Should schools be allowed to "Lunch-shame" the food a parent packs for their child?
Recently, a Colorado mom was 'lunch-shamed" by her daughter's school for packing Oreos.
School officials sent home a letter:
“This is a public school setting and all children are required to have a fruit, a vegetable and a healthy snack from home, along with a milk. If they have potatoes, the child will also need bread to go along with it. Lunchables, chips, fruit snacks, and peanut butter are not considered to be a healthy snacks.
Is this going too far in your opinion?
Children need healthy food. From my own experience being hungry while attending school does not work well - can't focus with a stomach gurgling lol
Yet, some people don't have money so, maybe the schools should provide lunch on top of just criticizing (which is not terribly bad either ...)
I suffer from selective eating disorder and would physically not have been able to eat a lunch that conforms to their standards. I would have gone hungry before eating a fruit and a vegetable and whatever they deem a 'healthy snack'. It was bad enough that I was never aloud to leave the lunch hall to play because I hadn't eaten everything on my plate, I couldn't eat their weird consistency potatoes so I sat nearly every day till the bell rang because I wasn't allowed to leave.
I don't think the school has a right to say what can and cant be in a lunch box, perhaps banning certain things like energy drinks I can understand, but to state what a lunch box must contain is ridiculous. Perhaps the reason the child has a packed lunch in the first place is because they cannot eat these things maybe because they are like me or maybe because they have allergies or any number of other reasons.
On a side note is the idea of cold potatoes in a lunch box a bit odd to anyone else? and why must they have bread if they have potatoes? I dont get why that would be the case
No. School lunches are horrible for the most part. The kids just throw the vegetables and fruit out on the daily.
Junk food should be recognized as harmful to children. Face it! Oreo's are pure junk food.Potato chips too.Fruit snacks can contain too much sugar but, they contain real fruit at least.Fruit alone or with a non fat and -or sugar free yogurt would be better. Lunchables or luncheon meats are not all that healthy. We need to take what is generally considered unhealthy with a grain of salt. (Pun intended) Peanut butter may or may not be healthy depending on what peanut butter we buy. Hydrogenated oils and oils such as canola and or other hydrogenated oils such as cottonseed oil used to replace the peanut oil are not healthy. Even too much peanut oil is not healthy.Remember that saying "everything in moderation"? Well, not everything is good even in moderation. There so many chemicals in our food these days as well as substitutes for what is in the food naturally and replaced with inferior substances that are definitely unhealthy. Discrimination is the key to knowing more about the food we buy and feed ourselves and our children.To say the least!
so the answer is to ban all home brought lunches and require all children to eat school lunches?
Please ! You should know better than to say that! I certainly know that's too simplistic an answer to the problem.
I think all of this wonderful passion should be directed to the FDA. Perhaps it will bring about a ban on the junky convenience(processed) foods that fill most of the grocery shelves. It's not the job of schools to inspect our kids' lunch bags.
I saw a video about that too and I think that is utter B.S. Do they think potatoes and bread is healthy? I guess the school doesn't know that carbs are not always healthy. If I was the mother I would have wrote a note back to them especially mentioning how the parents are sometimes to provide candy and the like for a party. What got me irked is that they should have allowed the girl to eat the oreos and not let her go home hungry. Peanut butter-what is wrong with that? That is very healthy. Sometimes a person does not have enough money to get healthy food-fruits and vegetables can add up and the mother just did not have any in the house.
Yes this is going WAY to far. I've yet to see a school cafeteria lunch to be healthy. I had to pack my kids lunch because they would get sick when they ate the food.
This is a clear example of the school overstepping their bounds. I am so sick and tired of the "food police" and those who feel that their ideas of "healthy choices" are the best ideas. I remember going to a country school and they served frozen peas. As a child I hated frozen peas. They tried to force me to eat them and I flatly refused. I had to sit in the cafeteria with someone harping at me and still I couldn't choke even one down my throat.
I've known joggers who have dropped dead while running. I had another friend die of an aneurism while on a treadmill and I worked with a seemingly fit man who died of a massive heart attack at 35. Cemeteries are filled with "healthy people."
I remember having spring milk at school and it had a strange taste and they made me drank it and it made me sick. I can't stand drinking milk even today
Yes, it is going too far. Most parents do their best to provide healthy and filling lunches for their kids. Schools have been forced to comply with Michelle Obama's eating rules and it is very unfair to children and their parents. Government and schools have no right to interfere in the family food issues.
Some families can barely afford the lunches they fix for their children. To shame the child about their lunch is uncalled for. Some kids only get a PB&J for lunch because it is inexpensive and kids love it.
I don't understand why public schools care what students bring from home for their lunches.
LIFE: "If you want to make bad choices, the consequences are on you."
DOCTORS: "If you don't take care of yourself, expect to die young."
MARRIAGE: "Don't want to commit? Fine. We're getting a divorce."
CAREER: "If you can't meet 'X' expectation, you're not hired/fired."
COLLEGE: "Didn't come to class and do the homework? Fine, you fail."
PARENTS: "You deliberately disobeyed us; now you're grounded."
PUBLIC SCHOOL: "Oh God! We won't allow you to eat THAT--you'll get FAT!
Funny how one of the only things kids encounter in life which aggressively fights to keep them from experiencing the consequences of their actions and learning from them...is the public school system.
Oreo's don't make you fat, anyway. Not burning off the calories they add to the diet does. And they think peanut butter isn't healthy in moderation? Wow. That's sad.
Mom: 1
Public School: 0
This is going WAY too far and is a shameful form of bullying. Schools should be teaching critical thinking and problem solving skills, so kids can grow up and make wise choices for themselves. Instead, it seems that all the decisions are made for them, and sameness rules. Brains become lazy when someone else does all the thinking for them. A child's diet is an issue between families and their pediatricians , and the school should keep its nose out of anything that isn't served in the cafeteria.
Absolutely not, especially if you watch the Twitter feed of horrible lunches served by the schools.
Parents should be raising Children, schools need to know their place, educating them.
by Ralph Deeds 11 years ago
Should public school teachers be encouraged or allowed to be armed in the class room?Do you agree with the National Rifle Association's recommendation that teachers be encouraged, after training, to be armed in the classroom?
by lady_love158 13 years ago
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct … 0768.storySooo what's next send the government food police to force the food down their throats? Maybe the kids are just pining for some of those ribs Michelle eats! Lol
by kashannkilson 13 years ago
Are public schools still important? Are charter schools and privatization the future? Does it even affect the country's role in the world economy?
by steve-bc-ca 6 years ago
I was involved in a forum discussing whether teachers should be held accountable for a students success. I started thinking about the possibilities of home schooling, but I don't have any information on the subject and I noticed there were no hubs on the topic. What do you know about it and what is...
by Kebennett1 8 years ago
Why is it that our children can't read a Bible in school, but they can in prison?Prison may just be a little too late!!!
by momster 12 years ago
What is your opinion on school lunches?I had lunch with my children at school. I was not very happy to see that the school was serving 1% milk only. I prefer my children to drink whole milk. My children have also complained about how the food tastes. They do not like some of the food, but if they...
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |