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State snatches home-made lunch, subs ‘nuggets’

February 17, 2012 By

A four-year-old’s home-packed lunch — turkey-and-cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice — was rejected by a state lunchbox inspector at a North Carolina elementary school, reports the Carolina Journal. Instead the preschooler ate three chicken nuggets from the school lunch – and nothing else. Mom was charged $1.25.

“What got me so mad is, number one, don’t tell my kid I’m not packing her lunch box properly,” the girl’s mother told CJ. “I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats. It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesn’t really care for vegetables.”

The state requires all lunches served in pre-K programs — including in-home day-care centers — to meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, which call for one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables.

As it turns out, the lunch did meet USDA guidelines. “With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy,” said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division (of child development). The lunch has to include a fruit or vegetable, but not both, she said. Potato chips don’t de-nutritionize an otherwise health lunch.

So North Carolina hires lunchbox inspectors — at what salary I wonder? — to snatch turkey sandwiches from little girls. (OK, they didn’t take her home-packed lunch away, but she didn’t eat it because she’d been told  it was “not healthy,” according to her mother.)

The school principal says parents aren’t charged for the school lunch. The pre-K program is funded by the state for children from low-income families or those with special needs.

It’s a “non-troversy,” argues The League of Ordinary Gentlemen. The inspector was investigating the school’s compliance with the subsidized lunch program, which requires providing additional food to kids who don’t bring a healthy lunch.

A second mother has complained, saying her daughter was told not to eat her home-packed lunch (salami and cheese on a wheat bun and apple juice).  Instead, she ate chicken nuggets, sweet potato and milk. A letter sent to parents warns they may be charged if they miss a food group and their child receives supplemental food.

 

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New autism definition excludes many

January 20, 2012 By

A new definition of autism – renamed autism spectrum disorder — proposed by the American Psychiatric Association could exclude 45 percent of those now diagnosed as high-functioning, reports the New York Times. People with Asperger’s Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder and mild autism could find it harder to qualify for health, educational and social services.

Autism spectrum diagnoses have skyrocketed in recent years. The new definition could end the surge, said Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, director of the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine.

 

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Obesity starts at home, not at school

January 18, 2012 By

While childhood obesity tripled in the U.S. between the early 1970s and the late 2000s, weight gain doesn’t correlate to junk food sold in schools, concludes a study in the January issue of Sociology of Education. Kids do most of their eating — and overeating — outside of school, according to the  study, which followed children from kindergarten through eighth grade.

“We kept looking for a connection that just wasn’t there,” said Jennifer Van Hook, a Penn State sociology and demography professor, who was the lead author.

While 59.2 percent of fifth graders and 86.3 percent of eighth graders attended schools that sold junk food, a significant increase, the percentage of students who were overweight or obese decreased from 39.1 percent of  fifth grade students to 35.4 percent of eighth graders.

Kids don’t have much time to eat at school, Van Hook said.  At home, they can “eat endlessly.”

Bad eating habits start very early, she added.

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Fighting obesity — or picking on fat kids?

January 6, 2012 By

Ads attacking childhood obesity look a lot like ads attacking obese children. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is running TV commercials and billboards with overweight children to make Georgians worry more about the problem, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The state ranks second in the nation for childhood obesity: Forty percent of children are overweight or obese. But half of adults don’t see it as a major health issue and 75 percent of parents with overweight or obese children don’t think their kids need to slim down.

Some public health experts, however, say the approach could be counterproductive when it comes to childhood obesity. The commercials and billboards do not give families the tools they need to attack the problem, some critics say. Others say the images will simply further stigmatize obesity and make it even less likely for parents and children to acknowledge that their weight is unhealthy and should be addressed.

“We know from communication research that when we highlight a health risk but fail to provide actionable steps people can take to prevent it, the response is often either denial or some other dysfunctional behavior,” said Karen Hilyard, a University of Georgia health communication researcher.

The President’s Fitness Award will be given to any child who can eat without sweating, reports The Onion.

Finally conceding it is unrealistic to expect today’s children to complete a pull-up, run a mile, or touch their toes, the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition announced the new standard.  ”We want our kids to set more pragmatic, real-world goals for themselves, and being able to run back and forth across a basketball court one time is no longer realistic,”  said Shellie Pfohl, executive director of the council.

It’s satire, but uncomfortably close to reality.

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Black bean burgers or Flamin’ Hot Cheetos?

December 23, 2011 By

Students are refusing to eat the new healthier lunches at Los Angeles schools, reports the LA Times. The black bean burgers, tostada salad and pears on the menu at Van Nuys High is “nasty, rotty stuff,” says Mayra Gutierrez, who lunches on Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and soda instead.

Earlier this year, the district got rid of chocolate and strawberry milk, chicken nuggets, corn dogs, nachos and other food high in fat, sugar and sodium. Instead, district chefs concocted such healthful alternatives as vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles.

. . . Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students. Principals report massive waste, with unopened milk cartons and uneaten entrees being thrown away. Students are ditching lunch, and some say they’re suffering from headaches, stomach pains and even anemia. At many campuses, an underground market for chips, candy, fast-food burgers and other taboo fare is thriving.

With fewer students buying lunch, the district’s meal planners have decided to bring back hamburgers and pizza (whole-wheat crust, low-fat cheese, low-sodium sauce) and eliminate unpopular dishes. No more lentil and brown rice cutlets or quinoa and black-eyed pea salads.The new meals were tested and approved by students in the summer, notes Megan McArdle in The Atlantic.

Andre Jahchan, a 16-year-old sophomore at Esteban Torres High School, said the food was “super good” at the summer tasting at L.A. Unified’s central kitchen. But on campus, he said, the chicken pozole was watery, the vegetable tamale was burned and hard, and noodles were soggy.

“It’s nasty, nasty,” said Andre, a member of InnerCity Struggle, an East L.A. nonprofit working to improve school lunch access and quality. “No matter how healthy it is, if it’s not appetizing, people won’t eat it.”

It’s a lesson from the universe, writes McArdle: Promising pilot programs don’t always scale up.

In the testing phase, when the program was small, they were probably working with a small group of schools which had been specially chosen to participate. They did not have a sprawling supply chain to manage. The kids and the workers knew they were being studied. And they were asking the kids which food they liked–a question which, social science researchers will tell you, is highly likely to elicit the answer that they liked something.

Furthermore, it’s easier to cook a palatable meal for a dozen testers than to cook mass amounts on a modest budget.

. . . the things that make us fat are, by and large, also the things that are palatable when mass-produced. Bleached grains and processed fats have a much longer shelf life than fresh produce, and can take a hell of a lot more handling. Salt and sugar are delicious, but they are also preservatives that, among other things, disguise the flavor of stale food.

In response to complaints that salads with an Oct. 7 “best served by” date were served on Oct. 17, a manager said lettuce wasn’t actually rotten. Then the district removed the dates because they were “confusing.”

Nobody eats 10-day old lettuce voluntarily, writes McArdle.  The old mentality — “don’t poison anybody” — may still dominate the cafeteria staff, she speculates. “There isn’t much difference between Chicken nuggets that won’t poison you, and Chicken nuggets at their absolute peak of freshness.  And the employees just sort of assumed that the same set of rules would work for lettuce.”

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School lunch: Pizza is a vegetable

November 16, 2011 By

Pizza (with tomato sauce) will be a vegetable in school lunches under legislation proposed by Congress, reports Nirvi Shah in Ed Week. Remember the ketchup-as-a-vegetable flap in the Reagan era?

“It is not that a whole-grain, moderate-in-fat-and-sodium pizza can’t be a healthy food. It just isn’t a vegetable,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Legislators also ditched limits on starchy vegetables, such as potatoes, peas and lima beans, under pressure from Big Tater. (Senators from potato-growing states took the lead.)

The bill also bans the Agriculture Department from spending money to reduce sodium in school lunches.

French fries are no good without salt.

Filed Under: Children, Health Tagged With: , , , ,

Reading, ‘riting and wellness

November 9, 2011 By

Fifteen San Francisco high schools offer a wellness center where students can discuss depression, anger, anxiety, addiction or just stress.

In a recent districtwide survey of teachers who had referred students to Wellness Centers, three-quarters reported greater academic success. Eighty-six percent said they noticed that the students had improved emotional well-being.

“Our No. 1 need is more mental health clinicians,” said Jessica Stein Colvin, who runs the wellness center at Galilieo High. “There is mental health therapy happening here all the time. Every single clinical space is used every hour of the day.”

Rahsaan, a 17-year-old a senior at Galileo, broke up with his girlfriend last year. He is estranged from his parents and siblings — he has lived in the Bayview district with his disabled grandfather, whom he has cared for for more than 10 years.

Last semester, he said, his grades plummeted when he hit an emotional wall.

“I was outside and one of the teachers saw me crying and they brought me down here,” Rahsaan said. “Jessica and the other teacher stayed here after school to make sure I wasn’t going to harm myself or anything. It helped me a lot because I was, like, literally going to kick somebody’s ass and not care about the consequences.”

The wellness centers were started after the Columbine massacre, when many schools were trying to reach troubled teenagers. “We took an approach that was particular to random acts of violence and decided to go broad and provide a spectrum of services so we could reach as many students as possible,” said Kevin Gogin, director of School Health Programs.

Filed Under: Education, Health Tagged With: , , , ,

3 hots = well taught?

November 8, 2011 By

Some Memphis schools are serving an early dinner to students who attend the after-school program, reports the Commercial Appeal.  For now, dinner is a sandwich and salad, but soon schools will serve a hot meal in the afternoon.

At 2:30 in the afternoon, it’s been four hours since lunch, and Will Adams, 11, needs more than a snack to get through his day, which ends at 6 p.m. when after-care closes.

. . . “With a snack, I’d go home hungry,” said Will. “With supper, I go home full.

 The federal government now subsidizes breakfast, lunch (it’s over by 10:30?) and dinner (served at 2:30?).  Schools and community groups get$2.77 per dinner plus 22 cents in federal commodities to cover food costs and labor. If at least half the school’s students qualify for a subsidized lunch, everyone gets a free dinner, no questions asked.

For “a lot” of students , “there is this enormous gap between lunch and breakfast the next day,” said Tony Geraci, who runs the Memphis schools’ nutrition program. “Our goal is to fill the gap.”

Are there really “a lot” of parents who don’t feed their children a single meal at home? And why can’t Memphis serve lunch at lunch time?

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The international ‘nanny of the month’

November 3, 2011 By

Reason’s first global Nanny of the Month award goes to the European Union, which beat out the Danes, who are taxing foods high in saturated fat, and the Aussies in the Northern Territory, who have banned alcohol sales to problem drinkers.

. . . top dishonors go to the European Union’s control freaks who have cracked down on free-range kids, slapping regulations on everything from baby rattlers (which have brand-new noise restrictions) to blowing up balloons (not to be done by tots under age eight!).

Filed Under: Children, Health, Parenting Tagged With: , , , , ,

The bagel dog barks

October 12, 2011 By

A year of eating school lunches — and blogging their awfulness — made “Mrs. Q” famous. Now unveiled as Sarah Wu, a speech pathologist for Chicago Public Schools, the blogger is the author of a book, Fed Up With Lunch.

It all started, reports Slate’s XX Factor, when Wu forgot her lunch and stopped by the cafeteria to buy what the kids were eating:  a bagel dog, a Jell-O cup, six tater tots, and chocolate milk. Later, she wrote:

The bagel dog (a hot dog encased in soggy dough) came in a plastic package with the words “Barkin’ Bagel” written across the front. Tough on the outside and mushy on the inside, it was like no bagel I had ever tasted. The hot dog was bland, not juicy. The wimpy tater tots (which counted as that day’s federally mandated vegetable) were pale and wilted in my mouth. Instead of a piece of fruit, like the crunchy apple I would have packed if I’d had time that day, I was given a few cubes of pear suspended in bright red jello.

More than 90 percent of students at the elementary school qualified for a free or reduced-price lunch.  Wu vowed to buy the school lunch every day, photograph it and blog about it.

XX Factor writes:

The book turns out to chronicle not just bad lunches, but attempts at better lunches, and where they succeed and fail. Because Wu is eating her lunch daily, in the school, she can see what the kids like about the food, and what they don’t, and it’s not always what you’d expect. Some kids will eat six cookies, but then, that means five kids were willing to give up the cookie (generally a heavily processed sugar cookie with glitter sprinkles). Much of the food got thrown away not because kids didn’t like it, but because they didn’t have time, in a 20-minute period that included waiting in line, to eat it all.

At the start of the second year, the school cafeteria added salad and fresh broccoli, perhaps in response to the publicity.

Filed Under: Education, Health Tagged With: , , ,
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