First Lady Michelle Obama has long been an advocate of better eating habits, especially for our nation’s young, which is an admirable goal, but during this recently completed school year, she and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ran into some impassioned opposition by the youngsters she is trying to help. And joining the kids in this opposition are their parents and their schools, which have had to implement the USDA’s new School Lunch and Breakfast Program, as mandated by the Michelle Obama-inspired Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.
Simply put, the kids don’t like the cafeteria food they are required to eat, and their schools don’t like the higher costs required to serve it. According to the independent Government Accountability Office, schools are paying much more for this USDA-mandated food and many of them must also invest in expensive new equipment to store it. As a report by the National School Boards Association says, “ … school boards cannot ignore the higher costs and operational issues created by the rigid mandates of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.” Some schools are even taking money out of their teaching budgets to cover these higher expenses.
Meanwhile, this past school year kids engaged in nationwide boycotts, and even organized strikes, against these mandated school lunches, and many students brought their own lunches to school. Other students even took to social media, especially Twitter, to express their anger, sarcastically using the hashtag #ThanksMichelle.
One byproduct (literally) has been a huge increase in food waste — plates of uneaten food — which costs schools additional funds to dispose of. Also, after nearly a decade of uninterrupted growth, student participation in school lunch programs actually declined by 1.1 million during the most recent 2012 – 2013 school year. That decline is especially telling given that the number of students eligible for school lunch programs has increased by 1.2 million.
As a result, some members of Congress are exploring granting waivers exempting schools from having to comply with the USDA mandates, at least for the 2014 – 2015 school year, which has given the first lady indigestion. “It is unacceptable to me,” she said, “not just as first lady, but as a mother.”
For sure, childhood obesity is a national crisis, and the first lady’s fight against it is admirable. But the best weapons in that fight are education, inspiration, setting good examples and giving positive reinforcement. As the above proves, a one-size-fits-all mandate coming from a “We-know-what’s- best-for-your-children” federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., is actually counterproductive.
Let the first lady do her best to persuade. Let the kids and their parents ultimately decide — especially since, thanks to Michelle Obama’s very effective awareness campaign, they will almost certainly now make better decisions.
