Childhood obesity...

I was listening to something on the radio this morning, and it made me really want to know more opinions!

A man from my city, who is a part of the school boards counsel, said they are making a new rule, that children are no longer allowed to bring in cupcakes, cake, candy, etc on their birthday to share with the class.

The radio host asked, what if a parent thinks that rule is a joke and decides to bring them anyway? The councilman said, the child will be immediately suspended for 2 days.

There will be 3 occassions where children will be allowed to bring candy, Halloween, Christmas, and Valentines Day. They believe a candy bar is ok in moderation, 3 times a school year, but not 35 times for every students birthday.

What are your thoughts? Good rule, bad rule? Does it focus less on education and is that bad? Would you bend the rules as a teacher or parent?

This is the reason I want to homeschool my kids.

Parents should be responsible for their children. I won't stuff them with candy, and I will make sure they don't sit all day at a computer or tv, my kids will play. But my word they can't celebrate their birthdays with treats now?

And if parents do send the treats, the kid gets suspended? So let me see, a cupcake is more important than educating a child? Two days, seriously. I would be pissed if I had gotten suspended because of something my parents did.

I get obesity is an issue. I get it. But what if you brought in cookies, and one cookie per kid? Or mini cupcakes, that are bite sized? Or, idk, stop padding the adminstrations salaries and put that money towards pe? PE is completely gone from my schools here, and theyve cut all sports programs. Yep, that'll help. Instead let's take away one cupcake.

How stupid.

I know that's how I feel...or how about instead of removing all pop (because that is a MAIN reason for obesity according to them)...fix the lunches! Seriously all we ever had is pizzzaaaa and bagels and chips, we needed a good salad bar, we had a gross one, maybe some fruit or veggie trays, I would of loved that. . But no, its the pop that's making us fat.

Cuttint PE?...wtf...wowwwwwwww no comment. That is so ridiculous,

!!
I can't imagine a school without PE!
WTF are they thinking?

My kid's school already has the no treat rule. No big deal was made. On the other hand, no one threatened to suspend a kid over it.

They haven't had soda pop in the school for years, unless a parent comes to eat with their kid & brings it.

I don't mind the no pop thing, what I just find funny is they are only blaming pop...we didn't have pizza once, a week, it was every day, carbs carbs, grease, grease, every day! But they only remove pop? I think something is off with their thinking!

The thing that ticks me off the most is the suspension thing. I get wanting to have healthier options.. but still. A cupcake won't kill a kid.

Our class, when I was younger, had a "party" once a month for all the kids who had birthdays in that month - each individual party per birthday got busy, especially in September and October (dominant birthday months I guess). We had whatever the parents sent in with us - I usually brought juice boxes. I remember having anything from pretzels to skittles to candy to cake to carrot sticks to fruit bars. One year my teacher was famous for handing out popsicles - but looking back they were all fruit bars, so it's a healthier option.

Larry - we have no PE. When I was in school we had one big class of 70, twice a week, and that was a joke. My parents paid a fortune just for me to play one sport, because school funding had cut programs for all sports - in the meantime our superintendent got a raise. This is his last year and he now makes almost $300k a year. And he does a terrible job. No reason he couldn't do the same job at $60k (it's not even full time here) and then the schools would have an extra $240k for necessities.

Apparently adminstrators don't realize how important activies like PE and sports are. Had it not been for sports, I would've dropped out of high school. It kept me accountable when I really could've cared less about high school - it wasn't important to me.

And in HS, we had "lunch" and then a food cart thing... "lunch" was a gross salad bar (wilted, slimy lettuce), cheeseburgers and fries, pizza, or chicken nuggets and fries. Our food cart had a variety of bagged chips, soft pretzels with nacho cheese, nachos, candy bars and pop. If you didn't bring your own lunch, your only choices were absolute crap food.

In my high school, we had a cafeteria that serves only chocolate bars, juice, water, and manakeesh (cheese/thyme pastry). Before I was there, it used to also have soft drinks and potato chips, but they removed those.

We don't have lunch at school because our typical lunch time is at 3:00 or 3:30 p.m in Lebanon... and school is over at 2:30 or 3:00 pm.

But at times, I wish that our cafeterias do not serve anything but water... because YES, I became fat because of pastry... Usually, I do not have time to eat breakfast at home, so I eat pastry at school...... imagine that I am eating pastry 9 months per year since I was in grade ONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am with the idea of banning chocolate in schools.. banning everything fatty........ because no one knows how being fat is like.

And as I am reading above, US schools serve fatty food... God, I imagine myself there... I would've then weighed 200 kilos :P

Why not make those birthdays at home?

Its down to the parents to provide an example for your own kids in what they eat, but from time to time its ok to have something unhealthy as we all do here or there.

In the UK we have PE for every school from Primary school, to high school and activities at University (put at that stage some intend to go gym..etc). In our schools there are options on healthier eating with fruits, salad containers and juices, or bottle water. It does depend on government funding for each school to incorporate a healthy meals option, especially in the US with limited funding most schools would go over budget to process healthier meals for kids and it makes it difficult for dinner ladies to prepare healthier meals (You should watch Jamie Oliver's american food revolution), but on the other hand if parents don't make healthier meals at home then its obvious to say those kids won't like eating salad..etc they would option for pizza, chips..etc

I think as kids get older as well they should know what is healthier for them and make there own decision, but it does go deeper into the whole effect on how society makes you contemplate on ones life style as well.

I thing the suspension rule is dumb. Why punish a kid who has no accountability? A better solution would just be to take the treats away and give them back to the kid at the end of the day to take home. If the teachers are clear and consistent about the rule from the beginning, the kid will be fine.

I'm cool with the occasional treat (when else in life, besides when you're 8, can you stuff yourself full of cake and ice cream without a smidgeon of guilt or self-conciousness?)

I can see having less unhealthy food available AT the school, like cutting down on pop machines and snack machines. The lunches are always a big issue. At the school I worked at, you look at the menu, and even for breakfast it was "breakfast pizza," french toast sticks, and breakfast biscuits almost every day. The poor cooks don't even get to cook anymore... all they are called on to do is heat up a tray of pre-cooked chicken nuggets, and we expect a seven year old to NOT choose nuggets over the salad bar.

What I do have a problem with is schools restricting what kids can bring in and eat for themselves. As long as there isn't an issue with abuse or neglect, I think parents should be able to send whatever they want for their own kids to eat.

Once you hit high school, I think you can loosen up a bit. A 17 year old has a little more autonomy, and can decide for themselves what they want to put into their own body. I love cheeseburgers, and I wouldn't want to take that away from anyone! But having a culture that allows for healthy options is important.

People are also crazy to cut things like recess and gym. Those munchkins need to release their wiggles.

On that note, I've personally gone through a stick of butter since Monday, and I'm off to make myself some lunch.

"On that note, I've personally gone through a stick of butter since Monday, and I'm off to make myself some lunch."

I have just a smidgeon left (english muffin breakfasts, yumm), but I don't feel guilty because my lunch is a salad, haha!

Nice topic Chelsea,

This is about my work, since I am a weightconsultant. I understand why the rule is made: childhood obesity is a growing problem worldwide. It causes many deseases and also tooth decay is a factor. I would welcome the idea of schools having healthy food and drinks only..but fear that will never happen. Once something is forbidden, it becomes even more tempting and interesting.

It would be better to offer children a choice between so called "junk food"and healthy food and to just inform them about what the choices you make will do to your body in the long run. I am no fan of dictatorship, it just creates a lot of tension.

The innovation this year is that our kids must choose at least one vegetable or one fruit for lunch, whatever else they take.

Doesn't mean they'll actually eat it, though. I've spent enough school lunches with my kids through the past 20 years to know that what starts out on a tray often ends up being left on the tray, or on someone else's tray.

When I was at school many many many years ago we used to have dessert everyday, (sometimes second helpings) I used to eat sweets everyday and obesity wasn't a problem because.......
We used to excercise, we used to play football/soccer every day after school until it was dark. If I wanted to 'hang out' with my mates I would have to walk half a mile to their homes to see if they were in. I couldn't facebook them because electricity hadn't been invented then. Sometimes we would walk miles just to round up our gang then play football.

A quick TRUE story from a kids sports day in england.

The 100m race on sports day,
The kids all lined up and ran 1/2 the course as fast as they could, once there they would have to wait for the others. Then they had to hold hands and walk the last 50m together hand in hand so there was no winners or losers.

This is where the problem is;

Lazy parents
Stupid schools
Lazy kids activities

rant over.........for now!!!

Obesity is a world wide problem and getting larger (excuse the pun) daily..I'm going to second Darren's comment....I attended what we called dinner school in UK...we had soggy pies...fat full sausages...and god knows what else..followed by pudding and..if the dinner lady liked you you got seconds but...we ran it all off...as he said...we walk ed for miles to see if our pal wanted to play and..if he wasn't allowed we walked to find the next pal....we played till it got dark..went home...got scrubbed up from ear to toe and went to bed. I think it very unlikely that out parents worried about us or had any discussion about us being overweight...needing counciling...or anything like that....we were just kids....right? and..back then we were allowed to be...

I really don't think that suspension of a child for bringing cupcakes to school is the way to go.

This is a case of meeting a problem with aggression, which we all know does not usually work. Especially, I repeat ESPECIALLY with children.

The real answer is to educate our children on food. Don't punish them for eating poorly, but rather properly teach them the benefits of a good diet.

There's a TED talk concerning this that might be a bit enlightening to some.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html

Unless there is a medical reason that a child is fat, its all the parents and schools fault, not the kids. School food is a horrible source of fuel, and parents of today are soft as hell and dont know how to tell little Tom NO you cant have cake, desert is a treat, not a course.