Photo: Ben McLeod (flickr)
It’s like a mixture of candid camera and big brother, but this time it’s being used on your kids.
Last week, Texas health officials unveiled a new $2 million project to see how many calories elementary school children consume at lunch.
Each student will have a bar code on the tray to identify them. Kids will pick out food and as they’re paying for it a camera will take a picture of all the items they selected.
After students are finished ready to dump they’re trash, another camera will take a picture of the food they have left on their tray.
The computer program will then identify the foods by measuring size, shape, color and density and comparing them to a database of 7,500 foods. The calculated calories consumed and the values of 128 other nutrients (fiber, fat, sugar, protein, etc.) will then be sent to the parents.
The cameras, about the size of a pocket flashlight, are only supposed to take pictures of the trays, not the students. 90 percent of parents at the school gave permission for their child’s meal to be observed, and the kids know that they are being photographed.
What do you think?
Is this considered spying? Should schools be tracking what children eat? Let us know what you think.