Posted on 08/30/2011 12:40:45 PM PDT by grundle
I recently heard an ad on the radio from Let's Move, Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign. It stated that nearly one in three children in American are overweight or obese. The numbers are even higher in African-American and Hispanic communities, where nearly 40 percent of the children are overweight or obese.
Then, within the same hour, I heard an ad for the Food Bank of Lincoln stating that one in four children in America are hungry. Looking at their website, this could mean they do not have enough food or are food insecure. The website further noted that the word "hunger" has been stricken by the USDA from its measurements, seemingly indicating that measuring hunger in America today is a bit tricky.
Now I was confused. Do we have a hunger problem in America or an obesity problem?
In countries with real poverty (more on that later), you see vast numbers of very thin and obviously hungry people. In America, you see vast numbers of fat and obviously not hungry people -- and this is especially true among the poor, which is at the least ironic.
The hunger advocates will answer that we have both a hunger and an obesity problem. Their claim is that the poor are not fat because they have and consume too much food but the poor are fat because they do not move enough and do not eat enough fruits and vegetables. They then blame this, of course, on evil corporate America for providing TV and video games that keep children from moving and McDonald's that keeps children from eating right.
I have a different theory. I blame this problem on the largest, most pervasive and powerful entity known to man -- Big Government.
They say your garbage man knows more about you than your neighbors do.
I work as a custodian in the Lincoln Public Schools. I clean up the cafeterias after the students get done eating. I have done this in both a grade school and a high school. I will offer a few observations.
LPS feeds the children of Lincoln morning, noon and night. They feed them food that looks and tastes (I eat it) a lot like the food McDonald's serves its customers. My first observation is that the kids simply cannot eat all the food available to them.
We have 37 grade schools alone in Lincoln. Each one of them throws out barrels and barrels of perfectly good uneaten food. I know this because I haul it to our trash bins each and every school day.
At first I was appalled by this waste. I asked why we keep serving food to kids who are obviously not hungry and won't eat it. I noted that just one grade school's wasted food would serve the City Mission and that all 37 grade schools' wasted food could serve all the hungry in Lincoln.
My second observation is that American kids are fat because they are encouraged to eat too much food. I have looked and looked for skinny kids. Most look about right to me and quite a few are chubby. In the school where I work, 57 percent of the students get free or reduced lunches. In the entire cafeteria, it is hard to find a skinny kid when at least half of them should be.
I have been told that when free or reduced lunches are given by the taxpayer to poor children, our federal government dictates that they must take it whether they want it or not. If they do not want it, then we must throw it away when it comes back on their trays. Since our government never has any fraud nor waste, I know there is a perfectly good explanation for this. What? No, I don't know what it is. I just know there is one.
LPS also serves the students fruit and veggies and salad if they want it. Again a lot like McDonald's. Except, at McDonald's, the customers actually eat what they order.
Poverty, like "The Rich," is a relative term. Most Americans would think of poverty as having some real deprivation associated with it. These are the poor we see in countries run by African dictators, communists and the corrupt governments of Mexico, India and the Middle East. These poor people are thin and starving. They are truly hungry and they look thin because they do not receive enough food to thrive or even survive.
The federal government and the statist-leaning media are like the old joke: "Who you gonna believe? Me or your own lying eyes." When poor children are as big, as athletic and as fat (or even more so) as middle class and rich children, and the first lady deems obesity an epidemic, and the public schools shove food constantly at their students who throw it away, then we do not have a hunger problem in America. We have typical government policy and consequences.
I usually eat until I feel full, it doesn’t matter the portions, then I stop. I’m 50 something, 5’10” and weigh about 180/185 and wear a 32” waist jean.
I don’t eat at Micky D’s (okay, about 3 times a year), or a lot of other crap. I won’t say I’m a hardcore eat healthy type of person, but I don’t eat a whole lot of processed foods either.
I used to be fairly active, but that’s changed the past few years, and my food intake has seemed to adjust accordingly.
I wish you well on the food front.
I was of the WWII period, even to the extent of being in line for the invasion of Japan. Your remarks bring back youthful memories of food lines. I was thinking about all my boyhood friends that I and my brother played ball games with, baseball, football, basketball, hockey(can and ice), etc. I only remember one boy we called ‘Butch’ that was anywhere near being fat. Of course the great depression had much to do with just having a slim diet of foods available and affordable, including own and welfare. My mother being from the Volga River area did like salmon but it was expensive for us.
I can vouch for the waste in school lunch programs. A few years ago, recently retired from the military, I took a teaching job at a middle school, to help pay the bills while I tried to launch a consulting firm. The school where I taught was in a poor, rural district in Mississippi. Every kid in the school—that’s right, every single kid in the school—qualified for the federal school lunch program, so “nutrition” was a priority.
But here’s the dirty little secret you never hear. Many forms of federal education aid (and even some state programs) are tied to participation in the school lunch program. So, it’s in the district’s financial interest to maximize the number of kids getting free or reduced meals.
At my school, we actually stopped instruction every morning at 8:45 so the kids could eat breakfast. Never mind that lunch would be served barely two hours later, or that much of the food wound up in the trash can. Just another example of your tax dollars at work.
BTW, many of those same kids always had money for the vending machines.
I should add that I’m mostly a meat and potatoes kinda guy. Midwesterner here. Not that a plate full of brownies and a gallon of whole milk wouldn’t get my attention ,mind you.
When I quit drinking the weight just melted off. No change in my diet. I’ve always wondered about bums. They drink all day, but seem to all be skinny.
I have a long time friend who worked for years for the Los Angeles School District. She no longer works there & doesn’t miss it.
She rotated as a watcher in the cafeteria, along with other employees.
She has told me for years that the kids load up their plates deliberately, with a sneer on their faces while being watched, & then deliberately poke thru the food & throw most of it into the garbage.
They know fully they are wasting the white man’s efforts to help them. Most of the kids she had under her supervision were black & arrogant——even the 2nd graders.
getting government out of the lunch business “
Breakfast ...... Lunch....... & DINNER !!!!!!!
The school busses ran all summer here just to take the kids to school for meals——NO CLASSES!!!
I am furious!!!!!!
Bump
No, it's because they are used to, and want SUGAR!!!
Candy, ice cream and twinkies washed down with LOTS of soda pop! That way they can bound off the ceiling and then get their drugs from the teacher.
And they send a backpack home with food for the weekend. There was an article about it here on FR. I think it was in OH. One mother said it was sop convenient not to have to worry about food on the weekends when she was chauffeuring her children all over town to dance and sports. She didn’t have to worry because all they had to do was open the fridge and grab the stuff the school sent home. She said she prepared one big meal on Sunday.
Wow I guess my kids are starving!!
We routinely make Brunch on Sunday and then eat dinner. They miss meals every week!
Where’s MY free lunch and food stamps?
Life is good on the commune, Comrade!
Well, if all they’re doing is drinking all day, that might explain the skinniness. As for your experience, I can’t say.
Everybody is different. Which is probably why the government programs fail so much. They try a one size (large) fits all approach.
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