We Are Hungry

All of this thinking and writing about calories is making me HUNGRY… and apparently, I am not the only one!

Now that kids are back in school, there is a calorie controversy brewing in cafeterias across the U.S. The issue of the day is new school lunch guidelines.  Students are hungrier than ever because schools are now serving up significantly smaller portions of “healthier” food. Kids at Wallace County High School in Kansas are fighting back with a boycott and this music video parody called “We Are Hungry.”

The new school lunch guidelines are the result of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 that passed Congress a couple of years ago. The name of this legislation is mildly amusing – since kids are complaining that they are now always hungry thanks to these same guidelines.

The legislation was championed by Michelle Obama to improve nutrition standards for foods served in schools across America. While I applaud many of the First Lady’s initiatives in this regard, I am convinced that we are relying too heavily on long-held but ultimately wrong-headed beliefs in the U.S. about what makes us fat.  Ultimately, by relying on faulty premises, we are going to set ourselves back further.

Let’s be clear – kids need to eat healthier. Fruits and veggies are critical, and school lunches that emphasize them are very helpful.  However, kids also need plenty of protein and fat – and the new school lunch guidelines are simply too restrictive.  To make matters worse, these guidelines cap calorie counts according to grades in school.

For instance, high schoolers are only allowed up to 850 calories for their lunches. This might sound like a lot, but for active growing teenagers, this won’t come close to cutting it.

While some of the changes are well-intentioned, I am really afraid that this whole exercise is going to backfire. What good are all these new “healthy” meals being served in cafeterias across America if most kids are starving all afternoon?   We all know what those kids are going to do – buy some cheap and easy processed junk food as soon as they leave school?  I bet McDonald’s and 7-11 and the corner convenience store are already seeing increases in their after-school traffic.

Ultimately, we are not going to be able to police everything that goes into people’s mouths – and by the way, I don’t believe the government has any right to attempt it in the first place. But that is a much different and larger debate for another day about the role our government plays in our eating habits.

As far as what and how much we should be feeding our kids in school, perhaps we should simply educate our children and their moms and dads about what is really in their food – and let the kids and their parents decide.