When Congress blocked Obama administration efforts to limit junk food in school lunches, pizza and french fries won out over nutrition. While grade-school kids may be happy about it, grown-ups should be dismayed.
Last week’s passage of a spending bill avoided a federal shutdown but didn’t help in the fight against obesity. The bill included school lunch provisions dumping healthier standards that would have limited servings of potatoes, reduced sodium over a 10-year period and changed guidelines that currently allow the tomato paste on pizza to be counted as a vegetable. The proposed new standards, which increased servings of fruits, non-starchy vegetables and whole grains, came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The fight against childhood obesity has been a key issue for Michelle Obama, who promoted the campaign in San Diego last year in her first visit to the region as first lady.
In San Diego County, an estimated 12 percent of children age 12 to 17 are obese and 11 percent more are overweight, according to public-health researchers. Nationwide, childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The percentage of children age 6–11 in the United States who were obese increased from 7 percent in 1980 to nearly 20 percent in 2008.
Parents should be the first line of responsibility for their child’s nutritional health. But a healthier school lunch menu should be part of the battle plan, too. Lack of exercise and bad eating habits are putting our children’s lives at risk.
The USDA’s proposed school lunch standards were part of an update of nutritional guidelines that were based on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, the health and nutrition arm of the National Academy of Sciences. When the guidelines were put out for public comment earlier this year, critics included school districts claiming some of the changes were too costly, potato-growing states, the salt industry and food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools.
An occasional pizza slice here and a serving of fries there might be acceptable, but offering kids a regular diet of unhealthy food choices is not the way to go.
Our country’s obesity epidemic has raised concerns far beyond the schoolhouse. Mission: Readiness, a national security group, is spreading the word about the rate of obesity among children and young adults and its impact on national security. Weight problems have became the leading medical reason why young adults don’t qualify for military service.
In a state with an abundance of locally grown fruits and vegetables, we should not be skimping on nutritious food choices for our kids. Cutting back on the fries and adding more leafy greens shouldn’t be too much to ask for when it comes to the health of our children.