Feeding the Kids

Last week's report by the Every Child Matters Education Fund should be a source of shame for South Carolina. Instead, it will get some editorial notice and sorrowful head-shaking from pundits and politicians. And then it will be forgotten, because, you see, we've known all this for years.

In short, the report listed S.C. as the sixth-worst state for children, based on a wide range of criteria, including children living in poverty, children subject to abuse, children dying before the age of 19, children without health insurance.

This should come as no surprise to those who follow the S.C. Kids Count annual report. According to the Kids Count Data Book for 2007, S.C. ranked 46th for child well-being among the 50 states, based on many of the same criteria as the Every Child Matters study.

What was surprisingly absent from both of these studies was any data on childhood nutrition in the state. Of course, one can extrapolate from the number of low birth-weight babies and the number of children living in poverty that nutrition here is not good. One can also determine the same by counting the number of 270-pound teenagers waddling down the streets and through the malls of the Lowcountry. Something is seriously amiss with the diet of South Carolinians, and it affects no one more seriously than children.

We did get some insight into the diet of teenagers from a recent letter to the editor of The Post and Courier from local nutritionist and media gadfly, Dr. Ann Kulze. She wrote: "So we now have literally thousands of kids in our Charleston County Schools with this chronic disease (metabolic syndrome) who are being fed the very foods that promote its development and fuel its progression ... With the exception of an occasional piece of fresh fruit and low-fat milk, I did not see a single breakfast offering from the Charleston County school menu for the entire month of February that would be allowed in the dietary prescription for a metabolic-syndrome patient or, for that matter, that would sustain and promote the health of any child."

Kulze went on to cite another pediatric dietary specialist as saying the three most prominent drivers of the childhood obesity epidemic are television, fast food, and schools.

Kulze's letter drew the attention of Joanne Milkereit, a registered dietician who has worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, among other agencies.

In her own letter to the editor, Milkereit wrote: "To solve the problems associated with the food children eat, we must begin by helping those primarily and initially ... responsible for what children eat: their parents."

She went on to criticize the lack of coordination within schools and within communities to educate children about diet and to provide them with appropriate foods.

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/...oid=oid%3A43412

I was in total agreement with her until I got to the low-fat milk part.

Our tax dollars are spent feeding these kids junk that is directly causing their poor health. In a way, we are paying three times- once to subsidize the corn, secondly to subsidize the schools, and thirdly for the health care bills. I know that is an oversimplification
Yes, the parents need to be responsible, but in that respect maybe they're just feeding their kids what the Food Pyramid tells them to? I was asked to sign a "Nutrition Contract" at the beginning of the year that required our family to follow the Pyramid.*

It makes me feel guilty & sad to think that my money is being used for this.

*Edit. I did not sign it, btw, sent them a nastygram instead.

Thanks Regina.


I'll agree with KarenJ on the low fat milk. But I'll add the fresh fruit just because it's pushed as healthful food when it's actually not as good for us as meat for instance.

Heres a link Charleston County;

April menu

At the top it says that all daily menus are less than 30 percent fat, less than 10 percent saturated. It also says Kellog's cereal will be offered every day for breakfast, whatever the actual menu says.

April 7 breakfast;
Blueberry Pop Tart
Pear Half, Milk.

Pop tarts appear as breakfast three times in the month of april. And there's something called 1/3rd less sugar frosted flakes. Cocoa Puffs too. Learn something new every day. I think the healthiest breakfast in the whole menu is the day they have sausage patties grits juice and milk.

Even to my eyes, low fat milk and fresh fruit looks to be on the healthy side of THIS menu.