<p>"To encourage healthful eating, Chicago school doesn't allow kids to bring lunches or certain snacks from home and some parents, and many students, aren't fans of the policy..."</p>
<p>Should any school be dictating what our kids eat?</p>
<p>School's</a> food is the only option for some kids - chicagotribune.com</p>
<p>How can a public school ban lunches from home and require students to purchase a lunch at school? In California, the ACLU has sued in similar instances where public schools have required the purchase of locks, gym clothing or school supplies. There is no way this policy would pass legal review.</p>
<p>Judging by the photo, the school also has some kind of school uniform. Why no article about that? </p>
<p>It was my observation when my kid was in elementary school that many kids threw away or did not eat home-packed lunches as well as school lunches. (Including my kid.) Eventually we started having him eat the school lunch–which was generally healthy and something that kids liked, such as a turkey hotdog, carrot sticks, and milk–rather than spending a lot of money on wasted food. And if he wasted it, at least I didn’t have to see spoiled sandwiches coming home in the lunch box.</p>
<p>“…encourage healthful eating” and school lunches in the same sentence? Don’t know about Chicago, but most school lunches IME and those of nearly everyone I knew in NYC and many other parts of the US tend to be both unhealthful and abysmal in the taste department at the same time. </p>
<p>Those two concepts are such polar opposites along with how this policy is supporting a private contracting racket that I’m not sure to be amused or saddened. :(</p>
<p>There’s always private school.</p>
<p>I suppose if public schools can dictate uniforms – which some do – they can dictate lunches. I assume public schools have the right to dictate certain things not be brought to school, e.g., peanut butter if there is a child with a peanut allergy?</p>
<p>Why is there an assumption that home-made lunches are less healthy than school ones? I’ve packed my daughter’s lunch for years, and I guarantee it’s better than what she could buy at her school; as a parent, I would be very insulted if I were told I was incapable of packing a lunch intelligently. Not to mention that a home-packed lunch is generally cheaper.</p>
<p>I have no problem with schools only providing healthy food; it’s what they should be doing.</p>
<p>However, not letting kids have certain foods from home is overboard. At a certain point, you have to account for personal liberties, which not even a school is allowed to fully suppress.</p>
<p>Both my kids found school lunches to be repulsive and never bought school lunch (well, D2 would on chicken nugget day in ES, so it’s been over 4 years since she bought a school meal.) And D1 is finding dorm food bad in similar ways: overprocessed & with lots of sodium. She’s shocked that there’s not an epidemic of scurvy among college students 
She’d rather go to the local supermarket & cook for herself.</p>
<p>I guarantee you my kids that my kids school lunches were much healthier than anything the cafeteria would serve.</p>
<p>Wow. When I was a kid we were to rich for subsidized lunches but too poor to pay for hot lunch. I also know that packing a lunch can give better nutrition than the school offerings- you wouldn’t see me eating peas, carrots or celery, typical kid meal options. I also threw out the PBJ sandwiches that were the only option from home- I now tolerate peanut butter. A much better approach would be to have an approved foods list for carry in lunches. I don’t see where a school lunch program can provide foods to suit every palate, defeating their purpose of ensuring a good meal.</p>
<p>We could afford hot lunch for our kid but sent him more nutritious bag lunches most of the time- his choice (and more work for me).</p>
<p>The problem is most of the poeple at whom this is aimed are not reading this or much of anything else. So the next best thing is to takeover another duty from the parent(s) who have proven too unreliable to follow healthy suggestions and make it mandatory through single source provision of lunches. Nobody has the time to inspect lunches from home to check for adequacy, etc. This is just the most effective for the mosty kids. I hope the schools can deliver on the promises implied by the policy.</p>
<p>I recently had lunch at school with my 1st grader. Let me just say that you would be shocked by what some parents send in their child’s lunch from home. One girl had an airhead taffy (large candy stick and no, uh, she didn’t eat her sandwhich, she went right to dessert, duh), blue jello, mini snicker bars, and small sized cans of coke. I have always packed my kids lunches, and admit to being an very healthy eater, so my kids do not ever have cookies packed in their lunches, nor the seemingly standard chocolate Horizon milk that all preschools and elementary lunches seem to include. Do I think schools have a right to say no to certain foods being in lunches brought from home? Have you ever volunteered to work in your child’s classsroom and seen first hand what teachers experience after someone has brought in the celebratory birthday cupcakes (about 25 times per year, since that’s the typical size classroom now). Kids are first hyped up and then there’s the CRASH about an hour later. How is that child suppose to learn in either situation? </p>
<p>Yes, the bought lunch still offers flavored milks, and there are lots of fried foods, but you won’t see candy offered as a “side” (or maincourse). School systems are also under a lot of pressure to change and many have changed. Ours always offers hummus/pita, cut up veggies and dip, along with the typical frozen re-heat entrees. They are adding local farm produce as it becomes available. And our High School vending machines no longer have soda. So there are small changes and the only way to keep the momentum going is to continue to encourage healthier options (advocacy at your local level).</p>
<p>So, although I can understand the “they don’t have the right to tell me what to pack attitude”, I can certainly understand where the school is coming from now that I’ve seen what some kids are bringing. And look, the fact is, this generation of children may actually not outlive us. 1 out of 5 children are overweight, and 12 year old’s are being diagnosed with Diabetes type II. These children deserve better. So this really isn’t just about what they eat during their school years. We are setting them up for a lifetime battle with weight problems and chronic health conditions. They need to have healthy options early on and parents need to be the main influence in their lives in regards to food and life style. If the parents don’t take on that duty, then the school does have to step in.</p>
<p>It takes a village to pack a lunch.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how this can be allowed. I’m a vegetarian because of my religion, and was not able to eat the vast majority of the school lunches because of that. I’m sure this applies to those of many other religions, and those students with allergies or have celiac disease, etc.</p>
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<p>I completely disagree with that statement. Upon what basis does a government “have to step in” to disagree with a parent’s choice in foods for the family? Reaching out to educate children and parents on healthy choices? Sure, I can see the societal interest in that. Ensuring that food is available for all of our children? Yes, yes, yes. Intrusive bans on home-packed lunches? No. </p>
<p>Especially no to a school system which proudly announced improvements for this school year’s food service which included changing from a zero-gram to a four-gram-a-day (breakfast and lunch) fiber requirement. [Chicago</a> Public Schools : CPS unveils new nutritional standards](<a href=“http://www.cps.edu/News/Press_releases/Pages/04_07_2010_PR1.aspx]Chicago”>Error | Chicago Public Schools)
Few school systems have meals that are any more than just barely adequate in a quest to teach children to truly eat well. (Although many chefs have tried successfully to show that this can indeed be done on the same budget schools use for the reheated mush.)</p>
<p>As you have, I joined my child for school lunches and did my volunteer stints. I wasn’t surprised to note that practically all of the faculty and staff opted to bring their own brown bag lunches. </p>
<p>If I choose that my child take in calories and grams of sugar and fat in the form of a home-baked oatmeal-raisin cookie rather than through a half-pint of chocolate milk, that’s a choice a parent has the right to make. There must be some showing of a most significant governmental interest before such choices are stripped from families. A principal’s distaste for seeing kids eating Doritos or drinking soda on field trips just doesn’t seem to meet that standard.</p>
<p>Shravas, it does say in the article that there are exceptions for religious reasons and for food allergies, so that isn’t the problem.</p>
<p>I agree that there should be a list of foods that are not allowed on campus as well as a list of healthy options, rather than a blanket policy. I have no doubt that this has come about as a reaction to the lunches of candy, pop and chips that I saw all too often.</p>
<p>“So, although I can understand the “they don’t have the right to tell me what to pack attitude”, I can certainly understand where the school is coming from now that I’ve seen what some kids are bringing.”</p>
<p>Yep. It affects school instruction, too. When a second grader has eaten M&Ms for lunch, he doesn’t get much learning done in the afternoon. He’s going to be bothering his classmates instead. Every social worker and legal aid lawyer has seen baby bottles full of Coke. There’s no way to overstate the nutritional ignorance of many parents.</p>
<p>As Barrons noted, this is a less expensive solution compared to checking every lunch for a list of allowed/disallowed foods. I hope that the school lunch is nutritionally decent. The school is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to helping the children of the least competent parents. No matter what the school serves, no child is going to eat it when he has a (mom-approved!) bag of Skittles to eat instead. Even the worst school lunches are better than that.</p>
<p>When I was a kid I would have sooner not eaten and starved all afternoon than been force fed whatever the cafeteria was serving. I don’t think it’s the school’s place to decide what kids get to eat. Sure, it may affect the classroom, but so do LOTS of things that the school has no control over and shouldn’t-- like children with unmedicated ADHD, for example. </p>
<p>Just because parents make mistakes doesn’t give the school the right to control them.</p>
<p>Ha. Our schools’ slush funds come primarily from lunchtime ice cream sales.</p>
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<p>Considering the school food I’ve seen in NYC and elsewhere, I wouldn’t be so sure about that…</p>
<p>I’ll grant you it won’t be candy/desserts…but is excessive grease/fat and sodium any better in the greater scheme of things?</p>