Should schools strictly regulate diets?

[Lagmonster]

I've heard recently that schools are removing junk food in vending machines and limiting high-fat foods from cafeteria lunch menus.

So would it be wrong to grant the authority to the school to further regulate students' diets, by confiscating junk foods brought from home, prohibiting students from leaving school at lunch to go to fast food restaurants, or otherwise penalizing students for eating too much junk food (much as a parent might given an interest in their children's dietary habits)?

Forgive me if some schools already do this (I'm certain private boarding schools often do), but to my knowledge despite a growing concern about childhood obesity nothing to this extent is being enforced in public schools. For that matter, what should be the limits to which schools should be allowed, at their discretion or that of the parents perhaps, to encourage healthy lifestyles?

[Feil]

Schools already confiscate non-edible things that they feel to be hazardous to students' health or detrimental to learning. I see no significant difference here.

Students shouldn't leave campus for lunch anyway. It's hard for the school to assume parental duties for the duration of the school day if the student isn't in the school for part of that day.

[Davis 51]

I've heard recently that schools are removing junk food in vending machines and limiting high-fat foods from cafeteria lunch menus.

So would it be wrong to grant the authority to the school to further regulate students' diets, by confiscating junk foods brought from home, prohibiting students from leaving school at lunch to go to fast food restaurants, or otherwise penalizing students for eating too much junk food (much as a parent might given an interest in their children's dietary habits)?

Forgive me if some schools already do this (I'm certain private boarding schools often do), but to my knowledge despite a growing concern about childhood obesity nothing to this extent is being enforced in public schools. For that matter, what should be the limits to which schools should be allowed, at their discretion or that of the parents perhaps, to encourage healthy lifestyles?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Start by acually offering healthy food in school cafeteria's. It's no better than fast food, and damned if that grease-saturated stuff doesn't taste like shit. Then you can start confiscating junk-food.

Until that happens, The school shouldn't be allowed to confiscate food from the students unless they are eating it in class without the teachers permission.

At least, in my area, the childhood obsity concern seems largely overblown. You might see one in, oh, say 20 kids that can actually be considered obese.

[Lord Woodlouse]

No. Not with the aim of regulating diets, it's none of their business.

What they CAN do is have physical education programs designed with an emphaisis on working out and keeping healthy, and what they CAN do is make sure the canteens have healthy alternatives available. If they confiscate junk food brought in it should be as part of a universal rule to cut down on mess and litter around school, and should apply to any and all food stuffs brought in and eaten outside of the canteen. If a kid (well, parent) wants to bring in their own packed lunch filled with whatever fatty evils they want in it they should be able to eat it, in the canteen.

[mjn6172]

We already do a lot of that at the school I work at. Students are not allowed to leave campus during lunch unless a parent comes to sign them out, but that's more of a safety issue than anything else. The one drink machine we have for students sells bottled water and 100% fruit juices, not even gatorade or things like that. What we sell at lunch has been getting healthier over the years, we no longer sell snack cakes or potato chips although we do still sell slices of pizza. We also (just last year) stopped the candy sale fundraisers, so no one on campus should have any access to candy.

I don't know how far we can go with regulating what students bring to school for lunch. If a parent packs a candy bar into the students lunch bag, I'm not sure we should be able to take it away from them. All we can do is regulate what we as a school make available to the students.

[mjn6172]

Ghetto Edit, since Lord Woodlouse posted while I was writing mine and brought up two subjects I meant to touch on.

We do confiscate anything students are eating in the hallways between classes, although like you said that has more to do with cutting down on litter than stopping the students from eating candy.

The state of Florida requires 1.5 credits of PE to graduate. 1/2 credit of Life Management (basically health, focusing mainly on drugs/diseases), 1/2 credit of Personal Fitness (part gym and part health, focusing mainly on nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle), and 1/2 credit of any other PE class (here we offer Individual Sports, Team Sports, and Weightlifting. Playing 3 years on a varsity sports team can replace this requirement.) Personally, I think our students could do with more physical activity, but that needs to come more from home than from the schools.

[Pick]

I wish that the schools would just offer healthier meals. I remember at my old high school, there wasn't a single option that would be considered healthy by any sane person. Even the salads had tons of cheese and dressing already interspersed throughout. I had to bring my own food if I wanted something decent.

[darthkommandant]

My high school had "healthy" items but they were 5 dollars a serving while unhealthy items ie french fries were 1.25$ a serving. You can probabaly guess what people bought more often. Having all bottled water soda machines is a great idea though and I fully support that. It would be easier to have more physical education classes anyway to keep kids in shape.

[Setesh]

The basic problem is the school lunch food is mass produced for the most part and goes to not only schools but state mental hospitals as well. I had to live at the one my mother worked at for a week during a the Ice Storm (a week straight of freezing rain we got here in maine several years ago) the meals I got there were the same ones the patients got, and was identicle to the lunches I could have gotten at school. Though they got a free ice cream, we had to pay extra for ours I usually brought something.

[Zor]

Well, i remembered wacthing a show called Jamie's School Dinners, in which Jamie Oliver with his own cooking show on Food Network went into several public schools (using the proper definition of the word public schools (IE state/crown run schools offering free education) i don't fucking care if the British use that term to discribe Private schools for whatever reason they do) and overhauled the Cafeterias. He ntroducing healthier foods and having the Cafeteria staff actually COOK food insted of buying cheep prefrabicated crap (such as "Turkey Twizzlers") including reclaimed meat and such.

Personally, i agree with mr Oliver (mostly) on this. Cafeteria food is shit and kids deserve better in both quality of taste and nutritional quality and i don't trust parents to make the right desissions on matters of health. This insures it. As well, bottled juice (note that i said Juice, i despise the concept of bottled water) only vending machines would be a good idea.

As well, i think this idea should be implemented. Upon getting pregnant, woman (and there husbands) must attend classes teaching (among other things) basic nutrition (including resipee handouts) and the effects of obesety. That should also cut back on crap being sent in.

Zor

[Yoda]

I think schools should offer and encourage the consumption of healthy alternatives, but should not outright confiscate food deemed unhealthy. As long as the shcool isn't selling junk food, I don't see a problem.

As an example, my grade 7-8 school (part of a catholic school board, I'm an atheist but that's another matter.) there is a "Choices" class which deals with Healthy Eating, as well as sex education.

The Healthy Eating portion serves to educate students in mea selection, and healthy alternatives to common junk food.

What they eat should be the student's choice, if they choose to eat junk food, they should be able to ( to a certain degree).

[Uraniun235]

Apparently, one of the teachers at the high school has a student who will bring in and consume an entire two-liter of Dr. Pepper during her ~80-minute class. That's twenty liters of Dr. Pepper a month consumed in her class alone by this kid!

I don't know about the merits of leaving it to the teachers to police what snack foods are and aren't acceptable in their classes - some teachers just won't give a shit. It'd probably be more effective to simply ban anything but water from classrooms in general - hell, at the very least, I'm sure the custodial staff would be highly appreciative.

[Molyneux]

Having all bottled water soda machines is a great idea though and I fully support that.

Some people (me, for example) may have objections to the idea of having no other option than to buy what's essentially tap water (*cough* Dasani) in a plastic bottle for extortionary prices...

Maybe schools should just invest in a water cooler, or some kind of filtering system so they can just give the kids cups of icewater?

[Darth Fanboy]

Having all bottled water soda machines is a great idea though and I fully support that.

Some people (me, for example) may have objections to the idea of having no other option than to buy what's essentially tap water (*cough* Dasani) in a plastic bottle for extortionary prices...

Maybe schools should just invest in a water cooler, or some kind of filtering system so they can just give the kids cups of icewater?

AFAIK Schools generally have drinking fountains, why provide free cups of ice water if kids will pay for fruit juice/bottled water AND free water is already being provided.

[Molyneux]

Having all bottled water soda machines is a great idea though and I fully support that.

Some people (me, for example) may have objections to the idea of having no other option than to buy what's essentially tap water (*cough* Dasani) in a plastic bottle for extortionary prices...

Maybe schools should just invest in a water cooler, or some kind of filtering system so they can just give the kids cups of icewater?

AFAIK Schools generally have drinking fountains, why provide free cups of ice water if kids will pay for fruit juice/bottled water AND free water is already being provided.

Because a) drinking-fountain water is generally shite, and b) it doesn't come with cups.

I was unpleasantly surprised when I transferred to CUNY Queens that the dining hall actually has the gall to charge you for cups if you take a fucking cup of water from the soda fountain machine...I've never heard of that elsewhere.

[RedImperator]

Having all bottled water soda machines is a great idea though and I fully support that.

Some people (me, for example) may have objections to the idea of having no other option than to buy what's essentially tap water (*cough* Dasani) in a plastic bottle for extortionary prices...

Maybe schools should just invest in a water cooler, or some kind of filtering system so they can just give the kids cups of icewater?

AFAIK Schools generally have drinking fountains, why provide free cups of ice water if kids will pay for fruit juice/bottled water AND free water is already being provided.

As the school where I was an intern, all the fountains were shut off because the pipe connecting the school to the main was lead and the city was too cheap to replace it.

As far as schools doing what the OP suggests, everything there is entirely within their power. They can ban anything they want for virtually any reason, and they can prohibit students from leaving the building during school hours.

Enforcement is another matter. Plenty of teachers don't allow eating or drinking of anything except water to begin with, so keeping them from eating in class, but if a kid brings candy in in his backpack to eat at lunch, what are you going to do? The school doesn't have time or resources to create the Candy Police, and even if they did, I guarantee there will be a candy black market up and running the next day. And since as a general principle, I'm not much in favor of making rules you can't enforce, so overall I'd probably be opposed to this proposal. Keeping kids in the building during lunch is much easier (I'd never even heard of being allowed to leave the school to get lunch--how in the world do they get the kids to come back?), but keeping junk food out isn't worth the bother.

[Cincinnatus]

At my old highschool they're implementing something like this. It was a big controversy last year. The main thing people were complaining about was that selling junk food is how most of the student clubs made money, but they managed to work something out. I didn't see what the big deal was, since there are plenty of healthy things they could have sold instead, but that might have been biased by the fact that it was my senior year and I wasn't coming back.

And as for the closed campus rule, my highschool had that too. You weren't supposed to leave campus to get food, but people did all the time anyway, since there was a Jack in the Box 5 minutes away.

[Yoda]

Keeping kids in the building during lunch is much easier (I'd never even heard of being allowed to leave the school to get lunch--how in the world do they get the kids to come back?), but keeping junk food out isn't worth the bother.

At my grade 7-8 school, only those who walk to school are allowed to leave the grounds and go home for lunch. Considering these students walk to and from school every day and have every oppertunity to skip school if they so desire rather than walking, if they wanted to skip school, they would do it anyway.

Proximity is another matter; their houses are relatively close, so they are less likely to simply walk to a fat food "restaurant".

[Lisa]

mjn6172: you mentioned that food items are confinscated in the hall ways between classes. Are any special cases made for diabetics (or other similarly affected people) to grab a quick boost between classes with out having to make a special trip to the cafeteria?

[wilfulton]

The idea of serving fruit juice in schools as a healthy alternative to soda is largely bureaucratic window dressing. Fruit juice is really no healthier than soda, as it is essentially liquid sugar. Some say that diet sodas are okay, but I've also heard that the artificial sweeteners used in them can actually slow down your metabolism, again erasing any benefit you get from consuming fewer calories (in addition to the fact that they taste like piss).

I keep a bottle of water with me when I go to work, and that's my drink, unless of course I go to the DFAC (usually for breakfast only, but sometimes I'll go for lunch, if I'm too lazy to pack my own the night before).

Oh yes, and this is leadership 101, something the average teacher (in my experience) doesn't know the first fucking thing about. They are among the worst offenders as far as junk food goes. Most of them are fat (in addition to being stupid and ugly) and I lost cound of how many of them I see slurping sodas and snorting donuts. They can talk the talk, but how many of teachers walk the walk? Don't think kids don't notice that either. I mean, come now, are you going to take dieting advice from a teacher whose blubber sticks out farther than her boobs (yes I've had one of those, yes, she was full of advice, and yes it is mostly bullshit).

[Covenant]

I'm very much against the idea of confiscating food items from students, if only on the basis that this removes a great deal of the parent and child's ability to choose what they eat. Killing someone by offering only crap food in a cafeteria is bad, and they should offer healthy alternatives, encourage using them, and get kids exercising... but going in and manhandling me into eating vegetables rather than enjoying my cookie is only going to make me resent the authority in charge and it's certainly never going to do a damn thing to benefit my health.

If I'm eating leftover fried chicken with the skin on, two cans of un-diet coke, and go to buy a serving of those fried cheese logs and I have that for lunch each day--isn't that my right? As a student, should they actually TAKE my food away and force me to pay for new food?

The moment some hall monitor tells me what I can or cannot eat, they're saying they have more authority to make those decisions about my body than I do, and that's something I flatly refuse. Not only on the grounds that it's a terrible idea from a personal privacy and ethics standpoint, but who says these people know what they're talking about?

Now, however, do this: offer free fruit. Or let me turn in a Candybar for like a healthy sandwich. Let me swap my normal soda for diet. When you take away my bag of homemade cookies, you better give me something as filling that won't:

a) kill me from food allergies
b) fail to satisfy my hunger and gimp my mental and physical faculties
c) violate a religious diet restriction
d) mess with my medical condition, such as me having diabetes and now you've played havoc with my planned-out insulin schedule
e) be just as bad as the thing you've taken

...and so on. I see that nothing good could come of it. Offer healthy things. Make them goddamn dirt cheap so kids will snack on them. Tell kids about how easy it is to control your weight with just the smallest amounts of diet and exercise. But if I choose to eat a cookie because I honestly don't mind being a pound heavier than I could be, keep your hands out of my lunchbag and my mouth, if you would.

[Havok]

Back in the olden days when I was in High School I was forced to take a swiming class to graduate and P.E. was mandatory. Why shouldn't healthy eating have been forced upon me as well? Answer. Because eating healthy is more expensive than eating shitty and you can't discriminate based on financial status in public schools IIRC. P.E. and swimming were free.

[Trytostaydead]

Just of the flip side, my old high school and elementary school used to make some of the best damn burgers. They were actually thick and greasy, just the way they should be and I wouldn't want any younger generation being denied those same treats. Not to mention the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell carts.

[Zaia]

Apparently, one of the teachers at the high school has a student who will bring in and consume an entire two-liter of Dr. Pepper during her ~80-minute class. That's twenty liters of Dr. Pepper a month consumed in her class alone by this kid!

I don't know about the merits of leaving it to the teachers to police what snack foods are and aren't acceptable in their classes - some teachers just won't give a shit. It'd probably be more effective to simply ban anything but water from classrooms in general - hell, at the very least, I'm sure the custodial staff would be highly appreciative.

You were allowed to eat during class in high school? I was in high school from 1992-1996, and we weren't allowed to have any food or drinks with us in class.

My school system has been changing its cafeteria food policy in an attempt to combat childhood obesity, but also has begun to strictly regulate what foods are brought in to school for the entire class. I work in an elementary school, and birthday parties are the big thing--some parents last year brought in cupcakes, ice cream cups, cookies and sugary drinks for the whole class when it was their kid's birthday (all that stuff for one child's birthday). This year, we aren't allowing that sort of thing, nor are we allowed to give pizza parties or ice cream parties as a prize to the class that wins a particular academic contest. Parents are allowed to send goodie bags to school, but they can only have stickers, pencils, small toys, erasers, stamps, or other non-edible things. The parents aren't happy about it, but the ruling came down from the Board of Education, so there isn't much we can do about it.

[Darth Wong]

The moment some hall monitor tells me what I can or cannot eat, they're saying they have more authority to make those decisions about my body than I do, and that's something I flatly refuse.

The moment some teacher tells you that you have to exercise in PE class, they're saying they have more authority to make decisions about what you do with your body than you do. Is that something you flatly refuse too?

Kiddies don't have the same rights as adults. Accept it. If your parents agree that the school can tell you what to eat, then the school can tell you what to eat. Boo fucking hoo.

When you take away my bag of homemade cookies, you better give me something as filling that won't:

a) kill me from food allergies
b) fail to satisfy my hunger and gimp my mental and physical faculties
c) violate a religious diet restriction
d) mess with my medical condition, such as me having diabetes and now you've played havoc with my planned-out insulin schedule
e) be just as bad as the thing you've taken

Why? Because you say so? I'd say that if the parent sends a note asking the school to exempt you from this program, then you should be. But if you think the school should be obligated to respect your wishes just because you say so, you're dead wrong.