Disclaimer: Still love junk food in moderation, still not looking down my nose at individual people or individual choices...but institutions are fair game.
I'm so thankful we don't have any serious, life-threatening food allergies to deal with. (Not now, anyway. With very young children, I guess I better not count that particular chicken yet.) It's hard enough getting Boy 1 through a day or two of school with simpler sensitivities.
The paperwork for Boy 1's current school, his previous preschool, and both day camps he attended over the summer all included spaces for special concerns, and I listed on all of them that he is restricted from artificial coloring. And then I (foolishly, apparently) assumed that approving and packing his lunches myself would keep those and other questionable ingredients out of his diet.
But snacks are ubiquitous where little kids are concerned. Snacks at both summer camps were light and generally pretty healthful. Where they fell apart was drinks. Kool-aid...ughh. Things were a bit more extreme at the first preschool. I packed Boy 1's lunch but did not know that the school provided a snack every afternoon also. Boy 1 was tearful, irritable, angry, unfocused, and generally out of control for two days before I put two and two together, asked a few questions, and discovered not just Kool-aid but also those gummy fruit-flavored things and cheese puffs had been on the snack menu. And of course, they're all full of dye.
By the time Boy 1 got into the pre-K, I'd learned my lesson. I put the notes on his registration paperwork but made a point of speaking to Boy 1's teachers at the very beginning also. These teachers listened. They've been vigilant about checking everything before letting him have it. If there's ever a question whether something is okay, they call me and ask or give him an alternate safe snack that I've already approved or provided myself instead.
But I continually find it irritating that this should be a problem at all. It's become clear that schools are no place to count on finding good food of any kind.
First, this pre-K program exists in part because of a Title I grant, under which breakfast is provided to students. It's not an option as it is with the K-12 programs but a regular part of the scheduled school day. All this, I did not know until several days into Boy 1's attendance. In an age where the government--the Feds, for Pete's sake!--is expressing concern over childhood obesity, this lack of notification would seem a rather large oversight. I mean, I'd been feeding him breakfast at home, not realizing he was eating a full meal again the moment he got to school. Can you say "excess"?
Doubling up wasn't the only reason I was annoyed. I know what school meals are like. It was not Boy 1's imagination talking when he spoke of chocolate milk, fruit punch, Lucky Charms, cookies, and Froot Loops. Regardless he personally is not getting in on the very worst of the junk (because his teachers intervene between him and all those dyes), I'm left wondering why is this the standard, everyday fare for ANY preschooler?
That's breakfast. A look at the school lunch menu is perplexing, too. There's a lot of focus on calorie and carb totals. I base that observation on the counts listed next to the meal each day. But there seems to be no attention to other elements like vitamins, sodium, iron, fat, fiber...the requirements don't seem to add up to a full nutritional picture. And the meals reflect that. A quarter of an orange, for example, appears to count as a full serving of fresh fruit. Fruit juice is accepted as an alternate to whole fruit. Most vegetables are fully cooked, but they also are canned first. I remember well those mushy double-processed green beans, and they haven't improved a bit in the 30+ years since they appeared in my elementary school's cafeteria. Overall, the menu gives me a sense of Eww. Boy 1 is way better off with a cold box lunch from home.
And then there's the whole afternoon snack thing. I get that lots of kids eat smaller meals, more frequently, and that makes a snack necessary. What I don't get is why we are not asked to simply provide a couple of small snacks for our own kids every day. Instead, each day a different child's parent is asked to bring a snack for the whole class to share.
I have no problem with sharing something special when you're creating an event. Pilgrims and Indians-themed food the week before Thanksgiving, say. And I have no objection to a more indulgent (i.e., junkier) treat occasionally, like cupcakes on a student's birthday. But every day?
First, it forces the teachers to spend even more time policing Boy 1's food (not to mention that of any other kid with a food issue), which is job enough just for breakfast. And beyond special diets, there's the problem of snack guidelines. According to the school handbook, snacks are to be "store-bought," "packaged," and "healthy." I understand "store-bought' and "packaged" probably are intended to ensure the snacks are not contaminated, spoiled, or undercooked, but it also leaves out many things that are "healthy" (shrink-wrapped banana, anyone?) and subs in a whole lot of salt and sugar. So, it's no surprise that about half the time, parents don't follow the "healthy" guideline and just send in little bags of barbecue potato chips.
I can only hope that this will get simpler once we're past the very young grades where snacking is a way of life. Of course, by then independence will have kicked in. I remember those complicated lunchbox trades kids engineered in elementary school....
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