior.
here's something I learned after years of not letting my hyperactive child have any caffeine. Caffeine actually helps with ADHD. Go figure!

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2010/caf...adhd-symptoms/
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Old 04-12-2011, 02:48 PM   #20  
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Originally Posted by berryblondeboys View Post
here's something I learned after years of not letting my hyperactive child have any caffeine. Caffeine actually helps with ADHD. Go figure!

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2010/caf...adhd-symptoms/
That is really fascinating! I don't know that this child was diagnosed with ADHD, but he was certainly hyperactive and definitely more so after the Jolt. I recall being in school with him and he would always move his leg, like a jittery twitch, shake his entire desk, and subsequently everyone else's desk in that row. It drove me insane!

The caffiene could have been the culprit all together.
"A condition known as caffeinism can be triggered when caffeine is consumed in large amounts over an extended period of time. Caffeinism causes nervousness, irritability, anxiety, tremulousness, muscle twitching, insomnia, headaches and heart palpitations. A high intake over time can also lead to peptic ulcers and other gastrointestinal problems."

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Old 04-12-2011, 02:50 PM   #21  
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I do not think it is fair to restrict packed lunches from home. They might be free, but as they say, "You get what you pay for". I would take slices of bellpepper, carrots, and a sandwhich with me to school in elementary. On rare occasions of feild trips, my father would pack me a diet soda in there as a treat, and maybe a mini candy bar or one cookie. I liked having the option, and I would say my parents did as well. Anything that interferes with being able to raise your children in a healthy way is uncool with me, and even if it is to try to prevent the bad stuff, it also prevents the good stuff too.
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Old 04-12-2011, 02:57 PM   #22  
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I haven't read all of the responses, but I worked in the food service department at a school in Texas. One of the biggest fallacies that are out there about school nutrition is that it is not based on nutrition. That is far from the truth. The guidelines for what is acceptable to serve for lunch at school are very, very difficult to attain, especially given that the nutrition program is given very little in the way of monies with which to do so. They have to follow guidelines from the USDA as well as the FDA and then state guidelines too.
My biggest, biggest pet peeve while working in the nutrition program was parents who blamed the obesity of their children on the school lunches and then turned around and took them to McDonald's for every other meal.
I agree that a school shouldn't dictate that kids can't bring homemade lunches, but I think school lunches get an unfair rap because of the stereotype that people have towards it.
Just as an aside; I think the child obesity epidemic isn't caused by school lunches, but rather the lack of movement. Really, kids shouldn't have PE only 3 days a week. They should have recess everyday. And they shouldn't play video games/watch TV/sit in front of the computer for hours on end.

Hmmm. I got off topic a little, but this is one of my 'soap box' issues.
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Old 04-12-2011, 02:59 PM   #23  
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How do they know it was the parents sending the bad food to school with the kids? In grade school/jr. high my mom packed my lunch, but being a latchkey kid who took myself to and from school, I almost always put what she packed back in the fridge and took junk instead, like soda and cupcakes and stuff. Or I'd stop on the way to school at the candy store and buy junk to "supplement" the healthy stuff. And I know if they had tried to force school lunch on me (I went to a school where almost everyone qualified for free lunch, and whether or not that had anything to do with it I don't know, but the lunches were horrendous, tasteless and downright disgusting!) I would have just gone hungry or drank the chocolate milk and had done with it.

I don't think it's their place, and I know if a school in my area implemented this it would seriously affect my decision to send my children there, I don't like people telling me how to parent, even if it is just what they eat for lunch.
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Old 04-12-2011, 03:03 PM   #24  
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Kids also trade lunches with other kids.
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Old 04-12-2011, 03:12 PM   #25  
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To be fair, if you read the caption on the picture, it says that meal is NOT one that is served at the particular school that banned home packed lunches. I hope they're offering something better than that.

However, I have a huge problem with schools trying to control things like what kids eat. As it is, I have one child with mild special needs (not dietary needs, and nothing that would qualify him for an IEP in a school that would exempt him from a rule like this) who absolutely will.not.eat. plenty of different foods, and foods that he doesn't know the exact ingredients of. He would go hungry if he was at a school that had this rule. He eats very healthfully for a kid who has such an extremely limited palate (meaning, he doesn't eat cr@p all day long or anything), but a rule like this would turn him into a huge behavior problem kid in the afternoon while he sat there hungry after lunch.
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Old 04-12-2011, 03:15 PM   #26  
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I agree with you eclipse. I don't think a school should control what parents feed their kids. The problem is that there are plenty of parents out there who complain that it is the school's job to provide and teach them good nutrition. Kind of like discipline- "you better discipline my kids....until they need it. And then you better not do anything to them!"
It is a no-win situation. For anybody.
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Old 04-12-2011, 03:22 PM   #27  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by heatherwag View Post
I agree with you eclipse. I don't think a school should control what parents feed their kids. The problem is that there are plenty of parents out there who complain that it is the school's job to provide and teach them good nutrition. Kind of like discipline- "you better discipline my kids....until they need it. And then you better not do anything to them!"
It is a no-win situation. For anybody.
This is what I love about 3FC, so many different points of view on things - great place.
That aside.

I have always wondered about that kind of parental thinking, honestly. I was raised to see teachers as an authority figure that my parents had already instilled in me that they were to be shown respect, and I intend to raise my son the same way. The majority of my sons time will be spent at home through out his years (you know what i mean) so I've always been of the mind that manners, respect, appropriate behaviour, nutrition and what not are my responsibility to teach him from day one.
Part of me can't wrap my head around the idea that some parents believe it's the job of schools to do that - and not to sound like an idiot, but do parents actually think that? That it's not their repsonsibility to teach their kids these things?
Not trying to instigate, blame or hi jack the thread, but I'm honestly curious about that.
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Old 04-12-2011, 03:27 PM   #28  
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I can only tell you from my personal experience...yes, there are many out there who do. Like I said in my first comment- I would have parents call and complain that it's no wonder that kids are overweight because the school served donuts for breakfast! Um. No. Kids are not over weight from eating a donut for breakfast. Kids become over weight when the majority of their meals come from out and they eat 4 donuts for breakfast and then don't move all day!
So, to them, it was the school's responsibility to make sure they didn't eat unhealthy foods.
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Old 04-12-2011, 03:34 PM   #29  
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Well, I do think that it's the responsibility of the school to not serve cr@p, especially if they're going to be one of the school districts that does humiliating things like put BMI on report cards. We were poor growing up, and I got two meals a day at school through the free lunch/breakfast program - and let me tell you, those breakfasts, especially, were awful in terms of healthy food to start the day. I could have gotten something more nutritious from the McDonald's drive through, you know? And lunch vegetables were always startchy ones like corn (drenched in butter), fries, or gross carrot raisin salad in some sort of sweet mystery sauce. Ugh.
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Old 04-12-2011, 04:11 PM   #30  
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Yep. I agree, they absolutely should serve healthy foods. But, I think that people don't understand the guidelines that they follow and how little funding they have to produce those results. I don't know how it is in other places, but here, they have polices in place like no fried foods at all. Schools had to remove all fryers by 2010. They also can't serve potatoes, that have been flash fried, more than 3 times a week in high schools and only once a week in elementary schools and they can't exceed 3 oz per serving. The guidelines also require that no more than 30% of calories come from trans fat and that no more than 10% of that be saturated fats.
The good news is that through commodity buying, schools are able to make more fresh fruits available. That goes a long way to reducing the amount of prepackaged foods that are served. Prepackaged foods, in my opinion, cause a lot of the issues we have, including allergies and obesity.
I think the guidelines are good; I think that not all schools follow them correctly.
BUT- I think that, aside from the food issue, schools really need to re-examine their physical education classes. And increase them. Like I said, eating a donut once in a while, or even once a week, is not detrimental to health. But never getting any exercise is.
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