Food Glorious Food... or Not.

I love that song from Oliver! What I don't love is how food surrounds every activity at my sons school. And not good food either. It's all junk food. Here's an example:

Last Friday - Halloween party: I had the "snack" and I did cupcakes and grapes. I could have skipped the cupcakes but this is the only party I have snack for and I wanted to make sure that the Little Man actually got to eat the exact treat that the kids had. From now on, he'll have something different due to his allergies. Just once I wanted him to be "one of the gang". I added the grapes as a healthy option or to try to counterbalance some of the junk.

Monday - Sundae Bar for kids that were "heroes" last month: Neither of my kids were "heroes" (maybe I should be more concerned with that fact vs. the junkie food??) so they did not get the sundae. But plenty of other kids did. And what was on the lunch menu that day (I worked the lunchroom so I got a first hand view of all of this)? French bread pizza (French bread with cheese), tomato sauce for dipping, a store bought cupcake, and chips. Then throw a sundae on top of that and you've got sugar and fat over load. And because this was the day after Halloween, many kids brought candy in there lunches too. None of the parents I spoke with knew that it was sundae day or they wouldn't have sent in the candy too.

Tuesday - Election Day: The Little Man's class had to vote if they thought "chips" or "Tootsie Pops" were the better snack (to the teachers credit she picked 2 things that were safe for the Little Man... but I would have preferred they vote for apples vs. oranges). Tootsie Pops won so each kids got a Tootsie Pop.

Wednesday - Turkey Visits the School: The park system is bringing an actual turkey to school today to teach the kids about wild life and turkeys (wonder how many kids will no longer eat turkey on Thanksgiving after this?). I was asked to find a parent to make "turkey shaped cookies" in honor of the turkey being there. As the parent of the child with special needs in the class, I of course made the cookies (finished at 10 PM last night). So the kids will be eating cookies this afternoon (I did however use organic butter in them. And they are homemade and not store bought. But still......).

As the parent of the child with food allergies, all of this food poses a risk to my child. Not only is he more at risk for having a reaction in school (from cross contamination or because he's contact reactive) but also a risk to his mental health. Most of the time he's left out of these things. For example, on sundae day instead of making his own chocolate ice cream with sprinkles, he would have gotten a Popsicle. Now that may not seem like a big to you, but to a six year old boy, he'd rather have the ice cream and he does get upset when he's "different" from everyone else. If this happened once in a while I'd say "Suck it up son. It's part of having food allergies". But when it happens several times a week, it's just plain bogus.

Now putting the food allergy aspect of it aside, how about the obesity epidemic in our country? 1 in 5 children are obese. This should scare the living daylights out of every parent out there. But the school must have missed that number. Maybe they aren't aware of the obesity epidemic. Or maybe they are just too lazy to care. I realize that they are just trying to make things "fun" for the kids, but we need to come up with ideas that don't always revolve around food. Or at the very least, make the food options healthy such as voting for apples and oranges vs. chips and Tootsie Pops.

According to WebMD the following are few of the things that obese children are at risk for:

Obese children are at risk for a number of conditions, including:

High cholesterol
High blood pressure
Early heart disease
Diabetes
Bone problems
Skin conditions such as heat rash, fungal infections, and acne

This is not a "fun" list of conditions. I think we need to start taking the "fun" out of junk food. When I was in school, junk food was reserved for the few holiday parties a year. No one brought in "treats" for their birthdays. We never did "food activities" in class. And school lunches tasted like crap but they were healthy and well balanced. We actually had lunch ladies that COOKED in the cafeteria. At my kids school it's all about reheating frozen, processed foods. There is no cooking involved.

We are killing our children with this stuff. Not only are we setting them for obesity and other chronic diseases, but we are teaching them unhealthy habits and to use junk food as a reward.

I'm sad that our school thinks so little of our children that this has become the norm. I'm sad to think of what the repercussions of this type of behavior will have on our children in the future. One mom is going to bring this up to the Principal today. We'll see if she gets the ball rolling for change or if she gets smacked down with the "this is how we've always done it" line. I'd hate to see this turn into a food fight, but I see it heading in that direction.