First Lady Michelle Obama's passionate crusade to improve nutrition for our nation's youth took a step back when Congress recently bowed to food-industry lobbyists and released a spending bill late Monday that deconstructs (pun intended) USDA proposals from earlier this year. Lobbying is a powerful industry that takes no prisoners as evidenced by food companies that make pizza, the salt industry and potato growers. These three suppliers to the nation's schools can envision their profits shrinking mightily if their products are eliminated or drastically reduced on school-lunch menus.
Tomato paste on pizza counts as a vegetable, Congress?
Even school districts are lining up to complain that the USDA proposed school-lunch requirements are too stiff, citing tight school budgets. Other politicized groups are arguing that the federal government should not tell children what to eat.
For argument's sake, let us assume that children know what is good for them and what is not-so-nutritious. Most children, given the choice between two meals, would look at a lunch of legumes, leafy green vegetables, fresh fruit OR a lunch consisting of pizza, potato rounds, and applesauce and choose which one????? I'm not even certain which lunch I would choose and I should - no, do - know better.
On the other hand, allow me to revisit the school lunches that the majority of Americans grew up on. My memory, which may be a bit sketchy, can recall hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, mashed potatoes with hamburger gravy and peas (my personal favorite), Salisbury steak, au gratin potatoes with ham, and - yes - pizza. There was even a teacher - fifth grade, I think - that prowled my childhood cafeteria forcing children to eat EVERYTHING on their plates. We called her "Old Eat-It-All". In recent years, the same ingredients have been updated into different forms with different names, but the basic foods are still present.
So, if millions of us grew up on these types of school lunches and this spate of menu offerings has been around for decades, why is obesity among today's children so rampant?
Three words: Lack of exercise, for one. The children of "today" get much less exercise than the children of yore. The proliferation of television, video games, and electronic toys has served as an exercise-reducer (pun intended) that knows no demographic or socio-economic boundaries. Children simply do not get the outdoor time that once was a given upon getting home from school. Once upon a time......watching television on a Saturday morning was considered a real treat.
While I am on the subject, suppose the Obama administration examined the cafeteria selections in our colleges and universities? Our nation's love of buffet restaurants? This issue does not begin, nor end, with school lunch programs.
Obviously, I am not a nutritionist and I do support reducing poor nutritive foods and additives in school lunches but I am not convinced we can legislate nutrition or common sense. The same millions of school children who receive some questionably nutritious food under controlled circumstances at school may go home to hours of easy-access snacks, sugary beverages, Hot-Pockets, Post-Toasties, Pizza Nuggets, candy, processed foods and fast-food dinners - maybe even breakfasts......if they get breakfast at home at all.
I'll stop. The soap suds are getting too deep even for moi.
Ancora imparo
