“Will Trade Children’s Health for Lunch Money”

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Chef Ann is a renegade lunch lady who works to transform

cafeterias into culinary classrooms for students - one school lunch at a

time. She brings you information to learn about the importance of

changing the way America feeds its children.

« “Will Trade Children’s Health for Lunch Money”

http://www.chefann.com/blog/?p=343

‘Fluff’ Flies in Massachusetts School Lunch Debate »

June 22nd, 2006

Ann and Kate Adamick

Last week, a New York State Assembly bill designed to combat childhood

obesity by restricting the availability of foods of no or minimal

nutritional value in vending machines, school stores, and a la carte

luncheon lines on school grounds or property, was held in committee,

effectively killing the bill for the session. This news was met with

appalling glee by many, including the New York branch of the School

Nutrition Association (NYSSNA), – whose stated mission is to “To advance

good nutrition for all children” – which lobbied relentlessly for the

bill’s death.

While the bill was not perfect, its passage would have guaranteed every

New York child a safer school food environment than currently exists

today. In an era in which The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has

estimated that one in three U.S. children born in the year 2000 will

develop Type II Diabetes by age 18, working to defeat a bill that would

have helped remedy this epidemic is nothing less than unconscionable.

Some have argued that such legislation by the State is unnecessary in

light of the new local wellness policies, required by federal law to be

in place in each school district by the 2006-2007 school year. This

reasoning is shrewdly misleading, however, given that very few local

wellness policies contain the measurable nutrition standards set forth

in the defeated bill, and instead use vague terms such as “reduce” or

“lower” when referring to permissible levels of hydrogenated oils, high

fructose corn syrup and sodium. Ultimately, this means that little will

be done in school districts in which the local bureaucrats or food

service management companies neither wish to expend the effort, nor

incur the expense, necessary to effect meaningful change.

Do we need to go further than this bill? Yes, absolutely!

Schoolchildren today are often herded into crowded, deafening rooms to

eat their meals off paper plates on Styrofoam trays with plastic

“sporks” in less than 20 minutes – an environment in which no one would

willingly choose to dine. But the biggest problem with school food is

not that the kids aren’t being served family-style meals on china

plates. The biggest problem is that kids are being served – and sold —

toxic processed “foods” in an educational environment intended to

nurture their minds and bodies. Schools nationwide are “Drug-Free

Zones,” yet we allow chemical-laden foods in our schools on a daily

basis. Not until these products are removed from the school venue (which

this bill would have gone a tremendous distance in accomplishing), can

we focus our attention on other critical matters such as local

procurement, preferences for organic foods and reintroduction of dining

as a truly social experience. As it now stands, the death of this bill

will enable most school food service programs in New York to continuing

killing the kids, however unintentionally.

Of course, in a system in which school food service is typically

unfunded by the local school district and is often contracted out to

food service management companies that profit from the sale of highly

processed, prepackaged food products, the ardent lobbying against a bill

that would have prohibited sales of these products to our children comes

as no surprise. But when adults willingly spend $4 on a morning cup of

coffee or an afternoon bottle of beer, it’s at best shameful — if not

abusive — to willingly sacrifice our children’s health and well-being –

and, ultimately, years off their lives – simply in order to balance the

school food service budget.

If those of us who call ourselves “school food advocates” – including

the NYSSNA – are not willing to walk the talk, how will we be able to

look our children in the eye someday when they come to us, suffering

from Type II Diabetes and a host of other life-threatening diet-related

illnesses, and ask us “How could you?”

When this bill is reintroduced next year, we sincerely hope that

everyone will support it

.. . . for the sake of our kids.

Kate Adamick is a New York City-based food systems consultant

specializing in school food reform, and the former director of New York

City’s SchoolFood Plus Initiative.

--

ne Holden, MS, RD < fivestar@... >

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