State determines preschooler's home packed lunch not good enough... supplements with chicken nuggets meal/or four year old doesn't like bag lunch

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

DG,

I thought about it and figured a way to change the title without removing the original. Please take a look.

[automne]

Things I have learned from reading this thread: Americans really are insane about the government interference crap.

That.

and

sorry for the intrusion into this (North)American debate.

I cringed when I read the post about the kid who got every day butter & sugar sandwiches for lunch. The people who worked in that school and failed to notice or didn't give a damn should be ashamed.

Or maybe I don't get. They only respected the kid's parents' freedom of choice.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

DG,

I thought about it and figured a way to change the title without removing the original. Please take a look.

I don't know, Scot. Even in that very first article you link, the mother days this: "She came home with her whole sandwich I had packed, because she chose to eat the nuggets on the lunch tray, because they put it in front of her," her mother said. "You're telling a 4-year-old. 'oh. your lunch isn't right,' and she's thinking there's something wrong with her food." Emphasis mine. That's still not quite what you have had in your title.

Even then, it's usually a good idea IMO to fix factual errors in headlines, or at least bring the new one to the front. So "B, was A", or if you have to "A, now B", not "A/B".

If you really are concerned about being accused of artificially cleaning up your title, you could always add the old one and a justification for it as an addendum to your original post.

[kairparavel]

Um, the 'state' didn't determine jack. How about just being honest in your thread title? Crazy as it sounds. :rolleyes:

Or you know, '40 year old lawyer in South Carolina sucked into sensationalism and overreacts to dubious claims without fact checking because big scary nanny government is scary and a meaniehead.'

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Kair,

The State is a corporate entity as such the State may only act through its agents. Someone authorized to enforce regulations such as those at issue here are agents of the State. Therefore, in my opinion, State in the title is accurate as is, more than likely, your remaining assesment of my thread and my reasons for starting it.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

That.

and

sorry for the intrusion into this (North)American debate.

I cringed when I read the post about the kid who got every day butter & sugar sandwiches for lunch. The people who worked in that school and failed to notice or didn't give a damn should be ashamed.

Or maybe I don't get. They only respected the kid's parents' freedom of choice.

This was approximately 25 years ago in Virginia. Trust me, there was no oversight. I have clear memories regarding the absolute foul disgustingness of cafeteria food at that time (sloppy joes of mystery meat, pizza in various stages of hardening cardboardness, stale taco shells, the ubiquitous jello with a squirt of glutinous whipped cream on top). My mother packed us a brown bag lunch every day. To my memory, It included a sandwich (ham or, and I know you will all be horrified, but don't worry, my mother gave me leave to bring it up in therapy, salami, and cheese), a piece of fruit (apple, pear, plum, grapes, whatever), pretzels or nuts (usually cashews) and some sort of drink, I think usually water because I hated juice of all kinds and couldn't drink milk, in a thermos (the thermos was crucial, what decorated your thermos was central to your identity). Even more shocking, when I got home from school, I was allowed 2 cookies as part of my snack (usually oreos or pecan sandies). I'm surprised child services weren't called, but it was a different time, and you know, in comparison to the butter and sugar sandwich, I was doing pretty well.

[TrackerNeil]

My experience, with two kids of my own and with two stepkids, is that their eating habits vary wildly. My stepson will eat just about anything. And constantly. My daughter is pretty good too. My son, 11, until very recently, was picky as hell. We could not get him to eat much, and he was underweight. In the last few months, that all flipped, and he now eats constantly. But until then, he'd eat absolutely nothing, sometimes for a whole day, if he didn't like something. So it became "what will you eat", and I'd get that. Still didn't work all the time, though.

My stepdaughter, 19, is a nightmare. She's never eaten meat, and seems to subsist largely on Flaming Hot Cheetos. I've begged her to tell me what she wants me to get at the grocery store for her to eat, and usually, it's the Cheetos. She tends to eat out with her friends fairly regularly, so I'm not too concerned.

This is the kind of thing that makes me glad I do not have children. I am not a picky eater and wasn't even in childhood, and I can't imagine coping with one (or more).

I wonder...how do the parents here feel about schools serving junk food? I never understood why cafeterias need to sell chicken nuggets, pizza or cheesesteaks. I don't suggest school districts hire a chef to produce a Thai-French fusion menu, but there has to be something in the middle. If I had kids, I don't think I'd relish the notion of them having daily access to junk food.

[Tempra]

This is the kind of thing that makes me glad I do not have children. I am not a picky eater and wasn't even in childhood, and I can't imagine coping with one (or more).

I wonder...how do the parents here feel about schools serving junk food? I never understood why cafeterias need to sell chicken nuggets, pizza or cheesesteaks. I don't suggest school districts hire a chef to produce a Thai-French fusion menu, but there has to be something in the middle. If I had kids, I don't think I'd relish the notion of them having daily access to junk food.

I imagine school food is so unhealthy because they are given a limited budget to work with. You can make healthy chicken nuggets, pizza, cheesesteaks, etc, if you can buy quality ingredients. Did you watch Jamie Oliver's food revolution a few years back? One of the biggest problems he faced while introducing healthy food into the school was keeping the cost within the school's budget. IIRC, he couldn't get the cost anywhere close to the school's budget.

[Whitestripe]

I wonder...how do the parents here feel about schools serving junk food? I never understood why cafeterias need to sell chicken nuggets, pizza or cheesesteaks. I don't suggest school

districts hire a chef to produce a Thai-French fusion menu, but there has to be something

in the middle. If I had kids, I don't think I'd relish the notion of them having daily access to junk

food.

Cafeteria food is gross and that is why we pack

lunches. My kids are allowed to buy lunch once week, and that is usually Friday. Friday is pizza day. I figure they eat pretty well most of the time so one day of a junk lunch isn't going to kill them. Besides that, I always tell them to pick a healthy thing to go w/ the pizza. They offer raw baby carrots in little bags that my kids like.

Besides, half the time, Henry picks the salad plate option. I make sure that I send a fruit as a morning snack on pizza days. The kids have asked to buy lunch on additional days and I

always say no. To be honest, I'm more concerned about the chocolate milk that they get than the pizza. That stuff is horrible!

Henry is extremely small for his age, and I have, since he was born, been super-vigilant about

nutritious food and good calories. Delia gets the same treatment (even though she is a normal size, although shacks super skinny) just because I tend to feed them the same things.

Edit for wacky phone

things.

[scotcat]

This is the kind of thing that makes me glad I do not have children. I am not a picky eater and wasn't even in childhood, and I can't imagine coping with one (or more).

I'm the same. my mum could have given me anything and i would've eaten it.

My youngest nephew is a terrible eater and it drives me mental. Actually, what drives me mental is that he wants to eat what he wants to eat and not whats best for him e.g. crisps, sweets and cakes. My sister in law tries to give both the boys balanced packed lunches but not long ago the school sent a letter home stating that the one little biscuit he had in his lunch - which also consisted of fresh fruit, veg, fruit juice and a sandwich - was inappropriate.

The schools, the ones in my area anyway, have a limited range of awful food - some of which is junk food - but the parents can't put one biscuit in their child's lunch box?

[awesome possum]

I wonder...how do the parents here feel about schools serving junk food? I never understood why cafeterias need to sell chicken nuggets, pizza or cheesesteaks. I don't suggest school districts hire a chef to produce a Thai-French fusion menu, but there has to be something in the middle. If I had kids, I don't think I'd relish the notion of them having daily access to junk food.

It's as Tempra said, school budgets just can't afford it. Combine that with children being notoriously picky eaters and they're more likely to eat the junk and not spend the rest of the afternoon going crazy due to hunger.

[Shryke]

I imagine school food is so unhealthy because they are given a limited budget to work with. You can make healthy chicken nuggets, pizza, cheesesteaks, etc, if you can buy quality ingredients. Did you watch Jamie Oliver's food revolution a few years back? One of the biggest problems he faced while introducing healthy food into the school was keeping the cost within the school's budget. IIRC, he couldn't get the cost anywhere close to the school's budget.

The kind of shit in question is also low skill food. It comes in a freezer bag, you put it in a deep fryer or oven and probably just press a pre-set button.

Cheap to buy, cheap to prepare, kids will eat it. Ugh.

[Guest Raidne]

Kair,

The State is a corporate entity as such the State may only act through its agents. Someone authorized to enforce regulations such as those at issue here are agents of the State. Therefore, in my opinion, State in the title is accurate as is, more than likely, your remaining assesment of my thread and my reasons for starting it.

Scott, the "agent" at issue here was an academic brought in for development and educational purposes by the state. Their title on the academic project is "inspector." The person is a PhD researcher with Chapel Hill. They were hired by the school. That person is NOT a government agent. No state action was undertaken on the day that the four year old who won't eat vegetables decided not to eat her lunch in favor of chicken nuggets.

[Guest Raidne]

Failed to notice tongue planted firmly in cheek.

(although I really did buy the wrong kind of bread.)

Yeah, that was kind of trolling, sorry. My point really was to point out to Scott how criminally misleading and sensationalistic this thread title is. Maybe I should start a thread titled "Santorum tells women to get back in the kitchen vs. his wife wrote that chapter."

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I wonder...how do the parents here feel about schools serving junk food? I never understood why cafeterias need to sell chicken nuggets, pizza or cheesesteaks. I don't suggest school districts hire a chef to produce a Thai-French fusion menu, but there has to be something in the middle. If I had kids, I don't think I'd relish the notion of them having daily access to junk food.

Yeah, I agree with that. But at least I can accept the idea that the state should have control over the food the state/schools actually provides. I can accept whatever the democratic will is on that, because it is the taxpayers footing the bill.

By the way, this is from the one article, which demonstrates, at least to me, a conceptual flaw in the policy itself:

The mother, who doesn’t wish to be identified at this time, says she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch.

The mother says the girl was so intimidated by the inspection process that she was too scared to eat all of her homemade lunch. The girl ate only the chicken nuggets provided to her by the school, so she still didn’t eat a vegetable.

The mother says her daughter doesn’t like vegetables and – like most four year olds – will only eat them at home under close supervision.

In an interview with the Civitas Institute the mother said “I can’t put vegetables in her lunchbox. I’m not a millionaire and I’m not going to put something in there that my daughter doesn’t eat and I’ve done gone round and round with the teacher about that and I’ve told her that. I put fruit in there every day because she is a fruit eater. Vegetables, let me take care of my business at home and at night and that’s when I see she’s eating vegetables. I either have to smash it or tell her if you don’t eat your vegetables you’re going to go to bed.”

Government regs simply do not account for these kind of kid-specific issues, because maybe a child only likes certain, very limited fruit. You've got some kids who don't like milk, but dammit, the state says every kid must have mild so by god, they're going to be handed milk. They need a vegetable (or fruit) so dammit, here are the green beans and peach, though you don't like and won't eat either. It just exemplifies that mindset that government bureaucrats setting

black letter rules are more likely to result in better actual decisions being made at the individual level than the average parent. I think that's wrong.

The issue has been raised about kids getting nothing but a bag of potato chips for lunch, and the effect that might have. Is this really common? I mean, I sat at a lot of school lunch tables, and I don't ever remember seeing that. Sure, there's a possibility that might happen. But isn't inspecting every child's lunch to make sure it conforms to state guidelines a significant overreaction and intrusion for a scenario that is going to occur very rarely?

[Whitestripe]

Raids: No worries.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Raidne,

You say that like I'd have any desire to defend Santorum.

If the researcher is hired by the school, an arm of the State, and empowered to enforce the regs in question, it is State action, in my opinion.

[Guest Raidne]

FLOW, the policy here with the certified pre-K program, offered to qualified low-income children who can't afford private pre-K, is to require a grain, protein, dairy, and 2 fruits/vegetables, in whatever combination. The lunch here met the guidelines. Of course, the "inspector" brought in here wasn't from the state, but from an academic program that uses it's own assessment tool which has variances, and their findings support the inclusion of a vegetable, so that was included in the educational session, even though it's not necessary to meet the pre-K guidelines from the state.

ETA: Scott, the researcher did not "enforce" anything any more than the operators of Uncle John's Cider Mill or the local maple syrup farm "enforced" a policy of first graders knowing how local food products of Michigan are produced.

[Isalie]

Your world and your concerns seem so alien at times :D

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

FLOW, the policy here with the certified pre-K program, offered to qualified low-income children who can't afford private pre-K, is to require a grain, protein, dairy, and 2 fruits/vegetables, in whatever combination.

I understand that, but I don't see how that is substantively any different from a kid attending a "certified" kindergarten, first grade, etc., which governments also control to the same degree. I suppose maybe the fact that it's a voluntary program.

I just think the logic is messed up. I don't doubt the good intentions of everyone involved. But this illustrates to me one of the structural problems governments have, which is the requirement to draw bright line rules for consistency and clarity. The problem is that such bright-line rules also lead to instances of inflexibility and a lack of common sense in the particular situation. Just because it is conceptually a good thing for kids to have all four of those food groups at each meal does not mean that a regulation mandating that is a good idea. Kids are such individual people, with individual likes, dislikes, etc., that they need to be dealt with more flexibly, and the legal requirement that all four food groups be provided at this particular meal seems to ignore that.

Little kids in particular tend to have a lot of trust in their parents that they are trying to do good for them, and that is important to maintain. It gives that kid a sense of security that is important. When a school essentialy tells that kid that "your mom isn't giving you properly nutritious food", or at least "we don't trust your mom to give you proper food", I don't think that's a good thing. Certainly, not worth the off chance that some oddball, somewhere, is going to send a kid to school with just a bag of chips for lunch.

I mean, it seems to me that a lot of us here survived our mom's packing our lunches, and we're not the worse for wear.