(Continued from EdWorld At Home)
Welcome to a weekly blog by Yours Truly, the EdWorld
Parent. I hope this blogs for you. It might be for you IF ~
- you
are a parent who cares a lot about education,
- maybe
a homeschooling parent,
- or
maybe an education professional who knows that a kids life outside
school is an important factor in his or her education.
In fact, in my real life secret identity (when
Im not being the Super-Blogger EdWorld Parent) ... I have been
all three of those things: A parent, a homeschooling parent, and
an education professional, including being the editor of the venerated
Weekly Reader.
Im going to say a few things and link to a few
things, discuss what Ive posted on the Hey, Kids side of the
Education World At Home page (see
below), and hope
you respond: Without you, its not a blog. Well see what happens.
EdWorld
Parent Blog #12 May 18, 2005
The EdWorld
Parent BLOG: The Battle over Junk Food in School!
Do
you think junk food should be banned from schools? Share your opinion!
If you think the "discussions" you have with your kids
in the supermarket about candy and cereal and soda might be called
"arguments," well, the fights over junk food in schools
are full-scale conflicts, with parents, educators, attorneys, and
food industry PR people swarming around the schools like an epic
battle scene from The Lord of the Rings.
One problem we parents face, in addition to trying to influence
our kids' attitudes toward junk food, is having a good definition
of "junk food" in the first place. This
page from the Victorian provincial government in Australia offers
a pretty good definition and fleshes it out (excuse the pun) with
some strong examples. Basically, food is "junk" food if
its displacement from a person's diet of other foods risks causing
that person nutritional deficiencies or if the inclusion of too
much "junk" food (on top of an otherwise sound diet) leads
to obesity.
In other words, nobody would call a gourmet pastry "junk food,"
but if all you ate was crème broulé, or if you ate
a pound of it a day, you'd have a problem, and it would become,
no matter how well made, "junk."
Now, most of us outgrow what Jerry Seinfeld characterized as the
overwhelming childhood drive to "get candy, get candy, get
candy," but, let's face it, given a choice between butterscotch
and broccoli, most kids are still going for the one that's bad for
their teeth, not the one that looks funny when stuck in the teeth.
This makes kids the prime market for "candy, candy, candy,"
whether that means candy itself or just "candy" foods
like soda and chips. Since that market is legally required to be
in one place every day – school – the companies that
make and market "candy" foods have spent a lot of money
trying to reach into the schoolhouse.
And, given parents' already difficult fight against "junk"
food in the supermarket, you can understand why many communities,
even states, and now even our federal government and governments
in other countries have reacted against that marketing effort and
have enacted or expanded legal bans on "junk" food in
schools, or are considering doing so.
No Junk Food
is a California Web site dedicated to replacing "junk"
food in schools with more nutritious food. Commercial Alert, an
organization that takes on advertising that they say exploits children,
has a page that urges "Stop
the Sale of Junk Food to Schoolchildren," which includes
a link to legislation introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy. There is
also a Canadian effort to rid schools of junk food. Arizona
has passed legislation, though apparently soda industry efforts
were sufficient to stop
similar legislation in Oregon. An
overview of the controversy is available on "AlterNet."
A more detailed look at where things are in various states, legislatively,
on the issue specifically of Vending
Machines in Schools, is available on the Web site of the National
Conference of State Legislatures.
Just for a slightly weird experience, take a look also at Junk
Food News. This is simply a site, as far as I can tell, that
just loves junk food and celebrates it with industry news and with
pictures of world-record junk food: the biggest hot dog, the biggest
portion of fish & chips, etc.
Do you have problems with junk food and your kids? Do you have
any experience with the issue of junk food in schools? Write
to the EdWorld Parent and share your thoughts!
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