Should parents be able to prevent their children from buying certain items in the school cafeteria? Newsweek reports on a new cafeteria checkout system that monitors what each child eats so that parents can view the information online. This could provide the opportunity for discussion about healthy eating choices, although it does seem a bit Big Motherish.
The system also allows parents to specify foods children can’t have, and then alerts the cashier if their kids try to purchase them. As the article notes, however, kids can easily find their way around this by trading with friends. There’s also a lesson about trust that gets lost here. Still, the system may have some use if it prevents children with allergies from buying certain foods.
One wonders, too: Why don’t schools just work harder to provide healthy choices in the first place? This is an issue of both financial and personnel resources, and I don’t want to make it seem like there’s a simple solution. Still, some schools are making efforts and finding that the benefits include increased academic performance because students are calmer, more focused, and feel better physically. This makes any cost increase seem more like an investment.
If you’re interested in learning more about what’s being done (and what you can do) to improve school lunch programs, take a look at Healthy School Lunches, a campaign sponsored by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), the School Foods Tool Kit, and “Can School Lunches Be Sustainable?,” which also has links to many other resources.