More Tales From War On Food
This one from today's New York Times: Glorious Food? English School Children Think Not.
It's nice to see the mainstream media take into account what the people affected by junk food bans actually think. In England and Wales, new regulations which took effect in September have replaced unhealthy hamburgers, french fries, processed meats, and sugary drinks with more healthy options for school lunch menues. Additionally, many of the schools are banning off campus fast food lunches. What are the responses of parents?
“They shouldn’t be allowed to tell the kids what to eat,” Mrs. Critchlow said of the school authorities. “They’re treating them like criminals.”
Mrs. Critchlow has become a notorious figure in Britain. In September she and another mother — alarmed, they said, because their children were going hungry — began selling contraband hamburgers, fries and sandwiches to as many as 50 students a day, passing the food through the school gates.
And most telling is the story of Andreas Petrou, an 11th grader:
“It’s rubbish,” said Andreas Petrou [of the new school menu]. Instead, en route to school recently, he was enjoying a north of England specialty known as a chip butty: a French-fries-and-butter sandwich doused in vinegar.
Petrou insists that no amount of explaining will convince him that a French fry sandwich is not a decent meal. If confronted with the school food, he said, he will do what all his friends do: gather as much bread as he can, “put half an inch of butter on each slice,” and call it lunch.
I think the story speaks for itself.
It's nice to see the mainstream media take into account what the people affected by junk food bans actually think. In England and Wales, new regulations which took effect in September have replaced unhealthy hamburgers, french fries, processed meats, and sugary drinks with more healthy options for school lunch menues. Additionally, many of the schools are banning off campus fast food lunches. What are the responses of parents?
“They shouldn’t be allowed to tell the kids what to eat,” Mrs. Critchlow said of the school authorities. “They’re treating them like criminals.”
Mrs. Critchlow has become a notorious figure in Britain. In September she and another mother — alarmed, they said, because their children were going hungry — began selling contraband hamburgers, fries and sandwiches to as many as 50 students a day, passing the food through the school gates.
And most telling is the story of Andreas Petrou, an 11th grader:
“It’s rubbish,” said Andreas Petrou [of the new school menu]. Instead, en route to school recently, he was enjoying a north of England specialty known as a chip butty: a French-fries-and-butter sandwich doused in vinegar.
Petrou insists that no amount of explaining will convince him that a French fry sandwich is not a decent meal. If confronted with the school food, he said, he will do what all his friends do: gather as much bread as he can, “put half an inch of butter on each slice,” and call it lunch.
I think the story speaks for itself.
posted by lonely libertarian at 10:44 AM
4 Comments:
Do you really want the government dictating what people can and can't eat? Is that the sort of world you want to live in, one where you no longer have control of your own diet or the diet of your family? I don't care what the intentions of such laws are, that sounds a lot more like facism than freedom.
As usual you're missing the point when it comes to these laws. This isn't about the rights of children at all (which is why I don't post on things like dress codes and behavior codes), it's about the rights of parents- do we want a world where there are laws telling parents they can't feed their children french fries and cheese pizza?
I'm not saying schools shouldn't set healthier school lunch policies- there's nothing wrong with that- and in fact, several months I linked to an article in the New York Times where it talked about individual schools doing just that.
The problem with this law is it is a national law in Britain, one that every school has to follow. In essence, that cuts parents out of the picture. There is a tremendous difference between a locally elected school board (or better yet, a school's parent organization) and a national legislature making decisions about what kids can eat.
As a conservative, I would hope you understand the value of parenting and see the danger of taking parental decisions out of the hands of parents and into the hands of the state- actually this is one of the tenants of Marxism- limit the role of the traditional family so the state (or the communist party) can instill values in the young.
It's interesting you mention dress codes and behavior codes, because those rules are made by individual schools, not by larger legislative bodies who have no direct connection to the schools or the children involved. Once again, this isn't about children, it's about parents, and the right to raise one's kids as one sees fit.
Schools probably should serve more nutritious lunches, but the point of my complaint is not to debate what schools should and shouldn't serve. The point is to note the way individual choices and traditional values are being trampled by laws passed in the name of public health.
One- the health of children is primarily a parental responsibility, not a government responsibility. Yes government should be concerned about children's welfare, but at what point is the state stepping in and becoming de facto parents?
Two- Schools can and do instill values, but those values should be determined by individual schools and local communities not national legislatures.
Finally, how would you feel about the exact opposite sort of law. Say a large soft drink distributer (we'll call them Poke ... or maybe we'll call them Cepsi) lobbies the national legislature to pass a law requiring that all schools put their soda machines in all school cafeterias. The legislature justifies the law by citing the massive amounts of funding that the soft drink distributor will be giving to the education system.
Would you feel different about a law like that? Would you feel differently about parents who didn't want soda machines in their children's schools?
The point of this argument is not nutrition and health, but about democracy and individual rights. Democracy becomes less meaningful when larger democratric majorities impose their will upon smaller democratic majorities. Maybe the majority of the nation thinks a certain sort of food law for schools is a good idea, but a majority of some communities may think differently. So why rely on the larger legislative body- which is more disconnected from the people- when local towns, local school boards, and local schools are perfectly capable of making their own decisions.
If a parent feels strongly about school lunch policy, they have a chance to effect that policy when that policy is made at the local level. When the policy is made at the national level, they are one voice among millions.
When it comes to issues of school lunches, soda machines, and junk food, you can't honestly tell me that there is one right answer. And you can't tell me what harm would come from schools or towns setting their own nutritional guidelines. So why impose one national solution on every single school in the country?
Keeping local issues local is more democratic and puts individuals in better positions to exercise their rights.
You sound much more like a liberal than a conservative.
And it's frightening to me that you think decisions relating to schools and education are best made at the biggest level of government possible- that is the French model of education. Historically it has never been the American model.
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