Public schools and food

My coworker, Emily, wrote a great blog post yesterday regarding school lunch in Minneapolis public schools. You can find it here. Moreover, I also spent a bit of time reading a TIME Magazine article about school lunches in Paris, France and you can find that here. The two articles don't cover the same topic, so don't skip either if you have an opinion about what America's students are putting in their bodies. However, I did see a connection between the two that spoke to me as an educator and purveyor of goodness (just thought of that, woo!). Our school lunches are not helping our students build healthy eating habits. Now, I hate to judge too much, because my school also had school lunches that were relatively unhealthy (at least they could be). However, I should have learned how to eat healthy and take care of myself in school. That's a school's job. To teach. To prepare. I've spent five years slowly adjusting my eating habits to be healthier. I'm not done with that plan yet, but I've made headway. However, I feel I'm a bit of anomaly when it comes to self improvement (anomaly... not the only one). I am consistently trying to improve myself in ways that I see fit without any external pressure. I'm trying to eat healthier, but no doctor has talked to me about my cholesterol or heart rate. That's just me. Not every student is like that and they will continue their bad eating habits for far longer than they should.

With that in mind, the TIME article explores the school lunches of Paris and finds that their approach to meals is treating the meal with respect. By that I mean that their children take time everyday to enjoy a meal with multiple courses; the food is prepared with quality ingredients and the school suggests what should be eaten for dinner to supplement the lunch. That's a big step above the cheese sticks our students eat every two weeks. We don't need to copy the model set in Paris, but I'd love to see our students to love some delicious, non-processed foods. I think students deserve a chance to have vegetables that taste good without ranch. I don't expect this to happen, but hopefully someday we'll face up to it.