The Newark Star Ledger reports that sometimes the argument about whether junk food should be allowed in public schools isn’t just played out in legislatures and school board meetings. Sometimes, these arguments take place in those oases of civility called PTO meetings…
Such a thing happened in Millburn, NJ, when one mom argued that because of obesity concerns, the school district should ban the bringing in of cupcakes and candy by children to celebrate their birthdays. This followed an unsuccessful pilot program engineered by this same parent that had the local Whole Foods catering healthier lunches in the school cafeteria; it was unsuccessful because the kids preferred the old, less healthy stuff.
The other parents told the mom that if she didn’t want her kid eating junk food, she should teach her kid to show a little self-discipline. And the school superintendent said there were ,more important things to worry about, and dismissed the whole issue.
Such a thing happened in Millburn, NJ, when one mom argued that because of obesity concerns, the school district should ban the bringing in of cupcakes and candy by children to celebrate their birthdays. This followed an unsuccessful pilot program engineered by this same parent that had the local Whole Foods catering healthier lunches in the school cafeteria; it was unsuccessful because the kids preferred the old, less healthy stuff.
The other parents told the mom that if she didn’t want her kid eating junk food, she should teach her kid to show a little self-discipline. And the school superintendent said there were ,more important things to worry about, and dismissed the whole issue.
- KC's View:
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It seems to us that part of the problem is that celebratory cupcakes are seen as the issue. They’re not. After all, if the class has, say, 20 kids in it, that’s maybe 20 cupcakes a year…let’s say, at most, two a month.
Two cupcakes a month isn’t going to kill you; it isn’t even really bad for you.
Now, two cupcakes a day would be a bigger problem – but that’s not as issue that is addressed by a birthday cupcake ban.
Teaching smart eating habits isn’t about denial. It is about common sense and a little self-discipline.
That said, we actually admire the parent for the Whole Foods lunch program. And we think the rotten little kids should have been forced to eat the veggie lasagna, turkey sloppy joes, organic turkey hot dogs and black bean burritos that were being provided to them, as opposed to being allowed to go back to the old slop. (Okay, we’re making an assumption here. Maybe it wasn’t slop. Maybe it was just tasteless, mediocre, almost-food. But seeing as we’re talking about a school cafeteria, we figured the odds were on our side…)
