Food at school

A few kids at my high school brought their own lunch, but most would get the hot lunch and complain about it, and there were quite a few people who would order food to have it delivered to campus. Last year when I was desperate to lose more weight for prom, I did it as well.
 
Whatever you do, don't give your sister a complex about her eating habits. It's okay to have healthy concerns but girls, especially high school age girls, are really sensitive about weight. I'm not saying you WILL make her feel bad, just be very careful in how you approach her or your parents about it. :] Eating healthy doesn't have to be miserable, right? Hehehe sometimes I wonder...
 
I'm 26, so it's been a while since I was in high school. But from talking to the kids in school where I live now, it's the same. The high school has an open campus for lunch, so if you eat in the cafeteria, you're considered a loser. But the junior high and elementary students have no choice...they HAVE to go to the cafeteria and eat what's serve there. Taking a lunch to school beyond the fifth grade is cause for endless ridicule so kids don't do it.

The cafeteria menu for next week, for example:
Monday - ham and cheese pretzel with chips or a pepperoni hot pocket with garlic sticks
Tuesday - chili pie or chicken on a bun with doritos
Wednesday - cheeseburger and fries or a beef and bean burrito
Thursday - chicken nuggets and a roll or a turkey and cheese hoagie with chips
Friday - cheese pizza with bread sticks or ham and cheese hoagie.

Maybe not as bad as some....but bad enough some days.
 
discolemonade said:
Whatever you do, don't give your sister a complex about her eating habits. It's okay to have healthy concerns but girls, especially high school age girls, are really sensitive about weight. I'm not saying you WILL make her feel bad, just be very careful in how you approach her or your parents about it. :] Eating healthy doesn't have to be miserable, right? Hehehe sometimes I wonder...
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I definitely agree with this! When my parents forced me on a diet when I was 14, I felt like they didn't love me because I wasn't the skinny and pretty daughter they seemed to want- AND I still feel this way sometimes.
 
While I agree school lunch usually leaves a lot to be desired it not that alone making kids overweight. Its not like they go home and snack on almonds and apples most kids are eating sugary cereals or poptarts for breakfast , frozen hot pockets or bagel bites and chips for snacks with soda or iced tea to wash it all down and then whatever we serve them for dinner (and let's face it until we ourselves made the decision to serve healthier meals most often we weren't).
 
Yes of course. I don't want her to eat healthy stuff all the time. She is still a kid and she should enjoy her life. I just want her to think abut what she is actually eating. She should know about calories and things like that. I have already talked to her about it when we met again during the holidays. But she told me about the food they offer at school and about being a loser if you bring your own lunch. So I really don't know how to solve this problem.
 
MindiK said:
I'm 26, so it's been a while since I was in high school. But from talking to the kids in school where I live now, it's the same. The high school has an open campus for lunch, so if you eat in the cafeteria, you're considered a loser. But the junior high and elementary students have no choice...they HAVE to go to the cafeteria and eat what's serve there. Taking a lunch to school beyond the fifth grade is cause for endless ridicule so kids don't do it.

The cafeteria menu for next week, for example:
Monday - ham and cheese pretzel with chips or a pepperoni hot pocket with garlic sticks
Tuesday - chili pie or chicken on a bun with doritos
Wednesday - cheeseburger and fries or a beef and bean burrito
Thursday - chicken nuggets and a roll or a turkey and cheese hoagie with chips
Friday - cheese pizza with bread sticks or ham and cheese hoagie.

Maybe not as bad as some....but bad enough some days.
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Are you not listing the full menu or are there no fruits or vegetables being served?

That menu stinks if you ask me. We know that lots of parents don't feed their kids right (or at all in some cases) that's why schools added in a breakfast program. But if that's the best the school lunch program can do, it needs fixing.

I ran a daycare for 6 years and was enrolled in the federal nutrition program. It used to be the same requirements as school lunches. I know I had to serve fruits/vegetables at lunch and breakfast had to contain at least 3 food groups. Snacks could contain only two food groups but had to contain variety. A bag of chips did not count as a snack...not even one food group in a snack.
 
The high school menu choices also come with one cup of milk, and a side of fruit/dessert or some type of small juice drink. Most kids choose chocolate milk and the dessert; no need for them to even think about it. It's the complete lunch, $2.10 at my old highschool.

And yes, there is a slight pressure to buy lunch at school. If you bring your own lunch in sometimes kids start with jokes about your family being poor, and such.
 
Judyb...the school menu where I live, waaaaaaay down at the bottom, says "We offer assorted milks, fresh fruits, veggies and desserts." I think they've got some apples and bananas...and canned peaches. It just kills me, though, that the veggies are an option, and aren't served WITH the meals. When I was a kid I wasn't as likely to eat a vegetable if it wasn't put on the tray for me. I surely wasn't going to choose to eat a vegetable if I could get fries and a cheeseburger.

And the school breakfast menu?
"Every day for breakfast we offer: cinnamon roll, frosted strawberry and blueberry pop tarts, Lucky Charms cereal bowl, Golden Graham cereal bowl, string cheese and crackers, cinnamon toast crunch bar, Cocoa Puffs cereal bowl, strawberry, chocolate and white milks, apple, orange and grape juices.
In addition to our everyday menu, we will be offering: Monday - sausage, roll and mustard; tuesday - breakfast pizza; wednesday - biscuit, sausage and jelly; thursday - french toast and syrup, Friday - pancake on a stick with syrup.

What happened to semi-healthy cereals?
 
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I think that menu is shameful. Why are our kids fat? Just look at what we're feeding them at school! Now add in fast food meals at home and video gaming instead of outside activity and we have an obesity epidemic.

This generation of kids has a lower life expectancy than our generation. Better medicines, more knowledge and they are going to die younger than us.
 
What gets me the most is our school district serves breakfast FREE to all students through a state program. So it's not like they're trying to make some cash, like they would be on lunches. The syrup-laden and sugar-filled menu is just what they want to serve, or can serve within guidelines, I guess. You'd think they'd be willing to serve healthier stuff since the kids aren't having to buy it.
 
Judyb said:
I think that menu is shameful. Why are our kids fat? Just look at what we're feeding them at school! Now add in fast food meals at home and video gaming instead of outside activity and we have an obesity epidemic.

This generation of kids has a lower life expectancy than our generation. Better medicines, more knowledge and they are going to die younger than us.
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I totally agree with you. But I just don't know what to do against this problem. I mean most of the day the kids are at school and even if you serve them quite healthy food at home most of them get fat. It is a vicious circle. I guess one of us has to start working in a school cafeteria to prepare lunch :)
 
Jane1975 said:
I totally agree with you. But I just don't know what to do against this problem. I mean most of the day the kids are at school and even if you serve them quite healthy food at home most of them get fat. It is a vicious circle. I guess one of us has to start working in a school cafeteria to prepare lunch :)
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Because school lunch is federally funded that is one place that I do believe the government should intervene in the obesity epidemic.

Like I said, I ran a daycare and was on the federal food program. I was reimbursed for food expenses provided I followed the nutritional guidelines. (Yes, I had both scheduled and unscheduled inspection to make sure I was complying)

It's been over 10 years but I used to be reimbursed .90 cents for breakfast, $1.40 for lunch and .40 cents for snacks.

It's my impression that the schools are reimbursed on the same fee schedule so there is no excuse for feeding our kids that garbage.
 
A big problem is that kids are taught how to make healthy choices. You or your parents or a nutritionist should sit down with your sister and review the lunch menu and help her decide what is a healthy choice. If the answer is none of the above, then she should consider making her lunch. I bet she is just as unhappy with her situation and would appreciate some help.
Of course, teenage girls are very sensitive about their looks and their weight, so you may want to encourage your parents to get some advise from a professional or her pediatrician or from literature on how to best approach this situation.

Heather
 
A town about an hour away from me has taken all vending machines out of their schools. They've also adopted healthier menus and now serve baked chicken and veggies and such. I really wish my school would have done this. The news said the average weight lost by the students since August 07 is 8 lbs! that's just the elementary and junior high school.
 
lovelymachine said:
A town about an hour away from me has taken all vending machines out of their schools. They've also adopted healthier menus and now serve baked chicken and veggies and such. I really wish my school would have done this. The news said the average weight lost by the students since August 07 is 8 lbs! that's just the elementary and junior high school.
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Really? That sounds fantastic but unfortunately I think that schools who care about heatlhy food for kids a very rare.
 
Jane1975 said:
Really? That sounds fantastic but unfortunately I think that schools who care about heatlhy food for kids a very rare.
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Oh yeah, it's not that all the towns around her are becoming more healthy, just Hollandale and unfortunately it's not getting very much publicity. I'm hoping it will boost the other school boards forward to want to make a change too. Afterall, Hollandale has gotten wonderful results! And it's not just the kids, they are taking what they're learning home to their parents so it's spreading like a virus! The reason I know about all this is two of the parents are in classes with me at the University, and both of them have also dropped some pounds.
 
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