There is no question that there is an epidemic of childhood obesity in this county. Nearly a third of America's kids are overweight or obese. From 1980 to 2008, childhood obesity increased from 6.5% to 19.6% for 6-11 year olds, and 5% to 18.1% for 12-19 year olds. Given the fact that 30% of our children's food consumption takes place at school; it makes sense to control what type of food is available for them to purchase there. Most parents are glad not to have soda and snack machines on school grounds. Nutritional guidelines for school lunches are a good thing too...as long as they're not taken too far. Nutritious school lunches do not do our children any good if they're not eaten and a hungry child, off of school grounds, will eat pretty much whatever food is available when they arrive home. Concentrating solely on how our children fuel their bodies while at school is naive. And, there is another side to the problem. Our children are not getting fat just because of the food that they consume, but also because they are not expending enough energy. Schools across the country have been faced with $2 billion in cuts on sports and physical education programs. Recess and physical education are quickly becoming obsolete on campuses across the country. The NASPE recommends 30 to 60 minutes a day of physical activity for children ages 5 to 12 and yet the focus seems to be wholly on food and not activity.

Follow up:

My college, Cheryl Chancelor, wrote an excellent post in December on the 2011 Healthy, Hunger Free, Kids Act in which she discusses many of the ramifications of this new Federal legislation. Chief among these consequences are the effective increased costs of school lunches for districts which are expected to be $6.8 billion over five years on food and labor. In some cases districts will also be forced to purchase new equipment as well. When the district's costs increase, the cost of a school lunch will also increase making them more expensive for parents than packing a lunch for their children. When in some urban districts, like Chicago, 86% of the their students qualify for free or reduced price school lunches the cost in subsidies can be astounding. It seems to me that taking a more realistic view of providing economical, nutritious meals that kids will eat would free up some of the funds necessary to provide adequate physical education opportunities for every child.

But, this is not meant to be a discussion of  the pros and cons of how our scarce Federal funds are or should be spent to benefit the health and well-being of our children. It's not meant to question whether these regulations are truly being implemented for our children's health or for the benefit of powerful lobbyists for the food service industries. These statistics are given here only to provide background information in the face of what could become a truly scary trend. Not only has the government inserted itself into dictating what can and cannot be served on school grounds, but in some vaguely Orwellian instances, public schools like Chicago's Little Village Academy, are now banning children from bringing lunches from home; the only exception being children with food allergies. In Alabama parents are prohibited from sending drinks from home since the school provides ice water at lunch; in East Syracuse schools cupcakes and other desserts can not be brought to school; and at Tucson's Children's Success Academy lunches may be brought from home only if nothing in them contains white flour, refined sugar, or other processed foods. Really?

It is the business of our public school system to educate our children; including physical education and health...a job which they are performing in a wholly inadequate manner by the way. It is not the business of the public school system to take over child rearing decisions from parents. I am aghast that parents of students at these schools are allowing this assumption of parental responsibility to occur. In her article, Ms. Chancelor made what has turned out to be a somewhat prophetic statement when she wrote, that the legislation "has provided an opportunity for the Secretary of Agriculture to take control over everything that our children eat on school grounds. I am excited though, that for now...there is no mention of dictating what I can pack in my child's Scooby Doo lunchbox." If this trend continues it may well mean the death of the Scooby Doo lunchbox.