CHICKYBIRD as the husband and father of teacher's I can relate to the stories. If good/healthy food is in the budget...doesn't mean the kids will eat it! Soda machines banned...kids sneak it in...

more needs to be done at home...BEFORE...way beforethose kids get to school!

yup, I was defensive. I know no one was attacking, I promise, lol! And thank you for making the distinction that not every school serves bad food. The cafe people and teachers do work hard on this problem, but rarely do they get enough credit.
My MIL makes special meals for her Middle Eastern students that are meat free and/or pork free. Granted, those meals and the "veggie meals" have to be requested in advance. I've never know another school district to go so far to do that either, Photochick, and I agree with you on that.
Thanks for not biting my head off, lol!
Edit: and you're right, Photochick, the schools are changing. Just not fast enough, lol!

No problem!

And gosh, I wish I'd gone to YOUR school. Sounds almost better than what I make at home! Hee!

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It's the only place I'll eat beets. That's really saying something

Chicky - It isn't the food people are making given what they have...it is what they are given! Pilot programs have shown you can get your fruits/veggies fresh, from local farmers supplemented by a community garden, for about the same cost as produce is being sourced now. Programs like The Edible Schoolyard are AMAZING, but the New York City SchoolFood program and the Berkeley Unified School District have both established some great standards.

No one working, or even running, a single school lunch program can get programs like these going without administrative and community support...its a problem MUCH higher up than the people with the (thankless) job of actually preparing food for the kids.

These are some great ideas. I especially agree with the accurate information and the safe place to exercise. Overall, I wish society would SLOW DOWN, so walking and taking time to prepare a healthy meal could be more of a practical part of life. But I don't know how you accomplish that.

They dumped soft drinks here in the schools last year or the year before. I remember there was a big uproar because schools make money off of them and use them to pay for programs. I think they have things like water and juice still. I can't exactly remember. They changed the nutritional standards, too. Again, there was an argument about the cost.

I think above all, we need to realize that we are the "they." No one person can make these kinds of changes, whether we're talking local changes in the schools, or governmental changes, to make change people need to get involved on a personal level. Sometimes it seems like there's no time and the effort is wasted because we each have only one voice - but one voice is all that any one individual has - but when everyone uses their voice, things happen. If no one speaks up, then change doesn't happen.

That great healthcare center warm water therapy pool I just mentioned, was considering closing their doors, because of concerns that the pool wasn't being utilized enough to warrant the expense. The outcry in the affected communities (by those of us who used the facilities, as well as other concerned citizens that recognized the value of the pool - many local doctors got involved) was enough to inspire the County boards involved to renew and recommit to continued funding. Even though the cost to the swimmers has doubled (from $3 to $6), use of the pool has increased because many people in the community didn't even know the pool existed until they'd read or heard about it potentially closing.

Ignorance is the biggest enemy of change. I know when I had absolutely wonderful health coverage, I didn't really understand the impact not having insurance coverage or adequate coverage could have on a person. I didn't give the idea of national healthcare much thought. I naively thought (because of a few high profile cases in the community) that whether a person had the ability to pay or not, hospitals treated patients when medically necessary and either donated their services, accessed funding sources or billed the person (and hopefully just got paid slowly). When it started to affect me personally, I found how untrue that was. A case that shocked me to the core, was a woman who had had the top of her skull removed from one side of her head, because a head injury had caused swelling to the brain. The skull was sitting in a freezer, waiting for the hospital and medicare to resolve their dispute over who was supposed to pay for this medically necessary, but not imminently life threatening procedure. In the meanwhile, the woman had to deal with all sorts of horrendous side effects including intense pain, seizures, passing out, physical deformity (without the skull if she rolled over onto that side it caused intense pain and a "squished" shape on that side of the head) and the constant fear that even a slight head injury could be fatal. She had been in this condition for almost or just over a year before taking her story public in hopes of shaming the hospital into doing the procedure to replace the missing portion of her skull.

What's really sad is this wasn't even a case of there not being funding for the procedure. Everyone agreed that there was one of two parties responsible for the cost of the operation.

For change to take place, a large group of people have to get involved. And getting a large group involved, starts with individuals getting involved and using their voices, even when it's sometimes the first voice.

Even talking about it here, is a start.

Boy do I believe in that. And it is tough to imagine it changing. The places we like to think of as ideals in that regard are only becoming less "ideal" and more like us .

I would like to comment on your post. I agree 100% that society should slow down. Just in my generation alone, everything has to be quick-quick-quick! Cook it quick, eat it quick, lose the weight quick, make money quick-why walk across town to visit your friend when you can email or text message them RIGHT NOW, while sitting on your duff. It's CRAZY. In the past two generations, our society has just become so LAZY. When my parents were kids, families had ONE car, and a house just big enough for the family to be comfortable. Now, it is considered perfectly standard for families to have 2 vehicles (or more) and have finished basements, game rooms, 3 bathrooms, and so on and so forth. We want everything QUICK, and we want MORE of everything. It all goes hand in hand...


As far as the school thing goes-I actually wrote a letter to the principal of my school once-and got NO response. I told them that instead of selling candy bars, cookie dough, and all of the stupid fund raisers that they have all of the time for the school, that I would MUCH rather them sell options like candles, gift wrap, or something NOT sugar related. Heck, I even mentioned that I would rather just cut them a check for $5 instead of having to sell or buy the stuff. I bet other parents would feel the same way.

You know I have to think back to when weight first became an issue for me, and this really strikes a chord.

See, I grew up overseas and went to British and European schools until I got to high school. The schools I went to there were no such things as parties where the parents brought goodies. There were (best I remember) 2 parties a year - Christmas holidays and summer holidays - and people brought homemade treats, but in moderation. And there were no sodas or juices available. I remember in elementary and what we would call middle school, the options for our morning break were milk, chocolate milk, apple juice, or water - nothing else. You could have fruit or choose one from a selection of tea sandwiches. You picked one of those or went without. Oh, the older kids got to have tea (British style - hot tea with milk and/or lemon). There weren't candy sales (candy and gum was forbidden on school property). If a group wanted to raise money, they held a faire or ran a car wash or ran a raffle or other methods of earning money and fundraising.

(I do remember the year I was in boarding school, sneaking out on a field trip and buying all the forbidden goodies and having a midnight party with the other girls on my floor. Of course we then all spent the next morning in the nurses office because we were all sick to our stomachs!

Oh, and the countries I lived in - there was no TV broadcasting until after 6 p.m. So there was no going home and plopping down in front of the TV. Not unless you were into watching static. Going home meant playing outside and chores.

When I moved back to the States and went to high school it was a whole different world. Our high school had a cafeteria AND a snack bar. The snack bar sold all the usual breakfast goodies in the morning and then hamburgers, hotdogs, corn dogs, and fried beef and bean burritos smothered in chili and cheese (my personal favorite) for lunch. Fries, onion rings, and tater tots rounded out the selection. Guess where most of the kids went every day? Coke machines in every hallway, plus fountain drinks available. Oh yeah there was a salad bar as well - and I used to eat salads thinking I was being healthy. You know the kind - a little lettuce, a little veggie, smothered in cheese, croutons, and creamy ranch dressing.

Then there were the fundraisers. I was in band, German club, and Model UN. In band we sold candy bars and M&Ms. In German club we sold gummy bears, German chocolate, and advent calendars. In Model UN we sold M&Ms and trail mix. And if I wasn't selling something for my groups, there were 20 or 30 other groups selling things available - every club, organization, and class in the school sold some kind of food at some point. There wasn't a day or a class that I didn't have candy or a soda or both on my desk. For 4 years I ate like that. It didn't matter that I was going home and having a healthy dinner that my mom fixed - one evening meal couldn't offset the volume of junk that I was eating during the day.

I went from walking to school every day, playing field hockey 3x a week, and swimming 2x a week, to riding the bus door-to-door and skimming my way through "P.E.", then going home and sitting in front of the TV until dinner time.

And I wonder why, in high school, I went from the skinny kid I'd been, to an overweight, out of shape teen. It's very obvious in the photos of our family - the difference that just a year made between when we were overseas and when we were back in the States.

Of course I've known all of this my whole life - but something about your post, Aphil, just made it so very crystal clear.

I'm not slamming on all schools or cafeterias. I'm really not. I guess this is the first time I've really thought about it linearly; the progression for me from athletic, skinny kid to overweight teen and adult. Because it just continued right through college and on into my adult life.

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Oh, and just for grins, I looked up the Atlanta public school menus for the last week of October.

High school
http://www.atlanta.k12.ga.us/content...LunchOct27.pdf

Middle school
http://www.atlanta.k12.ga.us/content...LunchOct27.pdf

Elementary school
http://www.atlanta.k12.ga.us/content...nchOct2008.pdf

Pizza, hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, fries, hot dogs ... the list goes on.

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Looks like things are changing PHOTOCHICK....I see several healthy choices on each menu.

I think the key to everything is education. Parents sometimes don't have the tools themselves to teach their kids what is healthy. Kids are at school a huge portion of their lives. Sure not one party causes an obese kid, but multiple parties, year after year, paired with crap at home and you have a big problemhool party. I think a good solution to that would be - seasonal parties, and have the kids who have birthdays during those few months all celebrate at that time. School lunches are a joke in some towns, french fries, hot dogs, pizza, chicken nuggets. I really liked the idea about the garden. That would be so awesome. Teach kids about so many things, and have produce available to feed the kids as well. Sounds like a win, win. Plus, i've read that kids are more likely to eat something they helped pick out/ cook, etc.
I teach my kids daily to make healthy choices but the truth is, that i cannot do it alone. If my kids are going to school 7 hours a day, being taught that a potato is an acceptable vegetable (they don't go to a school like yours chickybird, unfortunately), and a fried chicken nugget is a good source of protein, paired with multiple birthday/holiday parties where an extravagant amount of junk is being served(when i'm trying to teach moderation), along with all the fast food commercials, peer pressure, and everything else working against me, it can be hard to change that mentality at home.

I think the problems are too big for any of them to fix, or any one of us to fix. It has to be a collective effort with everyone involved. Schools, parents, media, corporations, everyone!

These were the choices in our local Middle & High Schools, in the 8th largest school district in the US. This represents 69 schools.

Chicken Gordita
Cheeseburger
Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich Stuffer
----
Whole Kernel Corn
Mexican Infused Rice

There is a chef salad regularly on the menu. My daughter, who likes salad, won't get one because they're often partly frozen and thus in her words "disgusting"

There is not one non-starchy vegetable on the list. We live in a county where agriculture is the second largest industry and export citrus, strawberries, tomatoes, etc. throughout the country.

I agree that parents need to push for better choices. A school district of this size is not going to be able to move quickly.

A CDC report shows that in our local School Environment
• In 39%, students could purchase fruits or vegetables. (6)
• In 69%, students could purchase soda pop or fruit drinks
that are not 100% juice. (6)
• In 27%, students could purchase chocolate candy. (6)
• In 32%, students could purchase other kinds of candy. (6)
• In 51%, students could purchase salty snacks that are not
low in fat, such as regular potato chips. (6)
• In 84%, students could purchase sports drinks. (6)
• 71% did not allow students to purchase candy; snacks that
are not low in fat; soda pop, sports drinks, or fruit drinks
that are not 100% juice; or 2% or whole milk during school
lunch periods.
6. From vending machines or at the school store, canteen, or snack bar.
(I'm struggling to follow the double negatives in the last one)

I believe this year that soda machines were eliminated or at least reduced.

At my school that I work at and I do have lunch duty to help out- I was shocked when a kid asked me if he could get up and get "extras" meaning extra food when they finish what's on their tray. I've asked several kids since then if they are even hungry and half the time they say no just that they just want more. And I've seen what is given portion wise and it seems to me like it would be enough for K-5 age children since that is what I strive to eat myself portion size wise. I didn't even get that when I was going to school having the option to get "extras". The healthiest option I have seen at my school where I work is a fruit cup and that's it. It was really surprising to me the lack of options for healthy food even now. Some of the posters suggestions and opinions sure were interesting and made me think a little bit.