May 30, 2006
By HARRIET BROWN

Earlier this year, our small Midwestern school district joined the food wars, proposing a new policy that would discourage all food in classrooms, ban nuts and sugary foods and do away with vending machines.

So much for peanut butter sandwiches, snacks for kindergartners and birthday cupcakes.

Like the policies put in place by school systems around the country, this one was driven by anxiety — about food quantity, quality and safety — and by the ever-increasing pressure for children to look a certain way and to weigh a certain amount.

Unlike the earlier "mommy wars" or the "war on drugs," which centered around simpler black-and-white divides, the 21st-century food wars are fuzzier, though the feelings run just as deep.

Some schools say they are concerned about food allergies, and it is true that for some children a stray bite of someone else's peanut butter sandwich can mean anaphylaxis and even death. But I don't think allergies are the main reason that districts across the country are racing to put new food policies in place. After all, children are allergic to strawberries, wheat and dairy, too, but there are no proposals that I'm aware of to ban any of those foods.

I fear there's something else at work — a fear borne out by a flier my fifth grader brought home saying that at the monthly pizza hot lunch, no child would be allowed to buy a second slice of pizza. The district says the new ruling is to avoid bad feelings caused by "inequities": if everyone can't have extra helpings, no one can.

This solution may seem rather Solomon-like. But if equity is the issue, I'll eat my lunch tray. I believe the schools are overreacting to the so-called obesity epidemic, and in the process are doing our children more harm than good.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for good nutrition and exercise. I don't buy soda for my own children or bring home fast food. But these food wars go beyond good sense and good science. They're misguided and red herrings, based more in conjecture and politics than on solid research-based solutions.

They squander precious social and fiscal capital, and distract us from more complex but reality-based approaches.

Leading the way is the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act now before Congress, calling for updated definitions of "minimal nutritional value" of foods served in schools, including those sold in vending machines and at fund-raisers.

In theory, such legislation would improve the nutritional options. In reality, it sounds like another call for the food police — highly fraught and bound to backfire.

A look at what's happening on the state level confirms this. In Arkansas, for instance, children's report cards now include their B.M.I., or body mass index, along with their grades. The governor, Mike Huckabee recently lost more than 100 pounds and is passionate about stopping the "obesity epidemic." Maryland is considering a similar standard.

Never mind that B.M.I. is only a measure of height against weight and does not take into account muscle mass, body type or other factors. (Tom Cruise has a B.M.I. of 31, which puts him in the "obese" category.)

"You're setting kids up to feel bad about how they are," says Dr. Nancy Krebs, chairwoman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Nutrition and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado.

Such efforts usually fail, making weight problems and eating disorders worse. A recent Internet discussion board among families with anorexic and bulimic children identified middle school health classes, which focus on weight, as the No. 1 trigger for their teenagers' disorders.

The food wars are being fueled by our emotionally fraught relationships with food, and by increasingly hysterical rhetoric.

We often hear, for instance, of a rising tide of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, especially in children. But the science behind such pronouncements is shaky. A study of nearly 3,000 children presented at the American Diabetes Association's 2005 conference suggested that a third of the children diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which is associated with being overweight, were later found to have Type 1 diabetes, linked to genetics.

Abigail C. Saguy, a sociologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies media framing of obesity, says it's hard to know if rates are truly rising, since no nationally representative data are available.

One study of teenagers in the Cincinnati area found that the diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes went from 7 per 100,000 teenagers per year in 1982 to 7.2 per 100,000 teenagers per year in 1994 — a difference that could easily be a result of better diagnostics.

"The term 'epidemic' refers to the rapid and episodic onset of infectious diseases and is associated with fear of sudden widespread death," Dr. Saguy says. In reality, she adds, new research shows no significant difference in death rates between "normal" and overweight Americans; mortality rates rise only for those with a B.M.I. exceeding 35 — only 8 percent of the country.

What the food wars seem to reflect more than anything is our ambivalence about eating and about our bodies. What they will do, I am afraid, is create even more anxiety around feeding our children and ourselves — anxiety that will, in turn, make it harder for all of us to be "joyful and competent with eating," in the words of Ellyn Satter, the author of "Your Child's Weight: Helping Without Harming" and a nationally recognized nutrition expert.

Besides, like other misguided public health campaigns (remember "Just Say No"?), putting children on de facto diets at school just doesn't work. In a 2003 experiment involving 41 schools, more than 1,700 children — many of them American Indian — were served lower-calorie and lower-fat lunches and were taught about healthy eating and lifestyles.

While the children took in fewer calories from fat at school, they experienced no significant reduction in their percentage of body fat.

Another study, in rural Nebraska in the mid-1990's, put one group of elementary school students on lower-fat and lower-sodium lunches, increased their physical activity at school and offered more education about nutrition. Compared with students having no special program, the active, lower-fat group showed no differences in body weight or fat, or in levels of total cholesterol, insulin or glucose after two years.

Researchers concluded that pupils whose school lunches offered 25 percent fat (compared with 31 percent in the control group) were compensating for the reduction by eating higher-fat foods at home.

Big surprise. Anyone who's dieted for a day, a week, a month and then overeaten to compensate is familiar with the deprivation-binge-deprivation cycle — and with the weight gain that often accompanies it. One Harvard study showed that 39 percent of nurses who lost weight through dieting regained it, and in fact wound up 10 pounds heavier on average than those who didn't lose weight.

Early in my children's lives, I was a no-sugar, no-fat mom, the legacy of my own childhood with a constantly dieting mother. I thought I was doing the right thing, until a friend told me that every time my children stayed at her house, the first thing they did was ask for ice cream. With sprinkles. And chocolate chips. And gummy worms. By rigidly restricting their sugar intake, I had made it a highly sought out pleasure — the last thing I'd intended.

Ms. Satter recommends giving children regular access to treats, at school and at home, by including those foods with more nutritious choices at meals and snacks. "Avoid either extreme of forbidding snack-type food or letting children graze on them," she says. "In the long run, this makes children eat more, not less."

What worries me even more than the words being thrown about in the food wars are the unspoken messages we're giving our children about their bodies, themselves and the food they eat. Prohibiting that second slice of pizza sends a message that pizza is bad, that there are good foods and bad foods, safe foods and dangerous foods — a perceived dichotomy that every anorexic is all too familiar with.

I can hear the howls of outrage, imagine the letters I will get as a result of saying this. But I will say it anyway: We have nothing to fear but fear itself. That is, our twin fears of fat and food, and the consequent distortions in the way we feed ourselves and our children, will damage us far more than a bowl of ice cream every now and again.

"Emphasize providing, not depriving," Ms. Satter suggests. "Maintain the structure of meals and snacks so children can count on getting fed — and fed enough."

So serve another slice of pizza. Bring on the chocolate cupcakes. Dish up the broccoli soup and burritos, the strawberries and cheesecake. Give kids more time to run around and play, and also more time to eat. Teach them about the joys of food, not the terrors. And maybe they'll grow up less ambivalent and healthier than we are.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/h...ion/30essa.html

and this woman's qualifications are what, exactly? she's a mom and...

Clearly a mother that has children that aren't carb sensitive. Must be nice. I am a total advocate of getting food out of the classroom and having it only in the cafeteria, where it belongs. It dismays me that teachers are giving candy, treats and snacks to these children to keep them in sugar-induced comas.

In our elementary school the nutrition lady comes and teaches the youngstes about good eatying, then they load them up with a box of candy bars to sell. The teachers gives the kids treats for doing their work, there is a birthday party on a regular basis and there have been times when the lunch people wouldn't give my kindergartner both a fruit and a vegetable in her lunch.

Now our Wellness Committee is proposing such "sweeping changes" as limiting the choices of sugary drink in vending machines, to 50%. BFD, just means the kids press those buttons twice as often. And the head nutritionist asked me what she was supposed to do with 60 cases of free canned corn, I wanted to tell her where to put them but held my tongue. This was the same person who said she keeps below her fat limit by adding jello to the menu.

The idea of just let kids be kids is a dangerous one in our climate of unnatural highly refined and processed foods.

I wonder if she puts soda pop in baby bottles? I have seen that done at Wal*Mart.

Here is the usual piffle from nutritional researchers. When their study failed to show that low fat diets produced any results, instead of questioning their original premise, they assumed that people were cheating in the diet. Anything but doubt the lipid hypothesis. With advice from people like this, no wonder our children are obese!

My Opinion....

There is WAY too much anti-fat hysteria in the press these days. I'm all for fitness, good nutrition and teaching a healthy diet in schools, but people must realize that there is a range of sizes and body types among humanity, and harping on BMI (an imperfect measurement) is not the answer!

I agree with the focus of this article. If I were a mother perhaps I would focus on lower-glycemic foods for the kids, but I would not be afraid of denying them a sweet now and then, all while letting them know it was a special treat and not part of their regular food intake. As most people do with alcohol, I would teach moderation rather than denial, and if I had fat kids (being fat myself) I would love/accept them, provide opportunities for exercise and the best nutrition I could, and try to give them the emotional support that I would have wanted growing up...

This food Nazism has got to go!

Denying kids a sweet?! How about on a daily basis? On top of a starchy/processed school lunch? Throw in a can of pop for little johnny and viola! He's big johnny. But don't say anything to him, it might hurt his self-esteem. No, let the other kids take care of that.

I do agree that anti-fat is firmly entrenched in the school lunch program. There are federally mandated fat limits on lunches. There are also free subsidized foods like cheese and corn, but at my school district they can't use all their cheese because the fat limit will not allow it.

Fortunately, the feds have also mandated that there be Wellness Groups for each school district. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few other low-carbers on our committee, but we are facing an uphill battle when the feds require a limitation on fats, I think it is 30% of calories, as well as a minimum calorie content. This makes it very tough to have any real impact. But the issue of vending machines in schools, is where we could make a stand if only someone would grow a backbone. But these machines generate lots of revenue for the principals, money that is not subject to budget and they can throw it around as they see fit. A slush fund.

Do you think its bad in US? In austria, where I live, they are still in a 1950s mindset, so they cant really advise the schoolers. MMM quacks tell the ignorant, always sick patients. lotsa margarine, no eggs, no butter, beef trimmed to show not a sign of fat. In the supermarkets, cheeses.yoghurts and milk are all clearly marked with reduced fat content, down to the proud almost zero fat product. (And, then the MMM quacks stuff them with statin drugs). I have even met people who are on Atkins but have been told by their MMM quacks to severely restrict their satfats, In the schools, the younger generation eat whatever they want, and the Govt knows that is good for later business for big pharma, and the donations. (In their last 3 years of high school, almost 100% smoke). The food police are not yet in the US homes, so they can always catch up after the school day or their completion of studies, with a few more eggs.

When I was a kid if you wanted to control your child's diet, you sent a bag lunch with your munchkin. I went K-12 eating bagged lunches.

That depends on whether you're the type to be content protecting your own child, or the type who wants to save the world, I guess.

There is a lot to agree with, and some to disagree with, in this piece.

As a fat kid, I hated any effort to "help" me lose weight. They all made me feel alienated and worse. My Mom worked hard for me, and I realize now she was trying to help, but at the time it was awful and I rebelled against her by eating exactly like I wanted to eat. One of my worst memories was a teacher looking me over on the first day of a new semester and telling me, from her desk, loudly in front of the class, "You've gained weight!" I saw her years later and she was fat. I told her "you've gained weight!" (I was a clerk in a grocery store, and I nearly got fired for it, but I didn't care).

It's different now. I was an oddity, being a fat kid in the 1970's. I wouldn't even be that fat by today's kid standards. There are lots of fat kids, now. Go to any mall and you will see them by the dozen. That just wasn't the case when I was younger. (Ironically, at 245, I'm not that fat by today's adult standards, but would have been a very fat adult in the 70's).

Do these things have impact on fat kids? I don't think that they do. However, they can start to have a cumulative effect if the right guidance from parents is in place. They give parents and kids who are fighting for it a better place to do that. I agree with the author on BMI - short of a nuclear winter and severe shortages I'll never weigh 170. Ever.

Anyway, that brings me to a huge worry. Will my kids be fat? I am paranoid about it. I do not want them going through life with the same burdens I carried. I want them to have the happy childhood and teenage years I didn't have. But I remember my mom trying to control my eating, and how it was counterproductive. I tend to agree at least a little with the piece on not being a control freak when it comes to sugar foods. That didn't work on me, and it won't work on most kids. I will teach, though, what I know about food now. I will make food a thing they understand, as I never understood it. If they are going to eat Snicker's, I want them to know what that will mean. And of course, they will be in sports from a young age.

That's what I do for my daughter, but it's all the stuff the teachers give them in the classroom that is my biggest obstacle. For instance, every Friday they have a "pop party". This is where each kid gets a full sugar soda, candy, chips and whatever baked sweets were provided by parents. Then there are all of the other treats and snacks. Whenever the children do something well, like answering a question correctly or behaving properly, they can go to the prize box, which is various pieces of candy. Even today, they had a pizza party after lunch time. So, they had pizza in addition to their lunch! My daughter said, mom, we only got two pieces. Well, she's only nine, so that amounts to two lunches!!

I believe the biggest thing is to make sure that kids aren't offered food (usually sugary ones) as treats. That is setting up an emotional connection with food that is a huge problem. They basically use food as reward and if you complain, you're just one of those parents! I think this, above all, is my biggest concern. When I was in school, we NEVER had additional food in the classroom, just the cafeteria.

For those who don't believe me, speak out parents. Does your child get additional treats in the classroom from teachers outside of their regular meals?

I don't think this used to happen much, but I do know a lot of parents of kids with Celiac disease or allergies are really struggling with this because the teachers give them food that makes them sick.

I was the odd-kid in school, not because of being fat but because my Mom was a health food nut. She gave us all kinds of really weird food, like brown bread, instead of the white bread like everyone else ate. I probably took things like Tongue sandwiches. She was into variety meats.

Unfortunately, I've come to learn that bread, no matter what color, is just as poisonous to me.