HEALTH FOOD NAZIS IN OUR CHILDREN'S SCHOOLS

[Anonymous]

Is anyone else shocked at how dogmatic and restrictive some schools have become about food lately? For example, cupcakes are banned on children's birthdays. Some entire schools ban anything with nuts from the school (no peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) on the grounds that someone might have a nut allergy. Or treating any candy as "contraband" to be confiscated. There's even a for-profit company, Revolution Foods, that has gotten into the act by selling high priced "organic" foods to schools at lunchtime. The infuriating thing about these "nazis" is that of course everyone wants healthy foods for their children. But rather than just leave it at that, these nazis want to eliminate all choice whatsoever. Rather than encouraging children to make responsible choices in foods, they want to simple eliminate all foods they don't like, including the comfort foods that have brought us joy for generations. And of course a parent who dares to even slightly question this health food/organic/no sweets dogma is ostracized.

Back when I was in school, we had cupcakes on kid's birthdays. We didn't get fat, because there was recess and we could run around all we wanted, none of this "structured activities" nonsense that takes the place of recess nowadays. It seems to me that SOME emphasis on health foods might be a good things, but now, especially at the schools with wealthy parents with way too much time on their hands, we get condescending, holier-than-thou attitudes, one-upmanship on rules and parents mindlessly following any drivel these food nazis put forward.

Is anyone else fed up by all this?

[Anonymous]

When we were children, food allergies weren't so proliferant.

[Anonymous]

No.

I am pretty fed up with people throwing around a label that applies to people who systematically killed 12 million people though. Come back when the federal government has killed 12 million children via food restrictions in schools and then maybe I'll be more sympathetic to your gripes.

[Anonymous]

When you use the word "Nazi" to describe unimportant things like one's opinions on cupcakes, you seem slow of mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we were children, food allergies weren't so proliferant.

Predominant. Not prolific.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we were children, food allergies weren't so proliferant.

Predominant. Not prolific.

1. The use of the word "nazi" in this context is offensive.

2. Proliferant is not a word.

3. I don't believe food allergies are "predominant".

Common, perhaps?

[Anonymous]

You folks never watched the "soup nazi" on Seinfeld?
When people mindlessly follow a dogma, and anyone who dares to ask questions is shunned, the result is oppression. No one has said that it's back to 1930's Germany in our lunchrooms but this is the exact same way that such an environment of oppression can begin and be allowed to grow.

[Anonymous]

The are not Nazis. They are nothing like Nazis. You are not the victim of Nazi persecution because of cafeteria food. Using such a word weakens your argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You folks never watched the "soup nazi" on Seinfeld?
When people mindlessly follow a dogma, and anyone who dares to ask questions is shunned, the result is oppression. No one has said that it's back to 1930's Germany in our lunchrooms but this is the exact same way that such an environment of oppression can begin and be allowed to grow.

No, when people mindlessly follow a dogma, the dogma includes oppressing people by restricting their freedom of movement, seizing their homes and property, and taking them to work camps where they are eventually killed AND people who dare to ask questions are also killed, that is the "exact same."

Maybe you don't understand the structure of argument by rhetorical implication, but when you refer to "Nazis" you are ipso facto bringing us back to 1930s Germany, because there are no other "Nazis." If all you are trying to say is, "I find the increase in restrictions on the foods allowed in schools to be the beginning of an environment of oppression that I fear to see grow," that is really all you need to actually say.

[Anonymous]

It's oppressive that we can't smoke in schools, too. I really resent that I can't light up when I go in for my parent-teacher conference. I'm sure teachers feel the same way. Back when i was a kid, you could smell the teacher's lounge all the way down the hall. Now -- nothing. It's crazy, I tell you. Just plain crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we were children, food allergies weren't so proliferant.

Predominant. Not prolific.

1. The use of the word "nazi" in this context is offensive.

2. Proliferant is not a word.

3. I don't believe food allergies are "predominant".

Common, perhaps?

Yes, I don't believe it either, I was just trying to tease out which incorrect words the PP might be combining.

[Anonymous]

Maybe it's because we are the fattest country in the world.

[Anonymous]

Despite having already responded scathingly (I hope!) to OP's asinine assertions, I will concede that I do find the cutting of recess (or the withholding of recess as a punishment) and the axing of daily PE to be at least as big a problem as the food that is served. I happen to think the food in most schools is shameful and just more evidence of how deeply our lawmakers at all levels are in corporate pockets, and I happen to also think that there is way too much junk food in elementary classrooms for "special occasions" that happen at least once/week.

[Anonymous]

School lunches are sickening. I can't imagine what the kids who eat breakfast AND lunch at school must feel like. Yuck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School lunches are sickening. I can't imagine what the kids who eat breakfast AND lunch at school must feel like. Yuck.

Sometimes just happy that they're getting food. You should see some of them on Monday mornings--it's pretty sad. No complaining, just silence as they wolf it down....