My 10-year-old's public elementary school sent home a notice this week:
"As many of you may already be aware, a significant number of children are at risk for medical conditions related to increase in weight, poor nutrition and allergies. In an effort to promote continued health and wellness, we are asking staff and parents to decrease the amount of food related activities in the school environment."
For a school system that has tended to use M&Ms to teach kindergardeners math and trotted in greasy pizzas to demonstrate fractions, this policy isn't entirely a bad thing, I thought.
But the next line of the notice was a shocker: "Recognizing that many of your children enjoy celebrating birthdays, we request that you work with the classroom teacher to find other, 'non-food' ways to celebrate birthdays. Food items such as cupcakes, cookies, and the like may no longer be brought to school and distributed to students."
In other words: Cupcakes are now contraband.
My town is not alone. Nationwide over the past year or so, there's been a movement to ban birthday sweets. Give kids a nice pencil for their big day, school administrators say. Perhaps a card.
As anyone who has ever been a kid knows, a birthday is the axis around which the kid year revolves. Many of the months and days leading up to the day are spent... well, counting the months and days leading up to the day. It's a day when a child can feel special -- a day that is theirs alone.
So it feels Grinch-like to enforce a no-cake policy. But circumventing one of the joys of childhood is not the only problem here. Banning birthday cupcakes suggests that treats are never a good idea. It promotes abstinence over moderation, which, when it comes to a youth's developing relationship with food, isn't such a hot idea. The inevitable giving in to temptation inevitably results in guilt and self-loathing.
Not to mention an out-of-school culture that's... well, saturated with powerful branding of fatty fast-food. But an authoritarian response -- banning cake -- will merely make the contraband more desirable...
What's more, it feels a little silly to fight fat by banning birthday cupcakes, especially since at the same time that cupcakes are banned at my daughter's elementary school she can still buy chips and cookies every lunchtime in the cafeteria.
So what about fighting obesity and diabetes with the tools that really make a difference: promoting healthy-eating habits, encouraging treats in moderation, and increasing playground time?
As Rep. Jim Dunnam, a Waco (Texas) Democrat who led a pro-cupcake charge in his Texas town last year, put it, "having a cupcake for your birthday -- if that's where we're at in trying to fight obesity in the United States, then we're way behind the curve."
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We need to put the rules and the safeguards in the right places, but since they're not there, everyone looks to cya so they won't be held
responsible for a tragedy that may have been prevented with Orwellian tactics (like now NO-ONE can bring liquid on a plane - come on!!!)
Who's looking at why these allergies are increasing so and why the severity
is increasing... who's getting to the root of the problem - not as many people as impacted by the no cupcake rule -
So in the meantime, I agree with you, let them eat cake, but unfortunately from all my days in business and on the other side of the school equation, I understand the CYA stance - sux!
Great point Ann. Instead of teaching children to avoid sweets, wouldn't it be more constructive to spend more time teaching them how to eat healthier? And at their age, telling a child NOT to do something is the quickest way to ensure that they will try their best to do it.
Teaching kids to make healthy choices teaches them that they have... well, a choice.
This wave of food fear associated with children is an uncontrolled experiment of unknown effect on our most vulnerable members. The anti-fat hysteria isn't making anyone healthier: it is causing eating disorders triggered by disordered eating.
Most cakes and boxed mixes have peanuts in them-which is why it is dangerous.
Just went to an open house at my daughters school-where one teacher was discussing having a toddler in a daycare center with severe food allergies and wokers had given the girl the wrong foods. She almost died as a result when her throat closed up. she had to be revived by an EPI pen.
Food allergies are a BIG problem with kids.
What happened to jumping rope, hopscotch, climbing trees, riding bikes and hide and seek, to name a few? And these were games played AFTER school. Who participates in community sports, anymore? I remember every summer playing softball through the park district.
I hate to say this, but it all starts at home. Parents, stop buying the junk. Sure kids will buy the junk at school for lunch. My highschool years were full of taco pizza, fries, a Suzy-Q and a chocolate shake. However, I knew I wouldn't be able to get anything like that at home. Thank Goodness! College was much better although who could resist Smart Food during mid-terms?
It takes a considerable amount of calories to gain and maintain an overweight-to-obese stature. Let's not introduce, promote or accept bad eating habits. And besides, kids who tend to participate in activites tend not to snack at home due to sheer boredom. Get the kids active in swimming, martial arts, ballet, etc.
And, not only does it start at home, it starts with us, the adults. We definitely should know better by now.
By all means, bring the cupcakes back!
We allow the sittin', it's about the lurkin' perverts roamin' your neighborhood.
JELLO? (made from the hooves of dead animals)
Maybe not.
POPCORN? (as long as it's not that cancer-causing microwave kind)
WOOD CHIPS? (there ya go.)