The New York Times is so afraid that we don’t know how to take care of ourselves and need a full time nanny, (preferably a New York City Liberal nanny of course) that it is advocating teaching eating as a classroom subject. The paper uses the usual flawed data, such as that children will die younger than their parents, and that we are all "addicted" to sugar and fat, to bash hamburger and chicken, and as an excuse to rejoice that whole milk has been banned in NYC schools. The writer wants lunch to constitute the "core of the curriculum". (For some it probably already does.)
The author suggested one thing that seemed logical to me, getting kids involved in actually growing some food. This makes sense, first of all because growing food is hard work. Get them up off their butts and out in a garden, put rakes and shovels and hoes in their hands and the so-called obesity epidemic might be a thing of the past. Growing food of their own might also put them just a tiny bit in touch with the people who normally grow it for them. Farmers and ranchers that is. Somehow, though, I think this would just turn out to be another attempt to accustom us to government baby sitting, as applied to our families.
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This really just seems like a plea to return the Home Economics classes of our youth. Of course those classes we took didn't need to teach us about growing foods because as little as 30 years ago it wasn't so uncommon a thing for all but inner city kids to have exposure to parents, grandparents, or neighbors everywhere who had a garden.
ReplyDeleteChef Jamie Oliver had to force the British government to improve school lunches and much of that involved teaching parents and kids what constituted good food, and taking the kids to farms to expose them to vegetables they didn't know existed.
I think for most teens in the country today, lunch is about quick and cheap and for kids of single parents it might be the only shot they have of getting a decent meal--at least if the school provide it for us.
In today's society Parents have let the government be the nanny by choice--witness the outcry when school is cancelled due to violence or snow; what am I supposed to do with Sussie or Johnny--I've got to work! Parents view kids as a sideline to their jobs, careers or social life. Is it any wonder, that being left to their own, they don't know anything about what to eat or how to eat?
I think it's a great idea to get these kids out into gardens and working on something productive. Get them aware of what will happen if we leave the government to be the sole providers of our food source. I thank God my kids have a love of gardening which goes beyond our own, and that they willingly seek opportunities to share with their friends, who might live in the same rural area, but who don't know nothin about nothin.
It is true that we ARE addicted to sugar and fat... processed foods. If we were to do away with them and eat only organically grown foods (which have 4 to 5 times the amount of nutrients of mass grown food using pesticides and unnatural fertilizers) our bodies would be healthier and live much longer with less sickness and disease.
ReplyDeleteI thought that stuff was taught in health class. I learned about the basic four, and my kids learned about the food pyramid, but still and all, nutrition is being taught as part of the health curriculum.
ReplyDeleteGardening is a good idea. Here in the country it seems like most of the kids belong to 4-H which is a good thing. They seem to focus on livestock, from what I can tell.
When I lived in the city, the middle school had a garden. Most middle schools don't have that luxury, though. I think a class on gardening is a great idea. The main drawback is that most gardening happens during the summer time. Otherwise it'd be a great opportunity for a fund raiser. A school co-op!