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School Food Gets Even Worse |
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Monday, 22 January 2007 |
Did you know that today's public schools are becoming more and more prisonlike? Students are limited and broken like animals to bend to the will of the administration. One major aspect of this is the food. The sad fact is that schools are imposing strict guidelines against what children can eat in the confines of school, even if it is a lunch that their guardians packed for them at home.
Enter the two main groups I am focusing on: The Alliance for A Healthier Generation (Bill Clinton and the A.H.A.), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is basically giving grant money to schools who use their students as "guinea pigs" to research how modifying the foods on the schools menu to be more "healthy..." The Alliance for A Healthier Generation, founded by Bill Clinton (ironic, since he is known for his love of McDonald's) after he was out of the public office. This organization has strong armed a bunch of leading food manufacturers to bend to it's will and remove sugars from their products. The Alliance's program and the Wood Johnson Foundation thus are probably hand-in-hand.
The programs both require healthier foods in the schools, with calorie counting being done in the lunchroom, and sodium and sugars are becoming issues as big as illegal drugs to the administration. With their snack machines filled with "healthy" food, most public schools in the U.S. have joined in. Although optional, grant money fuels the participation, since they hurt for funding all the time (another problem that I don't need to go off on right now).
What is the outrageous part? The way schools are implementing these programs! Since when is it a government organization's right to decide what is "healthy," and what children can eat? I know that my former high school has fired the entire lunchlady staff, and hired in some contractors. My sister has informed me that the food is disgusting ("Power Chicken," "Beefayaki??). The pop machines are usually unusable during school hours, even at lunch. The lunchroom doesn't even allow salt. I didn't mention that they have imposed strict "quiet in the lunchroom" rules, and play elevator music throughout the lunch period. Why not just have children bring their own lunches? At my former school, this isn't an issue...yet, but in another area, a public school actually searches the lunchboxes that children bring to school. Every last one. They remove "unhealthy" products, including soda, and throw them away. The parents and guardians of these children most likely purchased everything in those lunchboxes. Considering the fact that these are government run schools, how is it any government organization's right to overrule the parental decisions that dictate the diet of a child? It seems that the public school system now thinks it is above the parents on deciding the well-being of a child.
If you don't want this injustice to happen, let your schoolboard know. Write them a letter, or go to a meeting. While you are at it, why not write one to your congresspeople as well?
You can read about these two foundations here:
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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