Thread: This burns my bacon! More nanny state bureaucratic nonesense.

That's exactly what they should have done, and exactly, and only what the law in question requires. No doubt the nutritionist gave her the whole lunch because it's easier than trying to find something in which to serve a single serving of veggies. This isn't a bad law. It's at worst a poorly trained school nutritionist.

It's a bad law. Any law that gives a stranger the right to dictate what our kids can and can't eat has no place in a free society.

Hillary can take her, "it takes a village" and shove it. My kid would be leaving that school.

Are you paying attention Crotalus? The law doesn't give anybody the right to dictate what anybody's kids can or can't eat. The law requires school nutritionists to provide a supplement if the packed lunch doesn't meet USDA nutritional standards. It doesn't require anybody to eat or not eat anything, nor does it authorize anybody to confiscate anything.

The lunch in question met USDA requirements, so the school nutritionist wasn't required to supplement the lunch. That she chose to do so anyway means that she is poorly trained, regardless of whether she did it because the kid was badgering her in order to get chicken nuggets (which I think is more likely), or because she really thought the packed lunch wasn't sufficient. This is a bad school nutritionist, not a bad law.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

The kid only ate 3 nuggets off the school lunch tray. She could have eaten her sandwich as well, or her banana, or drank her juice or ate her chips, or ate anything else off the lunch tray, but decided to get the lunch lady in trouble instead.

This sounds to me like a bad kid that uses food to manipulate the adults in her life.... Sounds like another one of those parents who's kid can do no wrong.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

It's on the kid, and ultimately the parents, to make sure they actually eat a well-balanced and nutritious meal, instead of just buying one or bringing one, picking through it for the tasty bits, and throwing the rest away.


Instead, I suspect the kid whined and moaned so much about the lunch her mom packed her, especially when she saw that the class was having chicken nuggets for lunch, that she wore down the nutritionist (probably her teacher) into giving her a school lunch...The school's not responsible for the kid's bad eating choices learned and reinforced from mom, all they can do is offer options for eating better.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

Which is the more likely explanation here? That a pre-school age kid really wanted to eat her turkey sandwich and banana, but the school nutritionist made her eat chicken nuggets instead, or that a pre-school age kid who has a turkey sandwich from home sees chicken nuggets on the menu and makes enough of a fuss that the nutritionist just gives her a school lunch and sends the kid home with a bill for $1.25 and a form letter about school lunch supplements, and when the mom gets mad the kid blames the school nutritionist?

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

So you think it's more likely that a school lunch lady saw that a kid had a turkey sandwich, apple juice, banana and chips packed for lunch, and decided to say "No, you have to have chicken nuggets instead," rather than a 4 year old kid making a fuss because everybody else is getting chicken nuggets and she wants some, but has her turkey sandwich her mom packed her unless she can convince the lunch lady to give her chicken nuggets too?

Clearly, this kid's mom wants her kid to eat healthy, she took the effort to pack her lunch, after all. That the kid only ate three chicken nuggets isn't the school's fault. ...And it's ridiculous to blame the school for the kid's bad food choices when the only thing the school can do is offer supplements. Either the parents are to blame for not teaching their kids to make good choices, or the kid's to blame for being too immature to make the choices they know they should make.

But wait for it, there's more...

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

This isn't a bad law. It's at worst a poorly trained school nutritionist.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

This is a bad school nutritionist, not a bad law.

Kantian P, I have been enjoying your posts, but I am confused by all that you've put forth. Just whom do we blame for this absurd situation?. You've placed blame on just about everyone and now I'm lost. Please help me.

It appears that this kind of thing warrants news attention nowadays - God Bless the 24 hours "news" cycle we are told we need to have to keep up with all the "important" things going on in the world.

Is this really indicative of a nanny state, or is it, rather, indicative of a cynical news media feeding our preconceptions with blatant tripe in order to stir up ratings?

Let's face it, the only reason a news media outlet cares about your children's nutrition is so they end up living long enough to become news consumers themselves.

James.

In order: the school nutritionist for being poorly trained in what she is required by law to do, the mom for making a federal case out of her kid eating three chicken nuggets instead of a turkey sandwich and going to the media about it, the media for actually bothering to report this idiocy as news of any sort, and lastly, the kid for likely cajoling school officials into giving her the chicken nuggets in the first place and then only eating three of them and nothing else.

As for what to do about it, spank the kid, reprimand and retrain the school nutritionist, and publicly ridicule the mother, Fox News, the local Fox affiliate, the local paper, and anybody else who thinks this is evidence of some sort of devious government conspiracy to take away parents' choices of food for their kids.

Well I don't know what you blokes are smoking over there in the US, but in my books I have to wonder why a school would allow such food or has a school nutritionist who allows such 'healthy' food like 'nuggets' to be served up. I don't let my kids near any of that sort of junk, except as a (very) rare treat. No fizzy drink, no junk food allowed whatsoever. If I my child was offered that sort of thing from the school, you could bet I would be up there to rip the principal a new orifice.
It sounds to me like the school system is controlled by a warped sub-division of the department of Agriculture and fast food chains.


Mick

Perhaps the chicken nuggets are to get the children ready for soylent green...

Originally Posted by Catrentshaving

I don't know about the U.S. but I'm not allowed to send my kids to school with peanut butter

I'm sorry....what?



Why?