Ricky, you surely must remember your kids school lunch days?
Your own school lunch days?
Yes, I'm certain SOME things have changed but how much?
Why is your position so different now than it was when your kids (obviously fit kids at that) had to put up with the slop served? And did they ever take a sack lunch to school? If so how can you pretend the school district knows better than you on how to feed your kids? You state yourself how you saw first hand how parents would give their daughters crap to eat during a game, what if the school district regulated what kids ate during high school games as well? Maybe you give the girls oranges for half time? They say, nope, can't do that and they insist they eat say mixed veggies from their 10 year old can of crap wilted vegetables? It's that or nothing and the girls crash later in the game? It's the same thing here, the school knows better the kids eat what is put in front of them or nothing at all, and you have no problem with that.

and the claim you made that "most" parents support this principals position?
Where did you get that from? Some certainly do, yet those many articles I read seem to indicate just the opposite.

tom

If so how can you pretend the school district knows better than you on how to feed your kids? You state yourself how you saw first hand how parents would give their daughters crap to eat during a game, what if the school district regulated what kids ate during high school games as well?

Tom. I'll restate quite clearly. Some parents don't know what they are doing to their kids with their poor choices. In some cases these are obese parents repeating their own mistakes with their children.
I don't know about the "State" knowing better. I do know that there are responsible people who do know better. In this case 1 principal has intervened for the past 6 years. You haven't responded to how she was able to maintain this program for 6 years without parental support...

Whether these responsible people should intervene or How these "responsible" people intervene is the question. I feel that if someone doesn't intervene with many of these parents the children are doomed to have gone through their important growing years eating sugar and salt. Packing on pounds in preparation for low bone density and diabetes caused by poor diet.

The food industry have generally fought the moves to nutritional labeling tooth and nail. They have not been in the interests of their consumers health until forced. Who forced this transparency Tom? The State?
Transparency and education have made a move towards the general populace demanding healthier choices. However, an individual principal in Chicago, seeing the children who's education she is responsible for, acted to improve their diets. It would be interesting to have had the 6 year experience measured scientifically. Or compare her school versus others in terms of BMI and in terms of scholastic achievement.
But why this suddenly becomes an issue of Big Brother, or The State bewilders me... If you guys are so opposed to any personal action at a local community level AND opposed to Federal involvement in the food industry then what hope have you for actually enacting any positive change to your health crisis? After all, one of the reasons, amongst many, that the US has high health costs is the diet of the average American. Starting with all those fat school kids brown bagging Twinkies chips and pop.

Neal
I

continue to think an interesting route would be to get a few activist attorneys in a school district to represent all the fat poor kids that eat the free breakfast and lunches and sue the school district for harming the children.

yes. by all means, lets involve the lawyers. Thats always such an effective way of accomplsihing anything. By the time these kids are 18 the law suits should be before the courts.
And, what if the breakfasts are actually pretty healthy? (Have you looked at the nutritional value of Mcdonalds breakfasts, or the average bowl of cereal that many kids eat?)

ARJ, we gave up since our kids brown bag 90% of the time.

I have now looked at the town web site. There is an emphasis on low fat food, but not an emphasis on low sugar. For example, both skim milk and fruit juice are recommended even though 1% milk is much more healthy than fruit juice. Most current research endorses good fats / less sugar as a better way to fight obesity since fat fills you up whereas sugar does not. It seems that the feds and state school departments are stuck in 20 year old research that emphasized low fat and have not adjusted their view to scientific research over the last 15 years.

RJ

The principal in this case does not require parental support, she is a mini dictator able to lay down the law however she sees fit. The heavy Spanish population of her school would also indicate a much more accepting parental base, these non-English speaking parents tend to avoid confrontation and simply accept what they are told.

If you think for even a moment that a school lunch will make any difference is a bit of a stretch.
To treat all parents and kids the same is beyond acceptable, it's easy for the school and it helps them get more funding, there is no way you can argue a principal knows better than every parent, and treating all kids/parents the same is saying just that. If I want my kid to eat better than the school offers, the principal has no authority to stop me from having my child eat the way I want them to eat. And honestly, if I WANT my kid to eat a box of Twinkies for lunch, that's my right and not the principals right to override. If the Principal is tired of seeing such poor nutrition being given to my child, then she needs to take it to child protection services, it simply is beyond their authority to be judge and jury and have any sort of authority over myself and my parental choices.

If I chose to beat my kids, the principal needs to report this to Child protection, she has no right herself to take my kids away from me, those other agencies have those rights, not the school.

Protect our children, but do so in the right way, not a mini-dictator deciding they know best.

and Ricky
You have ignored a few questions
1. What about the detention question?
2. What about the school preventing you from giving oranges to the soccer players and allowing mixed veggies only?

The science data on nutrition and causes of obesity is actually somewhat shifting right now. When they tried to hammer the low carb approach (think Atkins) they did several prospective studies (that's were you follow people forward in time, instead of asking them what they ate the year before, more accurate by far) which then showed that the Atkins group lost more weight and had equal or better blood markers than the typical western diet and several Ornish kind of diets.
Fructose in pure form and high dosage is a problem for the liver (pretty much metabolizes like alcohol).
The thing is that the whole topic is complex enough and the science not clear enough that i think it is a bad idea for government to claim it knows better and mandate contents of foods, or force kids to eat their "optimized" food in the cafeteria.
I'm quite aware that some parents are probably feeding their kids worse than the school would, but what about those whose parents take the time to make an informed decision ?

Faxmonkey wrote:I'm quite aware that some parents are probably feeding their kids worse than the school would, but what about those whose parents take the time to make an informed decision ?

Not good enough. The government must inform a uniform standard. Parents can't be trusted to know anything and all children must be protected from their parents.

Sometimes I read what Ricky and others write and wonder what they would have thought if THEY were forced to go to government training to raise their kids, or prohibited from feeding their kids, etc. I don't think they would be so in favor of government intrusion if it applied to them.