susie0808

Yes BellaBoo your right! And it's a shame.

zennia

I watch and will never eat chicken nuggets again.
I hope he has success in changing some minds. Its terrible what schools are feeding the children.

Needles

Childhood obesity has nothing to do with the schools. Put the blame where it should be.........parents and home life. Don't know about you, growing up, we were rarely in the house. Now most of them are never out. I lived in town, walked a mile to school in elementary and 2 miles, in high school. Now parents set in long lines to pick up children. Safety they say. Statistics show, your child is probably safer now than back when, it's just media is on it and people in FL know about a missing child in OR within 10 minutes of a report. You never would have heard about it 20 years ago.

Children around here are never outside, they never ride bikes, play kickball, tag, leap frog, badminton, croquet, ball, etc. They are inside, looking at a TV, computer screen or phone screen. If they are outside, they have the phone in hand, sitting on a chair or the ground, still stuck on the text screen.

Come on, common sense dictates, parents could settle this in no time. I have a neighbor, she works part time, three children. She fixes five meals each night because everyone is a picky eater. You can bet, they are all out of a box or freezer. I'm no lightweight, but am not obese. All of them are. And she complains about the rotten meals in the schools. They have a lawn maintenance, we mow our own since our son grew up. When he was a kid, he mowed, he washed the car, he weeded, took out the trash, cleaned his own room, cleaned the pool, etc. This family has a cleaning lady twice a week and a pool man three times. And no one uses the pool. Those children do nothing but SIT all day. And this is just one family, others areound here with children have similar lives. Even my own six year old nephew only eats certain foods, mostly pretzels EXCEPT at my house and his grandmothers'. He eats what's served and no dessert if he doesn't eat his meal.

Give me a break! Don't put this epidemic on school lunches. It's called parent responsibility. So parent!

pollyjvan9

I don't think I am blaming anyone group in particular, but I have had lunch a lot with my youngest grandsons and some of the school lunches are not very appetizing to say the least. Some very strange combinations. On the other hand, I do fuss at my children because they eat on the run so much. Ball games, etc. In the 60's 70' and 80's when my children were growing up it was still the thing for the family to sit down to dinner. Of course, it was also still the thing for Mom to prepare the dinner just the way Grandmom did. ! meat or main dish, 2 veggies plus potatoes, salad and a dessert. And, of course, the portions were much smaller. OMG THIS POST MAKES ME SOUND 90 YS OLD INSTEAD OF ONLY 70.

QuiltMania

I agree with Needles. We need to put the responsibility back on the parents where it belongs. When I was in elementary school (I'm only 43 so it wasn't that long ago) we didn't even have a lunch room. We went home for lunch. We ate breakfast at home as well. Our parents didn't expect the school to be responsible for feeding us.

Now, the schools are expected to provide breakfast and lunch. At my school, we have universal breakfast which means every kid is allowed to eat a school provided breakfast for free. Yes, school breakfasts and lunches could be much healthier but I understand why they buy the processed stuff. In almost every case, the processed food is cheaper to buy in bulk. When you're responsible for feeding so many kids you have to do it as cheaply as possible.

Kids are a lot lazier (for lack of a better word) than they used to be. We were almost never inside during the day. We rode bikes, ran around, played outside. Parents today don't unplug their kids and send them outside.

amandasgramma

I agree with Needles, too. But I wonder if other neighborhoods are like the ones in our state. They're building houses SO close together, NO lawns to speak of, that the kids have to be in the street to play. And the streets are so narrow, with no parking to speak of, that I wonder if a fire truck can get thru. When I grew up in the 50s, we had huge lawns, empty lots, wide streets. We played ball in our front yard. Now they can only play "toss". Where the heck are kids supposed to play???? Don't even suggest the local park.....too many drug deals happening there! Yes, parents are copping out with the food issue. My DIL and son feed their kids right. Shoot, you can't find ANY bad foods in their house. I understand that once a month they're allowed potato chips....... My DD's house is 180 degrees different. However, she's moved to a place with enough yard and enough room for a garden....and has planted one!!! YAY! Oh, and both kids have to walk or bike to school....hee hee hee 2 miles....hee hee hee.

Carol's Quilts

I understand and agree with what's been said so far, but I don't think many people are giving much thought to those kids that come from less well-to-do families that perhaps can't afford to give their kids much more than cheap foods at home and most cheap foods are junk, or families where the parent(s) work more than one job just to pay the rent and utilities and other living expenses and then the food budget is the last thing on this list. In our local schools, there are SO MANY kids on the Free Breakfast lists and Free Lunch and Reduced Lunch lists because their homes are very low income. And this is mostly a so-called middle-class district! What this means in a lot of cases is that the school meal is the best meal a child will get for that day. For THAT reason, a school meal is so important. I really believe, for instance, that if you only offer white milk, that's what kids will drink. Offer real cheese instead of plastic fake stuff. What 7-year old with 2 front teeth missing is going to choose a whole apple he can't bite? But the state REQUIRES a whole apple. What good is that if the kids won't eat it? Don't give a little kid a whole orange - how are they going to eat it? Why not offer apple slices with peanut butter, or orange sections or grapes - something easy and tasty? When I was in school, the cafeteria ladies made everything from scratch - biscuits, cookies, mashed potatoes, hamburger gravy, roasted chicken legs, meat loaf. etc. - not the junk convenience foods like today. Of course, the state provided large chucks of cheese to the school, not boxed cheese powder, so the cafeteria made their own mac and cheese. Is it like that today? I don't think that parents and home are ALWAYS to blame - I think the economic situation of each family has a lot to do with it and should be considered. I think Jaime has the right idea and our school systems need to take a closer look as to how they spend our tax dollars in feeding our children. Did you ever compare the lunch menu in a well-to-do district with a menu in a poor district? Big difference! You go, Chef Oliver - I gladly signed your petition.