My Soapbox For The Week

When I was little I used to bring my lunch to school every day. I NEVER wanted cafeteria food; and did anyone ever really want mystery meat in gravy with a side of instant mashed potatoes? All that changed when I went to high school though. Suddenly there were more options than just the regular old hot lunch line. There were salads and sandwiches... and pizza and fried chicken... and FRENCH FRIES!!! 

Guess what I ate for the entirety of my sophomore year? Seriously, guess. It wasn't salad. Every single day I got a giant slice of pepperoni pizza and then chased it down with a three - yes three, each about the size of a tea saucer - triple chocolate cookies. By the time my senior year rolled around I began to be concerned about all the extra fat I was consuming so I made some changes. That year I stuck to a basket of french fries, with extra salt, and no dessert. 

Now, you're probably wondering why I wasn't three hundred pounds by graduation day. (That's what I am wondering by the way.) I guess you could say that between the good luck of having decent genes, and being fairly active I managed to avoid too many negative consequences of those school lunches. I think it probably had more to do with other factors. Like, the fact that my Mom cooked all my other meals. For breakfast and dinner I got healthy things. We ate lots of veggies in my house and never had too much junk food just lying around. But what about those kids who didn't have parents who tried to keep things healthy at home? What happened to the kids who ate the crap I was eating at every meal.  Fast food was sold in schools - at least it was in mine - and kids would come early to have a chicken biscuit before school started. And we all know that lots of families rely on fast food for dinner. 

Shouldn't our schools - where we send our children and entrust their safety - be places that are free of the kinds of food that lead to childhood obesity and heart disease and diabetes? I think they should be, but apparently our government does not. I read this article this morning and it made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. In a spending bill, that passed on Monday, congress has included a section that repeals some of the newer USDA guidelines that were attempting to make school lunches healthier. According to your congressmen, it is totally acceptable to count pizza as a vegetable. Yes, you heard that right. It is now legal for the tomato paste on a piece of pizza to count as a serving of vegetables for your children. And those french fries  that I ate every day for a year? Well, supporters of the bill were pretty hacked off at the ol' USDA for trying to limit the amount that could be served in schools. Now, there are no limits on those "vegetables". Ignorant teenagers around the country can continue to stuff their faces with them every day thinking they are making a "healthy" choice.

Oh, and would you please take just a second to pause and think really hard about who lobbied the hardest for this bill to pass?...... You there yet? Yep, you guessed it - the frozen food companies who produce the pizzas, and the salt and potato industries. So, it is the bottom dollar that congress is really protecting. Not the health of our children. Sigh....

Every morning I wake up and the first thing I do is pack Noah's lunch. People always ask me if he buys his lunch and I always have to answer while trying not to laugh out loud. First of all, Noah's picky eating tendencies mean he wouldn't touch school food with a 10 foot pole (and his neurotic eating is whole 'nother post for another day). Second of all, I much prefer to include actual fruit and vegetables in his lunchbox. 

But tomorrow when I pack his Mario lunch box I will be thinking this. What about those kids who are on the federal lunch program for free or reduced lunch in our public schools? The ones whose parents rely on that to help feed their kids in an economy where money and jobs are scarce. Are we, as a country, doing our best for those kids by allowing tomato paste to count as their vegetable? If this is the attitude of the adults in America, isn't it little wonder that this will be the first generation of children who are so sick that their life expectancy is shorter than that of their parents? 

My children are not perfect in their eating habits - far from it actually -  but I continue to try. To try and show them what they healthy choices are. And to lead by example so that they see that I not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. I want my children to outlive me by many years. And have bodies that are strong and healthy and able to carry them on any adventure that they choose. I wish that the people who make the laws wanted that for all the children of this country.