Picky Eaters Are Thwarting The L.A. School District's Attempts To Improve School Lunches

www.slate.com:

Getting kids to eat right may take more than simply replacing junk food with healthier options. That's what the Los Angeles Unified School District has learned this year, according to this article in the L.A. Times. Swept up in a Michelle Obama-led tide of enthusiasm for healthy eating, the school district kicked off this year by banning nachos and chicken nuggets from the cafeterias, and feeding the kids healthy and often vegetarian food. Many kids seem to be responding by skipping lunch entirely, and eating bags of chips brought from home instead.

Read the whole story: www.slate.com

Comments

[Tricia Anderson]

10:59 AM on 12/29/2011

My high school took the opposite approach and took away our salad bar my junior year... which, of course, was the only thing worth eating. I never liked the food cooked by creepy old ladies who smelled of old fish, regardless of if it was chicken nuggets and french fries or vegetable soup. Maybe if schools employed people who could actually cook children would be more willing to eat what was offered. Just an idea...

[DevonTexas]

12:32 PM on 12/31/2011

"Maybe if schools employed people who could actually cook children"

I understand they taste like chicken.
Funny how much difference a comma makes.

[Christine Garcia]

03:37 PM on 12/28/2011

When you go from one extreme to the other you get a lot of wasted food. Healthy alternatives should be offered, but many of these kids are on the free lunch program and this is the only hot meal they get in a day. Shouldn't it be something that they will actually eat. There are foods that are middle ground that kids will eat if only someone would put a little thought into it. Chicken tacos, cheese pizza and pasta dishes are always popular with kids, but rarely seen on the menu's. The lunch programs need to be run by someone with a little creativity.

[aquarius2]

10:10 PM on 12/28/2011

And run by people with common sense!

[DevonTexas]

12:35 PM on 12/31/2011

good point. It should be moved into place gradually as most kids diets are generally not healthy and moving into healthy food takes some getting used to.

My problem is getting my boys to eat meat! They eat their veggies and starches first and leave the protein to the last!

[FWJames123]

01:08 AM on 12/28/2011

My sons school does not have a lunch program. Frankly, he would likely snub the cooking you get at a cafeteria type setting. I'm ok with that

[Thomas J McMahon]

12:40 AM on 12/28/2011

Ahem... I loved chicken nuggets as a kid. Who didn't? Sure, we eat awful stuff nowadays, but by just taking it away it doesn't really solve the problem, as this scenario demonstrates. In highschool I ate a nice salad somedays. The other half of the time I ate a large soft pretzel, a coffee cake and drank a rootbeer. That was it - for lunch. Sure, it was an awful choice but it was mine to make. I was 6'0" and 165 pounds, built like shaggy from scooby doo. Eventually I corrected my ways, but if they just took the stuff away it wouldn't have really taught me anything. It has to start in the home. If kids eat nothing but junk at home, that's what they're going to stick with. Schools should still offer healthier alternatives, but switching to a mostly vegetarian agenda isn't going to inspire anyone to better eating.

[pthompson13]

12:19 PM on 12/30/2011

Agreed. Healthier alternatives are the key. I fed my son nothing but healthy food until he was about 3 but somewhere along the line (B-B-Q's and outings) he found the good stuff. When he discovered hot dogs, I just bought the Ball Park white meat turkey dogs that are substantially lower in sodium and fat than the alternative. Now at 8 he won't even eat hot dogs out because he is use to the turkey dogs at home. One can do the same with turkey hamburgers and baked all white meat chicken nuggets. There are a few parents I know who are blessed with children who will eat anything but for the most part, kids are attracted to hot/corn dogs, hamburgers, pizza, mac'n cheese, etc, and their young taste buds are very limited. If we make those foods as healthy as possible and offer up side dishes that are healthy like fruit, we get our kids past that picky phase and as their taste buds start to mature they will open up to more choices. I think these school programs went a little overboard and instead of taking classic child favorites and tweaking them toward healthier fare, they went to far to the extreme. However, it is a good idea to have those vegetarian choices available to the kids that will eat them.

[singermuse]

11:10 PM on 12/27/2011

Chicken nuggets fried in trans fats and french fries DO NOT a "meat/vegetable" make!

[singermuse]

11:06 PM on 12/27/2011

This just goes to show how EARLY addiction begins. When children are introduced to high sugar (and all it's analogues: galactose, fructose as in high fructose corn syrup, lactose, glucose, etc...) high REFINED carbohydrates (infant formulas...read the labels!) they become habituated and it is nigh impossible to wean them away from this GARBAGE, not totally impossible, but very difficult. And the average diet in poor/urban/no-supermarket-or produce-sources-nearby is high in sugar/trans fats/ and refined carbohydrates with little or NO fresh vegetables/fruits/healthy protein sources.

[dbishop76]

08:41 PM on 12/27/2011

A big pot of beef stew full of veggies and homemade crusty bread- the kids would love it. Homemade lunchables- crackers, turkey, cheese and fruit. Healthy breakfast burritos or muffins and fruit for breakfast. This is what I make for my kids on a regular basis- I don't even ALLOW my kids to eat school lunches- and they love it.

[anjulibai]

07:55 PM on 12/27/2011

The problem isn't the type of food, it was that it was prepared badly.

Why do news outlets reporting this keep ignoring this incredibly important fact?

Has the media become so sensationalized that it has to resort to "kids won't eat healthy food"?

[tobo]

10:04 PM on 12/27/2011

Yes, it's the type of food... serving chicken nuggets at school is not normal. Nachos are equally wrong. Fries on a daily basis? Sweetened milk? Then I haven't even talked about the ingredients, which contain too much sugar and saturated fats.

[Thomas J McMahon]

12:55 AM on 12/28/2011

Chicken nuggets and tator tots on Monday, Burger & fries on Tuesday, Turkey breast and mashed potatoes on Wednesday, Tacos or Nachos w/ cheese on Thursday, Frenchbread pizza on Fridays..optional salad line, cups of fruit for a side. Green beans as a side with the pizza & whatnot. Fries available for purchase for a couple dollars on any day if the kid brings enough money. That is a typical high school/middle school cafeteria weekly menu. Regular milk or chocolate milk for ten cents or so more at the end of the line just before you get to the register. All of that may not be very healthy, but it is certainly normal if you ate in a school cafeteria between 1985 and now. If you define normal as being organic and not loaded with preservatives such then yeah it's not "normal." But normal in terms of the average person's diet and what most people in this country ate in school cafeterias as kids? That's as normal as it gets.

[DrP]

06:41 PM on 12/27/2011

Maybe the kids are smart enough to know that "vegetarian" isn't healthy. Or maybe they are famished when offered low-fat, vegetarian fare. That sort of diet leaves kids poorly nourished and encourages more addictive cravings for junk food. No wonder they are opting for bags of chips. Give them lots of yummy real food with plenty of natural fat, cheeses, eggs, bacon, cream and butter and they will love the food and feel satisfied. They will also have better energy and focus through the day and stay full for hours, reducing the clamouring for snacks mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

[dbishop76]

08:32 PM on 12/27/2011

This is not vegetarian program.

[Jonathan Kenny]

09:46 PM on 12/27/2011

it sure ain't good food wonder if ms piggy eats it

[dispagi]

09:01 AM on 12/28/2011

Except that vegetarian is healthy. This idea that fruits, vegetables and grains are somehow bad for you is absurd. My kids enthusiastically devour broccoli with Daiya cheese, pasta with tomato sauce, and rice and beans with guacamole all the time. For dessert it's almond or coconut non-dairy ice cream with the occasional dark chocolate. According to their doctors they are healthy.

[valluhree]

06:07 PM on 12/27/2011

Is this a shock to anyone? Really?