Lately I’ve been noticing how kids these days have quite a different perspective on food than was typical when I was young. In my day, going to McDonald’s was a treat. Today, kids do a pretty convincing vomit act at the mere mention of the place. I felt kind of sorry for my son’s basketball coach when his team reacted with such vehement disgust after he enthusiastically told them they’d get to go to Micky D’s on the way back from a game. Here he was trying to be cool and with it, but instead must’ve felt like all the kids were hand gesturing upper case L’s on their foreheads, extending them in his general direction. They went, but some kids, including mine, chose not to eat.
And this stance didn’t come from me. It’s part of the peer culture. A couple weeks ago I took my 11 year old son and his friend to Subway, right across the road from their school, 20 minutes before a school activity was set to start. The friend walked in, looking around like he had just stepped into a bizarre wax museum. Before they ordered he asked, “Is the food here organic?” Um, no. “Is it local?” No, it’s Subway, whattayawant? He wasn’t sure. Putting the pieces together here was a whole new experience for him.
A recent issue of “Educational Researcher” had an article on nutrition tied to academic achievement. The authors suggested that a deeply entrenched stigma of poor quality has been the accepted norm for school lunches for years, and big business contracts have kept cheap food (aka crap) on the lunch line. But gradually, people have taken stabs at changing this. Currently a local district is facing parental concerns that the food choices are too high in sugar and too low in nutritional value. The parents are becoming vocal, and have garnered support from key figures in the mayor’s office and on city council. The request is this simple line: Please serve nutritious food. All kids deserve it regardless of whether their lunch is subsidized or not.
And there’s the rub. For many children, 2/3 of their daily meals are free or at a reduced price, and school systems strive to cut costs in the interest of volume. Some of these children actually receive all their meals at school, as dinner isn’t served in every household. So yes, I’m willing to have my tax dollars go towards improved nutrition for these kids for the simple reason that they’re kids. They’re growing, they’re learning about food choices, and they can’t do it on their own. Just as I feel the school system should teach them how to write, I feel they should teach them by example how to eat.
And a cool thing about eating well is that there’s this added benefit of feeling good. Who doesn’t learn better when their body is well-tuned towards it? I have seen calm, quiet kindergarteners get out of control after their breakfast of sugar cookies (well, the label said “cinnamon rolls” but the actual item was a cookie with a swirl of cinnamon icing) and strawberry milk. When adults scold children for acting out after watching them pump themselves full of sugar, I just cringe. Bodies respond to what’s inside them, so let’s give kids some real power in the form of nutrition. If standards are the end all and be all, how about we legitimately address nutritional standards? Perhaps one day we’ll actually have fewer people taxing the health care system with bad-habit induced health problems.
No, don’t look away policy makers. Pay attention! The problem won’t go away by ignoring it or quibbling over immediate costs, which is the overused counter line. Yea, it’ll cost money. So does childhood obesity, diabetes, and a whole slew of health problems that will surely follow. Instead of digging a hole where nutritional value gets buried, why not build a garden instead and get kids moving and eating right? Quality in every way, shape, and form is worth it.
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