Where does health start?
American is stunned about child and adoleshence obesity, after my encounter with Primary School Lunches yesterday, I am not so much anymore. Are you asking yourself why? Well, let me tell you my story.
In the last week I was invited to have two lunch dates with children out of my neighborhood. Normally, I don't have time for this since I work and go to school fulltime but right now I am without a job and school hasn't started up yet again. First lunch wasn't too bad tacos...even though I asked myself what kind of meat it was that I was eating. While sitting there I was looking around...what do the children eat? What do they bring from home? Not much that I was impressed me.
Then came my second lunch date and my second experience with a school cafeteria...don't get me wrong I know they make food for hundred of kids, and the children pay just $2 per meal, but what I ate and saw was a bit too much formy tastebutts.
It was hamburger day with tater tots, rolls, ham sandwich, fruit either out of the can or fresh with milk.
So I decided I would try the hamburger.....let's say I asked myself what the leather was that I had to eat...at least it had a whole wheat bun...
so I thought ok let's look at it from the carb side....
bun carbs
chocolate milk even though fat free had tons of sugar in it
peaches out of the can....more carbs
tater tots ....carbs
do I see that the schools are trying to make it healthy sure....they offer fruit and fat free milk, instead of the hamburger they can have a ham sandwich...which by the way I should have taken...
And then again I looked around and asked myself what are the children bringing from home for lunch...let's say chips, sandwich, raisin bread, cookies, coolaid, brownies....all in all I saw three children that had fruit for sweets instead of cookies...very few of the children had whole wheat bread most of them had sugared drinks instead of a juice box or water.
So where does it all start? At home, I remember when my children were little our TV snacks were apples, grapes, bananas, melon and veggies instead of chips. Even today now that they are adults we always have fruit in reach for them...
We can be upset about the school lunches all we want if we as parents don't make healthy choices for our children, they won't either.
In the last week I was invited to have two lunch dates with children out of my neighborhood. Normally, I don't have time for this since I work and go to school fulltime but right now I am without a job and school hasn't started up yet again. First lunch wasn't too bad tacos...even though I asked myself what kind of meat it was that I was eating. While sitting there I was looking around...what do the children eat? What do they bring from home? Not much that I was impressed me.
Then came my second lunch date and my second experience with a school cafeteria...don't get me wrong I know they make food for hundred of kids, and the children pay just $2 per meal, but what I ate and saw was a bit too much formy tastebutts.
It was hamburger day with tater tots, rolls, ham sandwich, fruit either out of the can or fresh with milk.
So I decided I would try the hamburger.....let's say I asked myself what the leather was that I had to eat...at least it had a whole wheat bun...
so I thought ok let's look at it from the carb side....
bun carbs
chocolate milk even though fat free had tons of sugar in it
peaches out of the can....more carbs
tater tots ....carbs
do I see that the schools are trying to make it healthy sure....they offer fruit and fat free milk, instead of the hamburger they can have a ham sandwich...which by the way I should have taken...
And then again I looked around and asked myself what are the children bringing from home for lunch...let's say chips, sandwich, raisin bread, cookies, coolaid, brownies....all in all I saw three children that had fruit for sweets instead of cookies...very few of the children had whole wheat bread most of them had sugared drinks instead of a juice box or water.
So where does it all start? At home, I remember when my children were little our TV snacks were apples, grapes, bananas, melon and veggies instead of chips. Even today now that they are adults we always have fruit in reach for them...
We can be upset about the school lunches all we want if we as parents don't make healthy choices for our children, they won't either.
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