Truly Loco Parentis
A school district bans all sweets on campus. Even those your mother gave you before you left for school. Yes, Little Debbies will be confiscated. Madeline Holler blogs at strollerbaby:
All public schools in the St. Paul school district will be, by the school year's end, sweet-free zones. That means no more cookies, cinnamon rolls or cakes for dessert with school lunches. Little Debbie's snack cakes will be confiscated from home lunches. And concessions for school fundraisers can't include hot chocolate or brownies.No birthday cupcakes.
The St. Paul school district's ban on sweets is an effort to live up to a wellness policy that parents, school administrators and teachers agreed on -- but didn't really act on -- four years ago. It's an effort to fight child obesity but also to get the district ready for the Child Nutrition Act, signed recently by President Obama, which could impose stricter rules on schools than simple soda bans.
The ban, which also includes fat- and salt-laden snack foods, isn't expected to dramatically lower the districts 40 percent obesity rate. But it's an effort, administrators say, to begin doing things differently. Teachers will come up with new ways to reward students other than with pizza coupons. Parents will have to find something other than cupcakes to bring in for a birthday celebration.
And let me just say, I only eat something with sugar in it -- a scoop of dark chocolate homemade gelato -- about once a week, because I know the research shows that sugar is basically poison for the human body. But, a school district doesn't get to mandate how parents feed their children. Or shouldn't get to.
By the way, my mother was a health food nut, and I was not allowed to have sweets (or really anything that tasted very good) throughout my childhood, which Gregg refers to as "The Gruel Years." It turned me into a raging sweet-aholic. I don't think that would've been the case had my mother just given us a cookie now and then.
It's time for action! I don't know how you'd organize it, but on one day, every student in St. Paul, K-12, should be sent to school with at least three cupcakes, the frostiest, gooeyest kind available. Even if they don't like cupcakes, bring 'em anyway. Overwhelm the administration with sweets! Let's see how the administration handles it then!
Miss Alkon -- in a class I was teaching about a year ago, one of the students had a story similar to the one you told about your childhood. It seemed this student worked in a child care center in her undergrad days. One of the little boys in her care had a health food nut mother. On pizza day, this poor little guy would be sent to school with asparagus flavored with Parmesan cheese. No pizza for him! On his birthday, he did bring cupcakes, shortened with applesauce and of course frosting-free. Another child had a birthday the same day, and also brought cupcakes, but the standard kind. Guess whose cupcakes were eaten, and whose were shunned. When this little guy gets out of the house and heads off to college, I'll bet he'll be Little Debbie's best friend!
Old RPM Daddy at December 30, 2010 4:18 AM
I have this image of 6-year-old dealers selling contraband Girl Scout Cookies behind the science building at recess.
That school is in serious need of a wake up call if they think that a taxpayer funded school can confiscate items out of a child's lunch given to them by their parents.
Patrick at December 30, 2010 4:51 AM
"I have this image of 6-year-old dealers ..."
That's really funny, in a grim way. Here's something grimmer. It's not enough to have cops following drug dogs down the hall, looking for students' stashes. Now we'll have candy dogs. "Looks like we have a positive for peppermint in the eighth grade locker bay. Call the crime scene techs! Good job, Fido!"
Old RPM Daddy at December 30, 2010 5:07 AM
Question: If this school teaches home economics and cooking, what about making desserts? Will their graduates finish school without ever having baked a cake?
Just think! Their kids will never have a home-baked birthday cake. "Sorry, hon. Mommy never learned that in school."
Old RPM Daddy, very funny about the candy dogs. I can see the drug hound German Shepards sniffing up the kids as they go in, and barking profusely at some terrified eight-year-old because it smelled a Little Debbie on it's breath.
Patrick at December 30, 2010 5:45 AM
I wasn't allowed to bring sandwiches for lunch or purchase the school lunch because my stepmother said they would make me fat. I had to bring yogurt and a piece of fruit, the end. When I got out of the house, I immediately went on a chocolate and pizza binge that lasted years. It's amazing I didn't balloon more than I did.
I know, like you said, sugar is poison - but if I let myself eat it now and then, in moderation, it's much better for me. So, aside from the most important fact that schools (and government) should not control what people eat, this isn't going to solve anything...it will probably make it worse.
Jessica F. at December 30, 2010 6:10 AM
"If this school teaches home economics and cooking, what about making desserts?"
Desserts? Desserts? You want to teach these kids how to poison themselves? We might as well teach them how to build a meth lab!
And you know what? These kids aren't sufficiently aware of how miserable they're supposed to be. We need to introduce an action plan to ban smiling.
Old RPM Daddy at December 30, 2010 6:28 AM
My experience was very much like Jessica's.
Amy Alkon at December 30, 2010 6:47 AM
We might as well teach them how to build a meth lab!
Hey, that's a useful skill to have.
MonicaP at December 30, 2010 6:49 AM
"Hey, that's a useful skill to have."
Would that be Home Ec or Shop class?
Old RPM Daddy at December 30, 2010 6:55 AM
When I was growing up, my father was an account exec for an advertising agency. His biggest account was Peter Paul candy..you know it from Mounds, Almond joy and Peppermint patties. Aside from the crates of candy he was sent every month from his account, we also had just about every kind of sample from the competition. OUr basement was a veritable candy store.
But, because it was available to us 24/7...we had no interest. There was no novelty in it...and to this day, neither of us like candy.
The only thing the school district is accomplishing by banning sweets, is making them more desirable to kids. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that the school hallways should be filled with soda machines, but our country seems to be fixated on food as a reward, and if we don't break that cycle, obesity will become the worst epidemic we have ever faced.
jennifer at December 30, 2010 7:04 AM
Oh Amy, the childhood horrors you bring back to me. My experience resembled that of yours and Jessica's with one exception. My mother made lots of fattening stuff and really good fattening food but only for my dad and brothers. My sister and I were always told it was off limits. You know we'd never find a boyfriend if we ate that stuff. Bathing suit season was coming, etc. Those messages started in 2nd grade. So I'm sure you can imagine the eating issues I had!! Teaching to eat healthy is one thing but I don't think St. Louis is going achieve that through forbidding food. Anyone ever hear the story about Eve and the apple?
Kristen at December 30, 2010 7:06 AM
When a person or an organization is incompetent at achieving its primary mission, he/it will often react by focusing obsessively on trivialities which have little or no relationship to that mission. A classic if fictional example was Captain Queeg of the Caine, who turned his ship upside down trying to find a strawberry thief, in the middle of a combat zone.
david foster at December 30, 2010 7:15 AM
Holler's reaction is interesting, and demonstrates why policies of this type are so popular, and durable. She recognizes that a blind ban wont have much effect on obesity, but likes the idea that all of the children will have the experience of being lead like a dumb senseless mob. She feels that will be therapeutic, because it conveys some 'message' that she's associated with this idea in her mind. Though she has the material facts of the situation totally wrong.
But this sweets ban isn’t in service of someone’s power trip or some kind of skirt-length morality measure. It’s about health, living up to a promise the school made the kids a few years ago. It’s about acting as a group, using peer pressure positively, moving together as a group toward more healthy eating.
There's no promise, or pressure, or movement, this is simply prohibition. It's an administrative act, to be enforced by district employees, who are not the children's peers. There doesn't appear to be a larger program involved that's moving them as a group towards anything. So what she's imagining obviously isn't what's intended, or is going to take place. But she wants to defend it out of a sense of obligation to 'do something'.
tito jackson at December 30, 2010 7:25 AM
What a lot of unbalanced people there are in this world. Having a nice figure is fun, and so is eating junk food. Smart people find a way to do both, and it's called "being moderate and paying attention to what you're doing."
Kristen, I think I'd like to wring your mom's neck. It's one thing to encourage healthful eating, but that went way beyond being concerned about nutrition. 7-year-olds (only the girls, no less - !!!) do NOT need to be worrying about what they look like in a swimsuit.
Anyway, reading this article after the one yesterday about the little girl being suspended over the paring knife, makes me both 1) angry that people's taxes are used to pay for such nonsense, and 2) glad that I don't have kids in public schools.
Pirate Jo at December 30, 2010 7:28 AM
Old RPM Daddy: Would that be Home Ec or Shop class?
Chemistry. Think of the number of students that would enroll!
Patrick at December 30, 2010 7:42 AM
Some of the schools are asking that instead of cupcakes or sweets for the birthday, that a library book be donated and a sticker will be placed in the book with the child's name. Maybe I have bratty kids but I'm reasonably sure that when my son was 7, he wanted the cute little monster cupcakes I made for his class over some sticker sitting in the library.
Kristenw at December 30, 2010 7:49 AM
Kristen, I think I'd like to wring your mom's neck.
She'd love that. A thinner neck is always desirable, lol!
Kristen at December 30, 2010 7:50 AM
My kids would have little debbies in their lunch every single day if we went here, and when they took them I'd sue. Loudly. With daily calls to every news outlet. And I'd call the cops, every day, to charge them with theft.
And what about the kids who are underweight? Are they trying to kill them?
momof4 at December 30, 2010 8:07 AM
Positive peer pressure. Gah. Whenever you hear someone talk about promoting positive peer pressure, what they mean is that they're too weak-kneed to say to their kid "Sorry, bud, I don't care what Johnny gets to pack in his lunch. I'm not Johnny's mother." And so they need to make the whole little bubble, the school, the daycare, the soccer team, conform to their own ideas of parenting.
Jenny Had A Chance at December 30, 2010 8:27 AM
She'd love that. A thinner neck is always desirable, lol!
Bwaaaah ha ha ha ha! At least you have kept your sense of humor about it!
I think my mom was pretty good about serving us good, nutritious food without going overboard worrying about occasional sweets. She started getting fat, though, and although she complained about it CONSTANTLY, her weight always seemed to be something she had no control over. Either she didn't know how to control it, or didn't have the self-discipline. I was starting to pick up on the idea that your body is something you always complain about, but can't ever seem to do anything to change. She was always counting calories and would make a little progress, only to get stressed about something, snarf her way through an entire batch of cookies, and then put it all back on. She is still quite heavy but loves to point out people even fatter than her and feel superior to them. (It's very annoying.)
I got fat in college simply because I had no idea what kinds of food made you fat and which ones didn't. I had no idea how many calories I burned in a day or how many calories were in different things. I came of age during the 80s, when it was fat-free everything, so I thought it was okay to eat an entire box of Snackwells cookies because they contained no fat. I thought pasta was good for you. I thought cereal was okay as long as it was Cheerios or Shredded Wheat, and I thought steak and eggs were bad for you.
When I got into my late 20s, I was sick and tired of being fat. I educated myself by tracking my food and exercise using Fitday.com and took off 30 pounds. I think the educational value of it was the best part. Even though nobody knew about the low-carb stuff yet, it was pretty obvious that having a bagel with cream cheese or cereal really added on a lot of calories, but I would get hungry again right away. Having eggs and bacon meant a lot fewer calories and I would be full until lunch. I remember thinking, well, if cholesterol is bad for me, I don't care. I'd rather have a lot of cholesterol than these damned love handles. I kind of figured out the low-carb thing on my own, even though I didn't know carbs were the culprit. Turns out I don't need to worry about cholesterol anyway.
Pirate Jo at December 30, 2010 8:32 AM
This is really unfair to the skinny kids. My two have always been thin, even though they eat whatever they want. I don't keep a lot of sweets in the house, but I've never stopped them from eating cookies or ice cream, and certainly we had cake or cupcakes for birthdays. This is absurd and discriminatory to thin kids.
They should provide more activities. So many kids don't move anymore. My daughter took dance from the time she was 4, with practices and rehearsals at least 3x a week, plus she was a cheerleader so she got lots of exercise, and it was actually difficult for her to put weight on. Still, she was required to take PE, which really drained her. I finally got her excused from PE because she was already so active.
I guess the schools are afraid to give the fat kids more exercise because someone will hurt themselves and sue.
lovelysoul at December 30, 2010 9:00 AM
Well Pirate Jo, I can laugh now. I think we all went through food stuff with our moms, some better than others. And I had to laugh about the Snackwells. I have a friend who still believes that! Everything in her house is no fat. She's 200 pounds but sure she's on the right track!
Lovelysoul brings up a great point regarding activity. My kids have classroom gym now. Its designed to teach them about muscles and exercise but really is about as exciting as a anatomy class. I would much rather my daughter go in the weight room and work out than label a diagram in a classroom and never actually follow it. And let's not even get started on the fact that many districts have cut recess and gym classes to a minimum.
Kristen at December 30, 2010 9:22 AM
Do they also confiscate BLT sandwiches? I say fight back with bacon!
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2010 9:29 AM
"Call the crime scene techs! Good job, Fido!"
Your honor, you must dismiss the charges against my client, as the police - specifically Office Fido - destroyed the evidence! The officer ate the evidence!
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2010 9:33 AM
jeebus, more PC bullshit. Kids aren't obese because of what they eat, they are obese because they sit on their fat lazy asses playing video games. Good parents would make their kids get outside and do some old school playing every now and then instead of turning schools into gestapo training grounds, my god we are doomed
ronc at December 30, 2010 9:58 AM
What we should do is round up all the fatties and their little tubby offspring and put them in labor camps and only feed them 15 almonds a day. That'll show 'em!
Or. The government and its extensions (school) could:
1. Stop peddling bad science about what is good to eat and what is bad to eat. Giving people better information to make the right choices might help a lot of folks. Of course, I think this obesity issue is less a problem of knowledge and more a problem of feeling entitled to over indulge and refusing to accept responsibility for the fact that that bag of Doritos WILL make your ass lumpier. Like it's not their fault they're fat, see - it's always a thyroid problem or their genes (which makes it shitty for people who really do have those issues).
2. Stop micromanaging our lives down to the most minute, stupid details and invest the freed up cash to increase sex education and give out free condoms. Thereby reducing the teen pregnancy rate and consequently the number of kids we have to pay to educate (and later incarcerate). Then we can take THOSE savings and cure AIDS or build a colony on the moon - b/c we're still going to obliterate the planet with our fossil fuel dependency and need a continuation of the species plan.
Gretchen at December 30, 2010 10:19 AM
My mom made sure we only had cookies made with bran and wheat germ in them when we were kids. It sucked. We could eat Grape-Nuts or shredded wheat for cereal. Not even Cheerios made the cut. Never a sweetened cereal nor could we sweeten the stuff she did let us have. I almost OD'd on Captain Crunch when I moved out of the house.
My kid has had a slightly different upbringing. I have stressed variety and moderation and no specific food is off limits. I just try to give him awareness of sensible portions and know the difference between a treat and daily fare.
LauraGr at December 30, 2010 10:20 AM
Yeah, this school has gone overboard. But Holler's story implicates the Childhood Nutrition Act. That's not accurate. The Re-authorization of the act (which was passed in the '60s), does NOT ban birthday treats, bake sales, or treats in a lunchbox. This is an idiotic, overreaching decision made on a local level.
I am all for banning soda machines at schools and for regulating the food sold in the cafeteria. But fundraisers should be able to sell whatever makes the most money (my HS orchestra made a ton on donuts -- I doubt carrots would have sold so well). And eating birthday cupcakes never hurt anyone.
sofar at December 30, 2010 10:25 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/12/30/truly_loco_pare.html#comment-1811963">comment from roncjeebus, more PC bullshit. Kids aren't obese because of what they eat, they are obese because they sit on their fat lazy asses playing video games.
Best to avoid weighing in on what makes people fat if you get your information on it from CNN. Exercise, it seems, makes people hungrier. If you'd like to replace your misconceptions about diet with ideas founded on evidence, read Gary Taubes' excellent book, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, published just a couple of days ago.
Numerous readers of this blog and my column have dropped pounds like rocks falling off a truck, and without needing to exercise like mad (or at all, really). The idea that you are fat because you are gluttonous or do not exercise is wrong. Per Taubes (and solid science on diet), carbohydrate consumption causes the insulin secretion that puts on fat.
Amy Alkon at December 30, 2010 10:38 AM
Exercise is still important. This study shows it especially helps women keep off pounds in middle age.
http://gantdaily.com/2010/12/15/active-young-adults-stay-thinner-in-middle-age/
lovelysoul at December 30, 2010 10:45 AM
Exercise is important: It's hard to run and eat a cupcake at the same time.
Sounds like I had the only parents in the world who provided unlimited access to basically whatever I wanted to eat. They were raised during the Depression, so it didn't matter what I wanted to eat, as long as I was eating everything on my plate.
That has its own problems, but I ate terrible things like Wonder Bread and Cocoa Puffs and Twinkie knockoffs and have never really had a problem with weight. My rebellion was becoming a vegetarian for six years.
MonicaP at December 30, 2010 10:52 AM
Question: Is this law in any way tied into Michelle Obama's healthy initiative? I suppose it would have to be if her husband is signing off on it. I was defending her Michelle's position as simply encouraging parents and children to make healthier choices. But barring kids from bringing their own sweets to school is insane. Not only does it usurp the parents' authority, but it forces me to defend statements made by Sarah Palin, and I just hate that! Unfortunately she's right about leaving the food decisions in the hands of mom and dad.
JonnyT at December 30, 2010 11:13 AM
When I was a kid, my parents had rules for my sister and I like no dessert until we ate fruit, soda only once a week, only 2 cookies at a time, etc, but essentially we were allowed to eat stuff we liked and no foods were completely off-limits. We were allowed to eat sugary cereal for breakfast (it's not like the cheerios are THAT much better for you anyway); little-kid food like hotdogs, macaroni, chicken nuggets etc for lunch and dinner, and I don't think I voluntarily ate a vegetable until I was about 11. That being said, my parents had much healthier eating habits themselves so as soon as we wanted to try salad or steak or whole-wheat bread it was in the house and available for us to eat. Ultimately my sister and I both became vegetarians by age 12, I eat pretty low-carb, I will eat every kind of vegetable and spicy ethnic food out there, and I wouldn't dream of touching sugary cereal or chips or anything Little Debbie. And I don't have a problem with my weight.
I also grew up in an upper-middle class suburb where virtually no one was overweight-maybe a few chubby kids, but nothing like the obesity epidemic that's sweeping America. Kids ate oreos and Capri Suns and white bread for lunch, but they also had moms who cooked healthy dinners and kept the refrigerators stocked with fruits and vegetables (and nearby grocery stores where you could actually buy fresh produce), dads who coached their after-school sports teams, and big back yards to run around and play in. The obesity problem has major socioeconomic class roots, and that's not going to be solved by banning cupcakes.
Shannon at December 30, 2010 11:17 AM
My rebellion was becoming a vegetarian for six years.
I love that. My daughter wanted to be like her older cousin and decided to become a vegetarian. It lasted about a week. I made a sauce one day and she decided that my meatballs were too good to give up.
Kristen at December 30, 2010 11:49 AM
I wonder how much the district will be sued for after the first hypoglycemic kid dies or has serious brain damage from an insulin coma
lujlp at December 30, 2010 12:19 PM
How about the school eliminate soda vending and revamp the hot lunch offerings and then stress personal responsibility. Shockingly enough, kids can held accountable for what they shovel in their mouths.
LauraGr at December 30, 2010 12:27 PM
"I wonder how much the district will be sued for after the first hypoglycemic kid dies or has serious brain damage from an insulin coma"
The school district will blame the parents.
Old RPM Daddy at December 30, 2010 12:27 PM
IRA Darth Aggie: "The officer ate the evidence!"
I was going to make a donut joke here, but I decided not to.
Old RPM Daddy at December 30, 2010 1:00 PM
Yes exercise makes you hungrier. So does getting out of bed. How far do you want to take that? The best shape I've ever been in-looking and feeling-was when I lifted weights seriously and walked everywhere. Now I do lowcarb because eating meat is easier than getting to a gym at this point in life. Also, I love me some cow.
Also I am hypoglycemic so things that don't mess with my blood sugar are just better all around.
momof4 at December 30, 2010 2:16 PM
That reminds me of this. Perri Klass is a famous pediatrician/novelist. I'm a bit surprised that, as recently as 1999, she doesn't mention the
awful obesity rates in children, but then the mother in question is clearly an arrogant control freak anyway.
2000 James Beard Foundation Journalism Award Winner Magazine Writing on Diet, Nutrition, and Health Gourmet, November 1999
The Lunch Box as Battlefield
By Perri Klass
Once, in my older son's day-care class, a little boy traded away his winter coat (in Massachusetts, in midwinter, with snow on the ground) for an Oreo cookie. He was being raised in a white-sugar-free zone, so he monitored the contents of the other three-year-olds' lunch boxes with an attention bordering on obsession. He made his successful trade, and, of course, immediately ate the Oreo. At the end of the day, when the situation was discovered, the other child refused to return the coat. ("We traded, he wanted to trade, and he already ate my cookie!")
And, needless to say, the white-sugar-free mother had nothing in her bag that would pass as legal tender with any self-respecting child.
Eventually, after some intense parental pressure, the coat was repatriated. ("I promise we'll go to the store right away, darling, and get a whole bag of Oreos if you'll only tell us where you hid his coat!")
So the day-care center, prodded by Mrs. No-White-Sugar, came up with an idea: "Unhealthy" foods should be banned from all lunch boxes, thus
removing temptation from those children being raised along nutritionally correct guidelines. No more cookies, no candy, no cake, and, heaven forbid, non of those packaged things like potato chips.
I think things have eased up a little over the past few years. My younger son, who's four, now attends a day-care center that actually
allows "unhealthy" foods (or, as we call them, treats), though there is a rule, my son tells me righteously, that you have to eat your "healthy" food first. I don't have a problem with that; it is essentially the same rule we have at home, after all, and it can easily be gotten around by any child with a reasonable salting of sense and
slyness.
Still, Halloween can be a problem. I knew a set of parents who waited until their little girl was asleep on Halloween night and then went
through her trick-or-treat bag and substituted carob candies and granola bars for everything good - and guest what? She noticed! She complained about it to her friends, and these public-spirited parents suggested that the rest of us might want to practice a similar policy
of substitution so all the kids could have healthy stuff together.
I have a message for you all: Stay out of my child's lunch box; stay away from his plate! You are, of course, free to take the whole-grains-and-lentils route, or to raise your children to think that anything highly spiced is strange and icky and likely to lead to immoral behavior. It may turn out to be an extremely clever strategy, for which you'll pat yourselves on the back someday when you realize you've created adolescents who can act out full-scale rebellions merely by scarfing down Mounds bars. But you can't remove temptation from your
child's path by legislating what mine can eat.
It's a misguided idea anyway. The food choices that children will grow up to make have to be choices - if there is a food you don't want
your child to eat, she has to be able to watch someone else eating it without going into a frenzy. She may, if a food allergy is involved,
even have to be able to say, "No, thank you" to certain things.
But this is not really about nutrition. As with so much else along that fine line between child-rearing and child-interfering, we are really
talking about manners. Yes, of course we have to teach our children about food, about the rich and varied experiences of eating, and, yes,
about balance and health and sense, as well as about sensation and sensibility. But there are other important lessons to be learned over
the lunch boxes, lessons about eating as a social activity and meals as high spots in the day (not to mention the true value of an Oreo). And as far as I'm concerned, one primary lesson for kids and parents alike is this: It's rude to comment on what someone else is eating.
lenona at December 30, 2010 2:37 PM
jeebus, more PC bullshit. Kids aren't obese because of what they eat, they are obese because they sit on their fat lazy asses playing video games. Good parents would make their kids get outside and do some old school playing every now and then instead of turning schools into gestapo training grounds, my god we are doomed
Posted by: ronc at December 30, 2010 9:58 AM
______________________
True. What I'd like to know is, why do the parents who understand that "you are what you eat" CAN'T grasp that "you are what you do"? Especially in terms of mental development?
If you wouldn't let kids eat more than one big candy bar a week, don't think it's OK to let them have more than 10 hours of "screen time" per week either! If that. It is not "deprivation" when you don't let your kids have every one of the thousand or so types of junk food available at the store, so don't let them argue that kids "need" more screen time than they did in the 1970s days of Pong.
Not that getting them to enjoy your preferred activities for them is anything but tricky, of course. Jim Trelease wrote in "The Read-Aloud Handbook" that one trick is NOT to make books appear to get in the way of TV time. E.g.: "No TV after 8. If you want a bedtime story, fine. If not, that's OK too. But no TV after 8."
And, of course, they won't run around outdoors unless you like doing that too.
lenona at December 30, 2010 2:46 PM
Welcome to the chewy gooey center of soft-tyranny.
Reminds me of the drinkers who tease me because I don't drink much even socially.
Sio at December 30, 2010 3:56 PM
I think the comparison to Captain Queeg provided the best explanation. I've changed my mind about the school admins: I won't shoot them after all. Because shooting is too good for them. I'm now leaning towards years of slow, painful torture. We'll start with three meals a day of cafeteria food. And you only get 15 minutes to eat, and no talking.
Cousin Dave at December 30, 2010 4:28 PM
Pay attention. This isn't one school.
It's the entire freakin' St. Paul School District.
An entire city of public schools will be confiscating food from students' homemade lunches.
Unbelievable.
jimg at December 30, 2010 9:02 PM
"Exercise, it seems, makes people hungrier."
So what? Hunger has virtually nothing to do with the obesity epidemic that's sweeping America. You don't polish off an entire bag of chips or box of oreos or three Big Macs a day because you're *hungry*. At least every hour spent exercising is an hour not spent mindlessly eating in front of the TV. And I would venture to say that people who exercise have healthier eating habits. If you're serious about getting in shape or accomplishing fitness goals (like lowering your mile time, increasing your bench press, becoming a better soccer player, etc) then you're probably not downing the twinkies. I know that for me personally exercise helps me eat better-after a hard workout, I'm craving lean protein, not donuts.
Shannon at December 30, 2010 11:26 PM
I've posted here before about the people in town whose #1, overriding priority in finding a house is that it be within walking distance of their kids' school -- and then they drive said kids to and from school, every day.
Cousin Dave at December 31, 2010 7:50 AM
Actuall, exercise has been shown to suppress the appetite, not increase it.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/132725.php
Steve at December 31, 2010 10:16 AM
Shannon, I agree. When I was in the army and running a lot I almost totally lost my cravings for carbs of any kind. All that cardio was a natural appetite suppressant. Now if I start eating carbs, it just makes me hungrier for more, so it is best to avoid them almost altogether. I have found that actual sugar, in the form of hard candy or ice cream, satisfies the cravings much much more quickly and with fewer calories than eating something like rice, bread or potatoes which just seem to make me hungrier.
Isabel1130 at December 31, 2010 10:32 AM
How about sending a copy of the Eades' and Taube's books to every member of the school board? Maybe one will read it.
Or pull a Harry Potter -- send every member dozens of copies. Maybe they'll get the point.
Jim P. at December 31, 2010 7:26 PM
Hey, it's best to start early and brainwash children from a young age into thinking that the Nanny State is "the norm", that way they'll be completely used to the idea when they grow up, and won't know any other way.
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