I just finished Janet Poppendieck's Free For All: Fixing School Food in America, and I must say that I really enjoyed this book. It brought up many issues with school systems that I hadn't thought about. But when she concluded with her theory of a perfect school system, I agreed with most of her opinions, but disagreed with the ways she mentioned to fix the problems. *Firstly, Janet believes that there should be no separation between free, reduced, and full price lunches. It simply promotes segregation and problems in the student body. As much as it helps poor children afford lunchtime meal, it creates this stigma that if you eat the school lunch, you must be poor.
I agree with this opinion. There must be a better way to allow every child to eat the meals without bring in economic class into the situation. Schools have tried to hide this by giving all children electronic cards that are swiped at each meal. By doing so, no one can know who pays full price and who doesn't. But this technique does not always work. High income families are not paying for lunch and instead give their children money to buy from the a la carte or packing their lunches for them. Because of this, children that get free or reduced lunch prices are the only ones getting the school prepared meals, thus keeping that stigma.
I have 2 opinions on how to fix this problem.
1. We make it free for all children to eat lunch. As simple as this sounds, it's not so easy. The biggest problem with this is where the money would come from to pay for all these meals. We can't simply ask the government to pay for it because it's an extra $13 billion per year. Janet suggested getting the money from taxes. If we take a certain amount of the taxes of schoolchildren's parents that would be based on their total income, then we might be able to give all the lunches out for free while keeping the stigma private. Janet also suggests getting money from other taxes such as soda-pop. She says that if we were to tax an extra 1% on soda-pop drinks, we might be able to raise enough money to allow free lunches to be possible.
2. Make it mandatory for parents to pay for the meals either at the beginning of the semester or at the beginning of the month. If we wanted to keep the free, reduced, and full prices, we would have to make a way that would not allow the students to separate themselves by class. If we made school lunch mandatory for all students and had the parents pay a one-time fee before the school year/month, then there would be no discrimination between the children because they are all required to eat school lunches. Many people might have a problem with this for different reasons like if their child missed a day of school and they weren't allowed to get the money back for that day's lunch or if their child did not like the school lunches and they do not want to be forced to pay. But, this way prevents the stigma problem we are seeing today. However, I do suggest that this is a back-up plan because of all the complications that can go wrong with it (i.e. poor family does not pay at beginning of the year/month, would they get to still eat food?).
*Secondly, Janet believes that the USDA should continue to be involved in the school lunch programs but should redesign the nutrition regulations and requirements. She believes that the USDA should start looking at the types of foods rather than the nutrients for the school meals. She believes that the USDA should try to co-op with farms and local food producers to make the meals healthier and less expensive.
I also agree with this statement. I agree that the USDA should be involved because a complicated system like this should always have a leader that holds everything together and makes sure that everything is running smoothly. However, she doesn't mention much about educating children on nutrition and healthy eating. She says that she doesn't believe that children should learn and memorize nutrients and other technical things of the same nature, but that they should be exposed to health foods and that it is our job as parents and adults to do that for them. However, I would argue that it is also important for children to learn hands-on how to eat healthily and to cook. Just by removing vending machines and fried foods are not going to teach them that these things are unhealthy. They are going to see these foods outside of school like at stores, on TV, or even at home by their parents. We need them to learn that these food are not ok to eat. If we have them help out with the cooking, the planning of the menu, the ordering of the ingredients, then they will find interest in the topic and learn from experience. Saying that, I do not feel that it is important for them to learn the technicalities of health and nutrition, or at least not till around high school level, but they should learn the foundations.
*Lastly, Janet suggests that school lunches should be served at a separate time of the day than classroom time. One of the arguments surrounding school lunches is whether or not children should get a break off of school to each lunch. Some people feel that it is a wasted 30minutes-1hour of a day that could be used to teach students more. However, like Janet, I strongly suggest that lunchtime should be it's own thing. Not only does it refuel the students to get enough energy to last the rest of the school day, but it also gives them the opportunity to socialize with their peers. In most cultures, meals are used in a way to socialize and bond with people. If we took that away from students, they would have no time to work on their social skills during the school day. And since social skills are essential for living in the world, it would be detrimental to take that short period of time away from them.
Furthermore, I would almost suggest the opposite; give them more time for lunch. Janet talks about schools that are giving short and short periods for lunch, some lasting as short as 18 minutes. With such short of times, children are forced to stress about spending too much time in long lines, not being able to sit and enjoy their lunch, and not being able to socialize with their friends. It's easier for children to bring their own lunches or not eat at all. No matter the situation, this shortness of time is promoting bad health. Health experts suggest that the average person takes 20 minutes to digest food. If children only have 18 minutes to eat, they are eating faster than their body can handle, thus promoting fat storage. With stress, students are putting their bodies at many health risks such as overeating, mental illness, low immune systems, etc. With not eating at all, students aren't going to have a healthy balanced diet. They might suffer from low blood sugar which may cause them to feel faint, lightheaded, or low energy. At the same time, they are missing out on all the nutrients and vitamins that would have gotten if they ate lunch. So overall, this needs to change and giving longer periods of lunch would do that.
So these are just a few of the topics Janet brought up in her book. Fixing school lunches is not going to be easy. But we MUST change them! It is the only way to keep children healthy. And I believe that by teaching them healthy habits at such a young age, they will uses the habits for their entire lives and teach them to future generations to come. By doing so, we will change how humans eat. We will all be healthier!
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