School Banned Brown Bag Lunch

Alarmed that her students were bringing junk food for lunch, Chicago school Principal Elsa Carmona decided to save the children from their (nutritionally-challenged) parents ... by banning brown bag lunches:

... Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

"Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school," Carmona said. "It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception."

Carmona said she created the policy six years ago after watching students bring "bottles of soda and flaming hot chips" on field trips for their lunch. Although she would not name any other schools that employ such practices, she said it was fairly common.

What do you think? Good idea or Big Brother? Link - via Dvorak Uncensored


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If they feel it is a REAL issue and i mean not just a couple kids doing it (Letters home call in parents to chat)
hmm lets see how about we do what schools do
EDUCATE!
They can have a class or send home a handout something to help the parents LEARN to do it proper but then again who in heck is She to say what is and what is not proper for My child??
No harm but the schools in my area claim to be serving health diets but when i spen a week with my grandchild she had every day for breakfast either breakfast pizza or breakfast burrito and at lunch they served pizza and burritos or chicken nuggets. a lot of breading and fat and pils. When they start really healthy diets Call me until then that is MY child and I should be saying what is and is not for lunch and breakfast
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The school is a government agency telling you how to raise your child. Today they tell you what you can feed your child at school, tomorrow they tell you what you can feed your child at home. Parents should be speaking up en masse but this is a very poor area of Chicago where many parents rely on the government for most of their resources any way.

Here in California there are schools with "zero sugar" rules where you are prohibited from bringing any sugar onto campus. Other schools go through your child's lunch and throw away cookies or gatorade or anything with peanut butter and send you home with a note.
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@gryt

I understand what you are saying, but I highly doubt this school is serving great quality meals. Its a public school in Chicago that serves For one, the article said that kids are throwing most of their school lunch away instead of eating it. The picture was of a garbage can full of apples and corn, in my mind, two of the worst cafeteria foods. Cafeteria apples were always mealy or bitter and the frozen corn was alwasy mushy and flavorless. Yes I know that was my experience, but obviously these kids dont like it either or they would eat it instead of throwing it away. What happens on taco day for the kids who dont like tacos? They probably dont eat. Is it just me or do you think that would be bad for test scores?
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Well this is one issue which I tend to agree with the majority. She is definitely overstepping acceptable bounds for the respect of human individuality and the propriety of parental guidance.

With that said; I wanted to point out on the side that this has no relationship to "communism at it's finest". I'm currently studying Marx and Engels life works and learning how they adapted Hegel for economics. Hegelian philosophy is really interesting, I haven't engaged in a serious study yet, but on the face of it, Hegelian philosophy is a reiteration of what already seems obvious to me from elsewhere.

"Here, as in the philosophy of history, there are three great moments, Oriental religion, which exaggerated the idea of the infinite, Greek religion, which gave undue importance to the finite, and Christianity, which represents the union of the infinite and the finite. Last of all, absolute mind, as philosophy, transcends the limitations imposed on it even in religious feeling, and, discarding representative intuition, attains all truth under the form of reason. Whatever truth there is in art and in religion is contained in philosophy, in a higher form, and free from all limitations. Philosophy is, therefore, "the highest, freest and wisest phase of the union of subjective and objective mind, and the ultimate goal of all development.""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegelianism

A friend once asked me; I need $35,000 really quick, what does your philosophy say about that? To which I replied; It says if you had studied philosophy earlier you would't need $35,000 really quick.
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It's fairly common in parts of the UK - I see a lot of kids who eat nothing but junk food at home (eg KFC every night), so this is the only place they are getting wholesome food (sometimes this can just mean wholegrain dough for the pizza! It's enough to make a difference.)

Granted, I work in a very deprived area of the UK, and not all pupils have that problem - but if that is all they saw, then that is the norm. Show them salads, and they grew to like them.

Have a read again of Big Brother (the book, not just the phrase) and see if it still rings a bell. Sometimes people are just trying to help in any way they can. Even if it just means a bit of better food.
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