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Big Mother Is Watching
theodp writes "Newsweek reports that high-schoolers are being denied the joy of ordering unhealthy lunches thanks to their schools' adoption of services like MealpayPlus. New web-based services allow moms to prepay for cafeteria food, specify what their kid can and can't buy, and go online to track his purchases." From the article: "If the child tries to buy a prohibited item, an alert flashes on the cashier's computer. Of course, the system isn't foolproof. According to a KRC Research survey, 73 percent of 8- to 12-year-olds are throwing out part of their lunches at least once a week; 36 percent are trading them." All I ever got was PB&J.
Ah, nothing beats the love and care put into making your child's lunch... ...checklist.
But its a lot easier for parents to just fill out a checklist than to teach their children some lessons about healthy food and the right amount of sport to compensate fast food. Its like TV, why raising your kids by yourself if the little friend from Panasonic can do it also
I don't see what's so wrong with this. As long as the kids live at home, the parents should have a say in what the kids eat, what they wear and so on. If this system helps in achieving that goal, good. Another example is a parent who buys a cell phone to a kid on the condition that a) the kid carries it with him when he's out with his friends and b) answers the parent's call or at least calls back ASAP. Overprotective? I don't think so. Just common sense.
The owls are not what they seem
Bill Thompson, the only kid at Deerbrook High School still granted pizza privileges, has become the youngest person ever to retire at age 17.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
A fine sentiment, but health is something that kids should not be allowed to make mistakes with.
The owls are not what they seem
Isn't it amusing, the parents shouldn't control what their own children eat but corporations are allowed to use mass marketing in every waking moment of a childs life, as well as addictive junk additives in the 'food', to get the children to eat what most of the directors of the junk food companies would not eat themselves or allow their own children to eat. For those who don't think those junk additives are addictive, consider the efforts parents have to go to stop the children eating the crap, hell, a new successful company exists because of it.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Experimenting with drugs is not a sign of maturity.
What kind of backwoods logic is this? They're not mature enough to experiment with drugs either. There's a time and a place for that sort of thing. College.
We're talking about high schoolers here. If they want to buy junk food, then they can get a job and pay for it themselves. This program is about the parents deciding how THEIR money should be spent.
Raising kids is tough, but if you honestly need to control a high-schooler's diet, you definitely need a little help in the parenting department.
Why do I get the feeling you don't have kids.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Even in High School. If you're a parent and you eat junk or have junk in your home, ie: buy it for your kids or have it around for 'snacking' then you're responsible for your child's bad eating habits. You want your kids to eat right? Keep good healthy food in your home...
Fresh vegetables and fruit.... once a week buy fresh stuff and put it out where it can be seen... fruits in a bowl and vegetables on display, both in fridge and on counter in a nice container or basket. Pre-make good salads... don't keep them in the pre-mixed bag you buy them in.. put them in a nice salad bowl that has a freshness feature (clay to keep moist but also has holes in bottom and sides to let extra moisture out... and add in some extras, carrot slivers, almonds, cranberries, etc. make them look tasty... if you eat meat add some hard-boiled egg white slices and turkey chunks
Make good meals and stick them in the fridge as instant left-overs. These will be cheaper and better than a frozen dinner (less preservatives, etc.) and your teen will actually eat them, cause they can grab them late at night or whenever and heat them up on their own schedule, instead of grabbing a bag of chips or something.
Easy pre-made meals: Lasagna or any Pasta dish, Stir-Fry, Burritos, Taco ingredients, Pre-made sandwiches and wraps, Roasts that can be sliced into cold-cuts (teen-age boys love cutting stuff and they'll just slice off a hunk and grab some cheese and bread), hard-boiled eggs (peeled or not), sliced up veggies (carrot sticks, cucumbers, brockley, etc.) with a good dip (humus or veggie/cream cheese is great).
This might not sound like health-food but compared to the crap they'd stuff their faces with (think any fast-food or junk from convenience store) it's completely healthy and they'll eat it if it's made convenient for them.
In the end you'll find that they will end up looking for similar foods when they are out of the house too. They might even end up taking their lunches to school because the food that's available at home is so much better than the crap at school... but let them keep their 'lunch money' as a reward or else they'll stop taking their lunch just to get the money so they can spend it on other things... who cares what,
Point is they'll be healthier and it will only take a few hours a week on your part to make the food available in a appetizing form that's also convenient.
BTW same thing applies to drinks... get rid of the canned sodas.. just put some pitchers of old-fahioned lemonade (cut the sugar down) and Iced tea and juice and plenty of water bottles.
They'll still have some junk in their diet when out with friends but they won't be creating a habit while at home and the reality is that we all really spend the longest part of our 24 hour day at home... so make it a healthy one and you'll have healthy kids.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Overprotective? I don't think so. Just common sense.
.High School. They've been taught incompetence.
Jesus, all of a sudden I'm glad I'm old and don't have to grow up with this crap. Admiral Farragut was given his first command (a prize ship) during the War of 1812 when he was twelve years old. He not only brought the ship to port successfully, but had to put down a threatend armed revolt by the ship's original captain to do it.
If high school kids today are such kids that they can't even be trusted to buy their own lunch (when many of them are actually old enough to leave home) the only possible reason for it is . .
The "repressed" 50s look like Shangri-fucking-La in comparison.
KFG
Is it that bad in schools these days that if you let your child choose his own meals he'd end up obese? If it is then the problem is in the school's menu. We are teenagers but that doesn't mean we don't watch our health/well being. Everybody wants to look good and presentable, _especially_ in highschool... Besides, if a kid does ends up on Obese II/III - a real cause of alarm - I doubt it was because of the meals he choose at school. I'd watch out his/her food intake at home.
So true, if everyone would just rely on the well known bastion of self control that children have, all you have to do is teach and they'll make the right decision all the time. Or at least if they make the wrong decision once, they probably won't do it again, and this is so true with something like food where eating one unhealthy meal is usually all it takes for a child to go screaming back to mommy and daddy for healthy food.
Yes and no. Some autonomy is good. How much should depend on how much the child has earned. Letting kids do whatever they want is bad, not letting them do anything is bad too.
It's a balance. You can't micromanage every second of a kid's life and then expect him magically to be able to deal with the real world. But a lot of kids, if they were allowed to do whatever they felt like would end up in the gutter or worse.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.