| There's a crisis in health looming in the West. It's | | | | - buy from a store on their route to school or -- |
| not just those poisons in the air. It's not only | | | | in some cases -- |
| because of the couch potato culture. It's not even | | | | - go outside the school at lunchtime to find |
| in our gross overeating, per se. It's because of a | | | | whatever is hawked at the gates or in shops |
| revolution in the way we bring up our kids to | | | | nearby. And they often have plenty of money to |
| choose their food. And the School Meals debate is | | | | buy what they wish. |
| just a part of it. | | | | Younger children tend to be given less choice, so |
| School Meals the Old Way | | | | they're more likely to get the intended nutrition. |
| I've eaten school meals now for over half a | | | | I've noticed, though, that in schools which allow a |
| century -- I used to be a teacher after I was a | | | | wide choice of menus, the actual pattern of |
| kid. And I've watched the food quality and eating | | | | eating can be very different to the intent of the |
| patterns of school children change radically. I know | | | | menu planners. Kids will pick what they want from |
| that, years ago, school meals were home-cooked | | | | the menu, given the opportunity, and if choices |
| on site, from high-quality ingredients. Meals were | | | | are limited to sets of balanced items, they'll just |
| always provided complete, and to a menu | | | | leave what they don't like. In fact, they'll behave |
| intended to be nutritionally sound by the standards | | | | just as children always have, given an open choice |
| of the day. Both in the USA and the UK, parents | | | | and no guidelines they're prepared to accept! |
| were determined that their kids would have a | | | | So the standard of nutrition, which is itself often |
| good mid-day meal, whether they were rich or | | | | very questionable, is no standard at all if the |
| poor. And it was so. | | | | children can circumvent it. The result is a range in |
| Until money and convenience began to count | | | | the actual nutrition that children get in their |
| more. Until children found that they had a real | | | | lunchtime meal, from excellent to poor nutrition; |
| power to choose -- including the power to choose | | | | not good, unless the child chooses well. |
| to eat badly. And addictive, high-fat, sugar-rich, | | | | And that brings us to the point of this article: |
| nutrient-poor food -- treats, really -- began slowly | | | | choice. |
| to dominate the average kid's diet. | | | | - Do children get too much choice, with too little |
| Commerce and the Bottom Line | | | | guidance on how to exercise it? |
| In the UK, school meals began to be contracted | | | | - Do they learn -- maybe by adult example -- to |
| out to the commercial world in the 1980s, with a | | | | choose what feels good at the time and succumb |
| price-led bottom line. On average, micro-nutrient | | | | to addiction, whatever the consequences? |
| quality took a big nose-dive. Some authorities | | | | - Do they get too little help in choosing wisely? |
| embraced the cost cutting enthusiastically, and at | | | | - Are they influenced by clever, expensive |
| least one county I know had to shut their | | | | advertising to crave and buy hugely-profitable |
| disreputable service because it eventually got such | | | | junk foods? |
| a small take-up. | | | | I reckon it's usually yes, yes, yes and yes. And |
| In the USA, it's been a more creeping disease | | | | that's why I think school meals are just a |
| since the 1960s, led by big enterprises like General | | | | symptom of a bleak future healthwise for our |
| Foods. They offered to provide commercial, | | | | young people. Choice without informed |
| processed meals at a good price point and to | | | | responsibility is no choice at all. |
| government standards under the School Meals | | | | The Future |
| Initiative, and harassed school boards loved it! | | | | The answer? Information and education, |
| Worse, from the Reagan years, vending machines | | | | presented well, so that kids will enjoy learning. It's |
| became commonplace and the quality of 'real' | | | | beginning to resurge in the USA and Canada, (see |
| school meals slipped further -- even ketchup | | | | the book Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We |
| became classed as a 'vegetable'! | | | | Feed Our Children by Ann Cooper). There's also a |
| But there are two issues here. First, what kind of | | | | strong groundswell of action towards improving |
| food was said to be 'fit for purpose' by the | | | | kids' nutrition that has been influential for some |
| makers, and second, what did the kids actually | | | | years in the UK, aided recently by a public |
| eat? After all, you can lead a horse... | | | | campaign by TV chef Jamie Oliver. In the end, |
| Nutrition and School Meals | | | | though, where are the major influences? I reckon |
| The US Food And Drugs Administration sets | | | | it's: |
| standards for its people's nutrition, as does the | | | | Parents, first -- as prime influence from an early |
| Department for Health in the UK. These are | | | | age, there's no stronger model for eating choices |
| based on what expert opinion says is a healthy | | | | as long as the parents are intending to influence |
| diet. Leaving aside what the experts themselves | | | | choice. And so it should be, unless this influence is |
| eat, you'd expect them to recommend for kids | | | | spoiling the health of our young people. Then |
| what research has told them is good for us. Or | | | | maybe the parents need some information and |
| would they? They won't set 'impossible' guidelines, | | | | education. |
| after all. Whoever provides it, school food today | | | | Advertising, second. Maybe I'm being a little |
| is restricted by three controls: price, nutrition and | | | | cynical, but it's probably accurate to say that |
| acceptability. | | | | effective advertising, with older children, is more |
| Too high a cost would be unacceptable to | | | | influential than their parents. It also influences their |
| parents, and there would be no point | | | | peer group's choices, which is another major |
| recommending meals which most children would | | | | influence on each one. I'm maybe thinking about |
| refuse to eat. Nutrition? Notionally, the food is | | | | long TV hours. |
| supposed to be complete nutrition, in case some | | | | I'm putting school third. Many schools try hard to |
| children are poorly fed at home. Standards creep, | | | | show kids from a young age the consequences |
| though. They move with the fashion of the times, | | | | of a long-term poor diet. This growing influence |
| and the current fashion for inexpensive meals is | | | | then has to weigh against the other, powerful |
| to eat factory-prepared meals in restaurants and | | | | moderators of young behaviour. |
| at home, with little actual cooking being done on | | | | And I reckon it's nearly too late for a large |
| site. In fact, today's young mothers and | | | | minority of our youth, because their home |
| short-order 'chefs' often don't and can't actually | | | | example is such a strong negative dampener on |
| cook food at all! They just reheat and present it. | | | | the excellent campaigns now being undertaken in |
| And such food is notorious for missing some key | | | | a lot of schools. If mom and dad, 240 pounds |
| essential nutrients. And acceptability? Well... | | | | each and currently enjoying life and (junk) food, |
| Choice Is Good. Right? Wrong! | | | | are hearing from their kids what sound health will |
| Choice is king today. Children can: | | | | mean to the home food choices, do you think |
| - refuse to eat the food offered in school, | | | | they'll support the message from school? |
| - eat only the addictive junk element of what's | | | | Not till their diabetes, arthritis and allergies get |
| available, | | | | linked to their diet in their own minds, I think. And |
| - bring an alternative from home (could be an ideal | | | | that could be a decade away, if ever. |
| meal or pure junk), | | | | Poor kids! |