Removing junk foods from schools
School Daze
Milk maligned, Cheetos cheered
As you know, I’ve been a vocal supporter of some school districts’ efforts to remove junk foods from schools. Of course, many of the ways some of these school systems are going about this goal is all wrong
Especially when their goal is clearly wealth instead of health.
Case in point: A couple of weeks ago, Illinois Governor Rod Blagoyevich called upon his state’s legislature to enact a new ban on junk food in the Prairie State’s public elementary and middle schools – under the auspices of raising the bar for kids’ health. A worthy goal, right? Not so fast
According to the Chicago Tribune and other sources, the proposal calls for the school board’s definition of “junk food” to be revised. And under the new guidelines, cartons of whole white milk would be disallowed – but one-ounce bags of baked Cheetos, potato chips and other snack foods would be hunky-dory! This ridiculous transformation would be managed by re-writing the guidelines that the state school board uses to classify the relative healthfulness of foods. (Yes, I know the pasteurized, homogenized milk is a bilk but that’s another story.)
By all outward appearances, the Governor of Illinois thinks that essential animal fats and vitamins from whole milk are more dangerous to kids’ health than the chemicals, colorings, vegetable oils, trans-fats and soy by-products most of the vending machine fare he wants to allow are loaded with. Such snacks are banned by the school’s current definition of “junk food,” so enacting this new ban would take more or less rewriting the rules
At first glance, you might simply thank the powers above that you don’t have a pre-adolescent kid in Illinois public schools. You’d also conclude that Governor Blagoyevich is simply a well meaning, yet misguided buffoon in public office (an all-too-common phenomenon). But if you dig a little further into the story, you’d discover that it’s all just a snow-job – the REAL AIM of this proposal is clearly to open the door to greater vending machine revenues in the state’s high schools.
Under the Gov’s new plan – which does not include high schools – more of the chips and crackers currently identified as junk foods will be exonerated from that classification and will be saleable in revenue-generating vending machines. THAT’s why high schools are exempted, you see. Kids in grades 9-12 actually have jobs or substantial allowances that provide them with money to spend on vending machine food while in school
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What I don’t understand is this: Why are vending machines in public schools at all-in Illinois or anywhere else? Why are state and local governments allowed to turn taxpayer-funded school systems into purveyors of convenience-store junk food?
Don’t they get enough of our money to make ends meet without bilking their easily-led charges out of their pocket change – while risking their health in the process?
If you ask any teachers’ union, the answer is no.
But here’s the odd thing: Private schools educate kids to a higher standard using far less money per pupil than public schools. Here’s the proof, using 2001 data from the state of Illinois itself:
The average amount of money Illinois spends to educate a single student in the public school system is $7483 statewide
The average amount spent per pupil in private Catholic schools within Illinois’ Chicago Archdiocese (which I assume is a higher figure than the statewide average) is $2476 for elementary kids, $4500 for high-schoolers
Why should it take as much as 3 times more money for Illinois to educate kids as the private, Catholic school system, which does it better? (Mind you, I’m not advocating Catholic schooling over other forms of private education – it’s just that the data for comparison purposes was more readily available)
Of course, everyone knows the answer. It’s because of government. Anything our elected officials touch becomes more expensive – and at every turn, they find new ways to tax us, fine us, or otherwise extract from us (like with vending machines) ever more money to fund their inefficiency and excess
And apparently, our children aren’t off limits – even while they’re in school.
Always teaching how states are leaching,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
