Chicago School Bans Bagged Lunches!

In the realm of the unbelievable, check out this story from Chicago;

The days of brown bagging it are over for students in a Chicago school. In an effort to encourage healthy eating, their principal banned lunches brought from home.  Elsa Carmona, principal of Little Village Academy on Chicago’s West Side, forbade students from bringing food from home (except those students with a medical excuse) after she noticed kids eating “flaming hot” chips and drinking soda at lunchtime. “It’s milk versus Coke,” she said.

Flaming hot chips and a soft drink are cause for banning bagged lunch?  As John McEnroe would say “you cannot be serious.”  Is there any evidence that kids who bag their lunch are fatter than kids who eat lunch at school?  And this policy has supposedly been in place for six years as we understand it!  Where has the outrage been?  And, of course, as with everything else. Congress and our camera-hungry president have to stick their noses in it;

As part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, school lunches everywhere will soon undergo a dramatic makeover thanks to Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, signed by President Obama last December. The act allows the government more power to decide what foods can be offered in school lunches, school vending machines and at fundraisers during school hours.

While the goal of healthy eating is a positive one, parents are understandably upset about the Carmona dictating what their kids can and cannot eat for lunch. Not to mention the fact that some parents may be able to send their kids to lunch with a meal that costs less (and one that could be even healthier) than the school’s offerings.  The kids are upset, too. When the Tribune reporter visited the school, one seventh grader led students in a chant of “We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!” Students say the school’s food tastes bad. Bad-tasting food, parents say, often means that kids throw away the school lunch and go hungry.

Of course there may be another reason to ban school lunch that has nothing to do with so-called nutrition;

It’s also worth noting, as reported by the Tribune, that the school district receives money from the federal government for each free or reduced-price lunch it serves, meaning that in banning homemade lunches could potentially put more money in the pockets of both the district and the school district’s food provider.

No that couldn’t be the reason could it?

So what to Americans think about this ridiculous government intrusion?  Well, Scott Rassmussen did a poll and here are the results;

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that an overwhelming 92% of American Adults believe students should be allowed to bring lunch from home. Only three percent disagree, with six percent (6%) undecided.  Support is slightly stronger among those with children in the home compared to those without children living with them.  Fifty-nine percent (59%) of all adults think lunch brought from home is healthier for students to eat than a school cafeteria lunch. Nineteen percent (19%) say a cafeteria lunch is healthier, but another 22% are not sure.  Among adults with children living with them, 71% say lunch from home is healthier. Only 48% of adults without children in their home agree. Adults under the age of 50 are more likely than their elders to believe bringing lunch from home is the healthier alternative for students.

Americans don’t seem to like this, nor do they much else the government is trying to do when it comes to telling us what to eat.

In December, just after President Obama signed into law a measure that gives the federal government the authority to regulate all foods in schools, only 23% of Adults said the government should set school nutritional standards.   Fifty-two percent (52%) of adults feel that sugary snacks and soft drinks should be banned from sale in schools.  But only 32% favor “sin taxes” on soda and junk foods. Fifty-nine percent (59%) are opposed to new taxes of this kind.  Just 11% support a ban on kids’ fast-food menu options unless they meet nutritional guidelines.  A move for such a ban in San Francisco was unsuccessful late last year but now is being proposed in New York City.

So Americans clearly saying NO to the big government food police!  Are our arrogant leaders listening?