If you are a mother, father, grandmother or grandfather, you want your child or grandchild to have a healthy lunch in the school where your taxes are used. You want your money spent on high quality education. It’s your money. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 is a bill that Michelle Obama worked hard to get passed. It’s for every child in America and it should not be treated as partisan nor should it reauthorization be used as a way to bully the President. This is not the time for Republicans to push out their chests and assert dominance. Currently, Boehner and his team are refusing reauthorization without rolling back the healthy initiatives put in place for our kids. Here’s what the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 did:
Provides additional funding to schools that meet updated nutritional standards for federally subsidized lunches. – No mandates without funding – CHECK
Helps communities establish local farm to school networks, create school gardens, and ensures that more local foods are used in the school setting – farm to table initiatives AND school gardens – CHECK
Expands access to drinking water in schools, particularly during meal times – CHECK CHECK
Sets basic standards for school wellness policies including goals for nutrition promotion and education and physical activity, while still permitting local flexibility to tailor the policies to their particular needs – Schools can tailor good nutrition based on individual school needs – CHECK
Requires schools to make information more readily available to parents about the nutritional quality of meals – CHECK
Includes provisions to ensure the safety of school foods like improving recall procedures and extending hazard analysis and food safety requirements for school meals – CHECK CHECK
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The obesity rate has remained steady after a rapid increase prior to the changes to the school lunch program. The change was prompted by a dangerous trend of childhood obesity moving from an average of 7 percent in 1980 to over one-third in 2012. Who would not want, demand better choices for food in our schools? But the school say they’re losing money because the kids aren’t buying the healthy food. So they’ve sent lobbyists to ask that they be given special treatment. That “special” treatment is about to be added to the bill which would allow school systems to opt on of the “rules” because kids won’t spend money on fresh, healthy food, they want the unhealthy, greasy, stick to your arteries food and the Republicans are just about to let them have it.
First – When did kids get so powerful? Since when do we replace fruits and vegetables with high calorie foods because kids won’t eat the good foods? Reassess the portions.
Second – When did Congress get more powerful than the People – I’m pretty sure my tax dollars pay for a representative to make decisions for MY state/county, not a representation that does what a group of 40 agree to do. Stand up and be counted or come home!
Third – When did Congress get so brazen that it is now acceptable to acknowledge IN PUBLIC that they are screwing the American People? Can you imagine if politicians came out 20 years ago and called for lowering standards on kids’ nutrition in schools? It would be a scandal!
Our kids should be given unfettered access to high quality education and a nutritional menu that helps them think better and feel better.