So irritated by health nut who does PTA fundraising that is taking over food in our school
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Anonymous
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I have candy, chips around my house all the time. I also only offer healthy foods, they get maybe a handful of chips and I mean like 8 potato chips in their lunch and never candy. They always eat healthy after school snacks and whole fruit with their chips at lunch.
When they have friends over whose mom's restrict their foods, the other kids ATTACK the junk food like they are starving. My kids never touch the candy bowl that is now sitting in our front room. When my kids were young I got in an argument with my mother in law about candy and junk food, I was anti any junk or candy in my house at all. My husband was in a medical residency at the time, which included a significant concentration in child psychology. I did research on my own plus spoke with child psychology residents and professors. The overwhelming message from all professionals and data gathered was when parents excessively CONTROL food they set their children up for body image issues and unhealthy binge eating. I really do believe that to be true as my kids have gotten older, the parents that I know that are fanatical have impressed on their teen daughters an idea that junk food makes you fat, not an EXCESS of junk food but that any junk food makes you fat and so if they eat anything not healthy they automatically think they are fat and unattractive. I completely relate to the original posters comments, it is a pervasive idea that one way is "good" while any other viewpoint is "bad" that sets these kids up for all sorts of body image issues and as they get older. I really hate this area and the obsession with food, like others have said we do not have obese kids, but we do have obsessive and anxious kids... Neither obesity or anxiety are "gifts" that I want to pass onto my kids. so chill out! |
Anonymous
| I feel really strongly that they should stop serving so much junk food to kids in the cafeteria. Given the choice between buying a healthy lunch or buying doritos and ice cream, what do you think kids will choose? They are too young to be responsible for these decisions. (Decisions which, over time, can have a profound impact on their health. Eating crap for lunch also makes them less able to pay attention in afternoon lessons) In my view this woman doesn't sound like a nut, but someone concerned with public health. |
Anonymous
| Well, most concerned parents pack lunches for their kids. There's no reason to rely on cafeteria food. |
Anonymous
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What elementary school are your kids attending that sells Doritos and ice cream for school lunch options?
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Anonymous
| This thread reads like one giant OP sock puppet. |
Anonymous
I agree with your post 1000 percent -- except the nut is against juice at parties, not campaigning for better food for lunch. |
Anonymous
Yeah but all the poor and illegals need free food. 40% (and growing) of the kids in MCPS get free or reduced meals. Who is going to pay for them? Our taxes. |
Anonymous
Not OP but ours sells chips, chocolate chip cookies and those frozen juice pops. |
Anonymous
Kind of like how people with kids in private school (or no kids at all) are funding your kids' public school education with their taxes. Right? |
Anonymous
35%. And snort. |
Anonymous
My child's elementary school sells ice cream and pita chips one day a week. She is given free reign to choose and buy whatever she wants, my child buys the ice cream every once in a while. People that yipe about the organic healthy lunch options have not been in elementary or primary school lunch rooms. The lunch period is overcrowded and rushed. There is one person that is shoveling out the prepackaged lunches as fast as possible and most kids don't even get their lunches until it is 15 minutes into the 30 minute lunch period. The overwhelming majority of the kids getting the lunches are FARMS kids. If you look at what is packed in lunchboxes and the cafeteria lunch, nutritionally it is not that different. If anything the cafeteria lunch is at least heavier on protein which growing children need. My kids refuse to eat the cafeteria lunch but I don't think it's all that bad, there are only going to be so many choices available for prepackaged food, and it is just too expensive to run a lunch program like we had when I was a kid. If you read the original post you can see where the original poster was more concerned about the judgmental nature and how she saw this person treat her daughter. I also feel like people in this area are a lot of talk without really thinking through about the consequences of the actions. Kids are going to rebel against having every thing they eat monitored. |
Anonymous
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The other mom might be a lunatic (I take your word for it), but she has just as much right to advocate for healthy treats at class parties as you have to advocate for juice and cupcakes. Why not try to harness her enthusiasm and energy and ask her to consider compromise treats?
In our experience (mine and the moms of kids in my child's class), we resort to those stale grocery store cupcakes because they're easy and we are too lazy to think up something else. If we put effort into it, we usually try to pick something healthier for class parties. The kids seem to have fun whether it's cupcakes or those little packs of apple slices. They're just glad to have a party. So OP - I say you craft an email that thanks her for undertaking the task of evaluating the party foods, notes that a drastic change might be hard to push through and get the kids to buy into, and asks whether she has some thoughts for tasty but slightly healthier options. I think you'll have more luck limiting the fallout from her efforts if you try to steer her off-course than if you try to stand in front of her like a roadblock. |
Anonymous
I've seen the exact opposite. My kids have some friends that eat super healthy at home and some kids who eat junk once in awhile and some who eat junk most of the time. If offered fruit and chips the ones that eat healthy are the only ones that eat more fruit. The only kids that attack the junk are the ones that eat it all the time. When I ask what they want to drink the kids from the healthy house are asking for water rather juice. The kids from the house with free flowing junk want soda which we don't give out to kids. I also think some of the tendencies in kids that get it sometimes has more to do with taste. I have one kid that doesn't have a sweet tooth. If she gets a piece of really rich cake, she won't finish it. She'll pick water over juice but doesn't like milk very much so would pick juice over milk. My other kid loves sweets. She will always pick juice and would never leave a crumb of cake on her plate. They both were given the same foods as babies, toddlers, and eat the same meals now. They just have different preferences. |
Anonymous
Illegals don't even pay taxes. Why should other's taxes go towards supplying illegal kids with expensive healthy food? Sorry, they are lucky to be here in the US at all, let alone getting free food and education on America's dime. Did you see the Dateline undercover spot last week about illegals getting WIC and food stamps and then walking out and selling them for cash? But you go ahead and continue to feel sorry for them. Why don't you offer more of your income to them then? They will gladly take it. |