The Trouble With Food Policing in Schools
Parents and schools should advocate for a balanced approach to eating well.
By Leslie Shilling, Contributor |Oct. 9, 2017, at 6:00 a.m.
Having been raised by teachers, I vividly remember my parents talking about food in the context of what students had to eat – or didn’t. My Mom and Dad were often worried that some of their students may not have food to eat for dinner or enough food to eat over the weekend.
Today, many of the conversations have changed from if students are getting enough food to whether children really need certain types of food. Meanwhile, food insecurity has not gone away. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that approximately 15.6 million American households were food-insecure, or lacking food to meet the needs of the family. Unfortunately, the “war on obesity” may have shifted our concerns from supporting feeding development and adequate nourishment to perceived nutrition quality and weight. Dr. Katja Rowell, family physician and coauthor of the book “Helping your Child with Extreme Picky Eating,” suggests that “we are facing a childhood feeding crisis, not an ‘obesity’ crisis.”
https://health.usnews.com/wellness/for-parents/articles/2017-10-09/the-trouble-with-food-policing-in-schools
