News Taffy

I never cease to be amazed that adults have no idea what constitutes a healthy diet and that they don’t understand that what they eat often dictates their health problems. This lack of understanding of the basic nutritional needs of the human body has resulted in sky rocketing obesity in our children and we sit by and refuse to change. Then when Michelle Obama tries to help our nation’s children become healthier, she receives waves of criticism from parents, school officials and more subtly, the food industry that supplies the nation’s cafeterias with so called food.

Recently, the House voted for a Republican backed measure that would allow school districts to opt out of the nutrition standards temporarily, causing the whole issue of school lunches to flare up again. Once again, school officials are complaining that children won’t eat the healthier food and they are losing money as children throw out good food.

Before you rush to take sides, perhaps you’d be interested to know a few details that don’t make the 5 or 10 p.m. news. The School Nutrition Association, which according to their website, “is a national organization of school nutrition professionals committed to advancing the quality of school meal programs through education and advocacy.”, helped Mrs. Obama push for the nutritional standards in 2010. Now they have apparently changed their collective minds. Why?, you might ask. Former members of the organization say that the SNA has come under the influence of several large food companies that provide most of the food for our schools. Take Schwan Food, a key member of SNA, which provides pizzas to a whopping 75% of the country’s school systems. Recently, food industry officials successfully pushed Congress to designate pizza with tomato sauce as a vegetable. I’d like to grow pizza plants myself, wonder where I can get the seeds?

Not all school districts across the U.S. have found the transition to serve healthier meals impossible. While admitting that children complained at first, they have found that children now enjoy fresh fruits and salads and baked chicken instead of fried. Here in Jonesboro, the local school districts report mixed results as well as acceptance. Studies are showing that the new nutritional standards are helping; a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report reveals that school based efforts which include more P.E. time and nutritional standards for vending machines on campuses along with lunch standards have led to a 13% decline in childhood obesity in Mississippi in the last 6 years. I’d call that a successful effort worth continuing.

Before you leap to criticize Mrs. Obama, perhaps you should consider what you are doing to help your own children lead healthier lives. In the U.S., we are stuck in a circuitous rut that we can’t seem to get out of. We demand the best medical care, but don’t want to pay for it; we want to eat whatever we want, without recognizing the consequences; we want a strong, healthy body without exercise. You really can’t have it all. Change seldom is easy and sometimes, we have to experiment to find what works instead of giving up on a good idea.