Where do we draw the line between healthy and fanatic?
I’m a firm believer in school lunch reform. As it stands now, many school lunches actually have a whole days worth of calories. This is a throw back to the great depression, right before WWII, when kids were underweight, and graduating without enough meat on their bones to effectively serve in the military. The school lunch act went into effect to effectively keep people from starving to death and keeping them healthy enough to defend the country.
So, now we’ve got 2,000 calorie lunches in a time when starvation isn’t so much an issue, and we couple that with the fact that kids will most likely be eating two other meals in their day, and possibly a snack or two and it’s no wonder childhood obesity and diabetes levels in this country are skyrocketing. With school budget cuts, physical education has been cut, often to once a week in many schools. So, yes, in my humble opinion there’s some changing that needs to take place in our public school system.
Having said that, MeMe Roth a NYC mom who’s kids go to PS.9 seems to have gone bat-ish crazy over the food at the school. Surprisingly enough, she’s not disturbed about the high caloric values in school lunches, she’s upset about birthday cupcakes sent in by her fellow parents to celebrate birthdays, or Valentine’s Day candy, or any other treat that may be passed out during the school day.
All was fine at first when she seemed to have worked out a system with her kids, any treat that was given out at school would be taken home, examined by her, then either disposed of or allowed to be eaten. All that ended when her daughter was given an ice-pop and told she couldn’t bring it home – she either had to eat it or not eat it. Hmm, yeah that makes sense. Well, MeMe was peeved and has now demanded that the school require permission slips for any non school lunch food distributed to the kids during the day.
Her mission in life is to stamp out diabetes and obesity! I get it, I agree that those are problems, but personally I think she’s a friggin’ whack job. Part of a healthy lifestyle is a healthy relationship with food, knowing when to indulge and when not to. She may be all about promoting disordered eating and the demonization of food within her own children, and that’s her right, but it’s a bit presumptuous to assume that every other parent has a vendetta against cupcakes.
The New York Times reports that the police once were called to a local YMCA after Roth allegedly stole sprinkles and syrup from an ice cream party meant for local kids. Seriously woman, put the chocolate syrup down. Recognize that it’s the right of other people to choose what they eat and what their children eat. If you want to the be the “Candy Nazi”, more power to you – in your own home. Can’t we all just get along?
All work and no cupcakes makes MeMe the crazy lady that everyone whispers about at PTA meetings.
Sigh… her poor kids.
