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Wake Up, Parents! Or Let Kids Run the Cafeteria
Suddenly a debate over chocolate milk in school is heating up in the pages of The Washington Post. Or should I say our hometown paper has finally noticed there’s a food revolution going on in D.C. school cafeterias now that a first-grader has polled his fellow students and found–shock!–they are not drinking as much milk as some people think they ought to since chocolate and strawberry milk were taken off the menu a year ago.
Post columnist Mike DeBonis sounds downright sympathetic to the plight of these elementary schoolers in affluent Chevy Chase, 58 percent of whom (according to a 7-year-old’s poll of about 100 school mates) are not drinking milk. But here’s the good news: Apparently, 42 percent of the kids are drinking milk, and that’s a lot more than are eating the green beans. 
No question: kids like chocolate better
Notice, this dispute centers on something kids love–sugary milk. Nobody is conducting any surveys to see how many kids are shunning the vegetables or whole grains the USDA says kids need more of to avoid becoming obese. Having spent the last year and a half monitoring what kids eat in my daughter’s elementary school here in the District, I’m here to deliver some bad news: obscene quantities of vegetables and whole grains are being thrown in the trash every day. In fact, I recently visited an elementary school cafeteria on Capitol Hill on a day green beans were on the menu. I did not see a single child in the lunch room eating them. But they were all eating the hamburger. (Quite a few were drinking plain milk.)
There is no real secret to all of this. If we allowed kids to write the school menu, it would follow approximately these lines: Chicken nuggets, Tater Tots, pizza, hamburgers, French fries, chicken nuggets, pizza, french fries, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, chocolate milk. Those are all things kids love.
Now, what are the adults serving instead? Bone-in chicken, whole grain buns, green beans, whole grain pasta, sauteed squash, roasted sweet potatoes, Caesar salad, bone-in chicken, plain milk. Which would you choose as the healthier menu? Would it surprise you to learn that the kids don’t eat it? Why do you think that is? But note, also, there are no adults in the cafeteria talking to the kids about the food. Nobody is marketing the new menu to the children who are supposed to eat it. In other words, the adults really aren’t following through to make this food revolution a success.
The real issue is not the sugar in chocolate milk. We already know kids love sugar. Look at the article I posted yesterday on the sodas and other sugary foods elementary school children bring to school from home. The problem is what chocolate milk stands for. More than any other item on the school menu, chocolate milk embodies our failure to pay attention to the way kids are eating, our surrender to a toxic food culture that embraces industrially processed convenience foods because they are easy shortcuts.
We teach children to expect sugar in their food, then we’re surprised we have an obesity epidemic?
Yes, chocolate milk pretty much sums up our failure as adults to engage children in the more difficult act of eating thoughtfully, our willingness too often to just let kids eat what they want. Getting children to eat more green beans and less candy is hard work. But nobody said it would be easy. More than any other item on the school menu, chocolate milk embodies our failure to pay attention to the way kids are eating, our surrender to a toxic food culture that embraces industrially processed convenience foods because they are easy shortcuts.
It’s high time we had this discussion. Hooray for first-graders researching the food question. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to bring back chocolate milk. It means parents (and maybe the Washington Post, too) need to pay more attention. If we want kids to drink more milk–and not everyone thinks that’s necessary–then let’s get kids to like plain milk.
Heck, while we’re at it, we could pony up some more money for electric milk dispensers in the schools–cool machines like the ones I’ve seen in use in Berkeley and Boulder and other progressive school districts–so kids can help themselves to as much cold, delicious, organic plain milk as they like.
There you go, Council Chairman Brown. Why not do a little research into how we might fund milk dispensers in D.C. schools so kids don’t have to drink the stuff in those cheap little cartons. I’m sure they would love pouring their own milk. And maybe if you offered kids really good plain milk, they would drink more of it. But that’s not going to happen as long as chocolate milk is an option.
Yes, getting kids to eat more healthfully means getting more involved–with our time and with our wallets. But as my wife likes to say, this is a process, not an event. This revolution is just beginning, and there’s lots more work ahead. Think about that before you try to undo the progress that’s already been made.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllHow about adding Health to the curriculum. It could also be part of other science courses. Calories in, calories out. Basic Math. Personal metabolism. Chemistry. Learn all the ingredients of the junk they put on your menu. Economics. Who gets rich when you get fat. History. When did agriculture begin destroying the planet? Poly sci. Do your representatives give a damn about your health? A few relevant facts and kids might go home and teach their parents.
Good ideas all. Unfortunately, although our students take a health class, it doesn’t seem to be helpful. When my daughter came back from her tenth grade health class, she told me we didn’t eat enough protein because they were taught protein comes from animal products. Strangely, most student I talk to have taken a health class yet don’t know what a whole grain is. The new food pyramid erroneously proclaims milk products to be essential. This is not about health; it’s about promoting food products the FDA is pushing. Here’s your burger, your chocolate milk, and your Ritalin.
I'm not talking about one health class, but equal to and including things like English, math, science and history. Nutrition is lifelong. We eat every day, for christsake. It's not a recreational activity.
Philip, teens are interesting characters and often what you tell them to do, they will do the diametrically opposite of. I introduced my son to fruits and veggies. He's a meat and taters guy by inclination but I simply keep telling him that fruits and veggies have vitamins and minerals in them that are hard to get anywhere else. He tells me he scorns canned peaches and I understand this but I really like the taste of peaches for more than 6 weeks out of the year. But as he has entered his college years he has learned to put an apple on his tray in the cafeteria. Little by little. You cannot program kids but you can give them experiences that will help them to make better choices over the years.
BTW after my son turned two, we only had low fat milk and whole grain breads in the house. He doesn't like white bread. He did comment once after I brought an opened container of whole milk home from a camp out (I can't stand waste) that, "Wow there really is a difference in taste," but he obligingly uses the low fat milk in the house.
You lay ground work but they make the choices.
Whole milk isn't necessarily a bad thing. My wife uses it once in a while to make Indian cheese blocks that are not only less fattening than tofu but also contains both healthy fat and protein. I wouldn't recommend taking whole milk as a glass of milk or with cereal, not even organic or grass fed type.
All our schools have health classes and they are just another class for most kids. They go and then off to lunch for their chocolate milk.
Getting flavored milks off the menu is KEY and is happening. Nod to Jamie Oliver and his food crusades and Alice Waters and the others that have been working on this since forever.
If 58% of the kids aren't drinking milk that is sad, but that means that they are not taking in the equivalent of a softdrink every time they have lunch. No one is going to die from lack of milk at lunch so if they don't want regular milk, they can (and do) drink water, maybe with a grimace but they drink it.
Humans do not need to drink milk. Since it is probably cheap milk it's likely full of cow hormones and antibiotics anyway. How about filtered water instead?
Humans do not need to drink milk. Since it is probably cheap milk it's likely full of cow hormones and antibiotics anyway. How about filtered water instead?
And to be very clear, there is nothing innate about a child prefering junk food.
I recall my TV kiddie-show-soaked upbringing in my dysfunctional 1960's-era household. When the after-school local kiddie show hosts of those days ("Captain Tug" on Channel 5 in DC) pushed Hostess Cup Cakes (with the yummy creamy center and the icing squiggle on top!) and Wonder Bread (with the colorful baloons!) , me and my six other siblings would then go right upstairs and pester our mother to buy these things, until she relented. Oh, sure, there were the tense "eat your green beans or go straight to bed" evenings too. But the "real" parent in my home - the TV -had done its damage. I fear how much worse things are now, 45 years later!
I only learned to eat my veggies a few years years later, when on our always under-provisioned week-long Boy Scout canoe trips in West Virginia and Maine, it was eat everything - including the reconstituted freeze-dried green beans, supplemented by tiny, bony 2-inch bluegill we might catch or raw freshwater clams we would find in the Maine lakes - or go hungry. From those days onward I've loved green beans and just about every other green veggie.
I know of a number of parents who raised their kids on whole grains, legumes, and vegetables, no junk food allowed, and, now nearly teenagers, their kids actually prefer whole grains, legumes and vegetables. Meat actually repulses them.
Oh the horror...... How about we pass laws making only organic, fair trade foods other than meat legal? Also, how about we make food so expensive people are on the verge of starvation, you know like the good ole days that my elderly mother would tell me about where the entire days meal consisted of a bowl of cabage soup? Seriously, these are the dilemmas of the rich and arrogant class and they have no traction with me. Since the author is no doubt a sellout-yuppie turned hobby farmer, may I kindly ask of him to give me all of his money so that I can go buy groceries? I am certain next he will be complaining that the paint on his BMW needs to be lighter in color so as not counter act the A/C system........
Darkmammal, All you have to do is use the money you spend on alcohol, chips, cigarettes, ice cream, communication devices, and lawn care, for some real food. Better yet, grow your own. But I live in the city, you say; or, I'm too busy, you say.
The dog ate my homework. Alas.
I don't smoke, I don't drink nor do I eat "junk food" , however you do have me in that I do mow my lawn twice a month which is obviously a serious investment of a quart of gas and a half an hour. I actually live in a rural agricultural community where people don't farm for fun they farm for a living. But thats ok, you just keep stereotyping me. The real problem with this is that if you don't understand why it is incrediebly narrow minded and petty to get in a tiff over chocolate milk when even in America people are have issues affording even "crappy" food let alone those in developing countries then you really are an idiot. I have yet to decide whether types like the author consider their work a quasi religious faith based experience or whether it is just the hall mark of a classist exclusion based mentality that wants to make a standard middle class lifestyle something only the rich or special can afford. Seriously stuff like this is not social justice or environmentalism it is just douchebaggery at its finest....
Darkmammal, I am not stereotyping you or know anything about you or your lifestyle. I am speaking in general terms about what I see around me. I also live in a rural community. The nearest gas station is a thirty minute drive. I grow, market, and put away food, not as a hobby, but a way of life. You seem to be the one stereotyping' and calling people idiots only reveals the darkness in your heart.
You are not stereotyping me? What is this then: " All you have to do is use the money you spend on alcohol, chips, cigarettes, ice cream, communication devices, and lawn care, for some real food. Better yet, grow your own. But I live in the city, you say; or, I'm too busy, you say."
For the sake of argument let me stereotype you. You are probably white, middle class or upper middle class. You are most likely a former yuppie turn back to earth sellout or trust fund type granolla. The food you grow is probably is not sufficient to either support yourself in an economically viable way or probably feed yourself to satistfaction. Although it is a hobby you get self rigtheous and pushy about all the cheap evil industrial food and some how majically assume that your little hobby will feed the world and replace modern farming. The reality of your beliefs is that they are just flat out elitist much like the rest of your kind. Things like local home gardens, organic food, fair trade etc etc are just really code words for either "lets make stuff more expensive so we can feel special about ourselves while not really changing anything" or, "look at me my hobbies are socially responsible since I am obviously a middle class yuppie with enough money and free time I think I should push this on everyone one else because obviously it is perfectly viable idea". Of course the saddest thing about this is that the "poor people" who eat the garbage you speak of (see quote above) are not going to be helped by your narcacisstic self aggrandizing attempts at relieving your upper middle class guilt. Is that enough of a stereotype for you?
Before we let parents or kids run the cafeteria, the first thing that needs to be done is cutting off subsidization and tax breaks for agri-business. From there, the push for healthful food will stand a better chance of growing.
Ah yes that evil agribusiness is to blame....
Cafeteria food for children is really a complex story. I am a school nurse in an elementary school. The food for our district with 2 high schools 2 middle schools and 8 elementaries is made at three sites. Our building receives the meals we will serve that day at 11 am or so. Lunch service starts at 11:30 and ends by 12:30. All of this has been done in the name of efficiency but the meals rely on lots of fast convenience foods. And fresh bread baked at one of the three sites. The "masters" of the food service game are economics (it has to--at some level--make sense), USDA food service requirements and what children will eat and nutritional requirements (which are part of the USDA food service requirements).
The problems are varied. Some kids are virtually raised on fast foods and they will only eat fast food analogs. The one thing school lunch programs can be rightfully proud of is that we often introduce kids to fruits and vegetables in a diet. When I worked with young families, a prominent food author and RD frequently said that children need to be introduced to a food a dozen times before they will "know" if they don't like it or not. So if they squish the peas or tongue them out, that may or may not mean they don't like them; they may just be learning about them. But many young parents will say, "Oh they didn't like that so I never tried it again." So children come to lunches with very little engagement to try new things. Finally some kids have sensory issues--lunch rooms are too noisy, they may object to the texture of some foods. Food allergies play a role. The school dietary program serves a lot of "masters".
A child who consistently does not LIKE school food has the option of having a parent pack a lunch. My food service site person tells me about the kids that consistently dump their trays untouched (and some meds have a role in that) and we tell the parents. But it is uncommon that this results in the child starting to bring a lunch. A lot of parents may be too busy OR not know how to help the kid learn to do it themselves.
Additionally, I had a teacher who looked at the sack lunch that one child (1st grade) brought from home and it was practically a humor skit. Chocolate pop tarts, chocolate cereal and chocolate pudding. You could say that there is a knowledge deficit among some parents regarding nutritional knowledge.
The problems are complex and ramped up by a demand that food services be very cheap operations. So that's what you get--cheap food. And any school would say that their food budget is considerable. It is. But while ideas like small school communities where children work in a garden that contributes food to the school might be attractive, they are much harder to ramp up in those large district school communities for a variety of reasons. I would say primarily due to the lack of a sense of _community_.
"But while ideas like small school communities where children work in a garden that contributes food to the school might be attractive, they are much harder to ramp up in those large district school communities for a variety of reasons."
Urban gardening appears to be gaining some ground in the big cities and while I can't say that it will be the cure for large district school communities, it could go a long ways. That and cutting off the agri-business government handouts that make junk food too easy to pump out in this currently RIGGED market.
I wouldn't want anyone to think that what I wrote is being against them but the restraining factors to that change are considerable. Assembly line production of food to have it ready to ship out for service before 10:50 in the morning relies on someone being able to open a can of processed veggies and dump them in a warmer NOT peel and prepare.
My mom gardened and I knew what was in that garden that I liked. I do think this is where you connect food and kids but it is a whole different mind set.