Lunchtime at the Little Dude Saloon

Sam’s daycare center has a policy where parents are highly discouraged from sending foods with empty calories, basically the entire junk food group. I freely admit this group contains all my favorite foods and would happily live exclusively on these foods if I could realistically do so. But I’m trying to instill good eating habits in Sam so I try to send a variety of fruits, veggies, whole grains, leftovers, and generally nourishing foods to “school” and luckily, Sam is pretty good about eating these things and trying new foods.

Sam’s daycare has a mix of kids, some are low-income subsidized families. I like that he’s exposed to a bit of cultural variety in the midst of white bread America but I’m finding that there is an aspect of this group I’m having trouble with – their lunches.

Now, in full disclosure, I have to admit that I have not seen the lunches of all his classmates and it’s true that I might be making generalizations based on a very small sample set and further, I could be the one sending the really oddball lunches but I have seen the lunches of several of the kids in the subsidized group and it’s both discouraging and eye-opening. Earlier this week I saw one of the parents (of a 2 year old) open the lunch box to a six pack of Oreos, a bag of Cheetos, and some sort of Kool-Aid drink. No evidence of anything with any nutritional content although I will admit there could have been something buried under all the prepackaged junk food. I saw one child bring in Poptarts, Cheetos, a Fruit Roll Up, a piece of plain white bread, and a yogurt. At least there was one bit of real food in there. Another kid brought in a 6 pack of mini donuts for breakfast.

While I won’t begrudge kids a treat every now and then and intend to let my parents spoil him unmercifully when we’re in WI at the end of the month (in my Dad’s words “I’ll use my own bad judgment”) I don’t believe that a kid needs a diet void of nutrition. One of my main concerns is that the kids are learning these horrible eating habits in a time when obesity is a major problem for the entire population. I’m guessing that much of this is related to the ignorance of the parents who may have no idea that Fruit Roll Ups are not fruit and that Kool-Aid is just colored flavored sugar water. I expect they believe they’re providing reasonable nutrition to their kids and that is what is so frightening. The adults don’t know any better. We can’t be wondering why the country is having a problem with obesity and diabetes when so many people are so ignorant of very basic information. I don’t know if I’m just more aware of it given that my background is in food science but it seems that there has been a significant attempt to educate the general public through news, TV, magazines, newspapers, and even putting nutritional information on labels and menus. How much more accessible can it be? Then again, my very intelligent husband has been know to hold up a package of corn and ask me if it has any carbohydrates (yes, during his Atkins period) so I know that just because the information is out there, it doesn’t mean anyone is paying any attention.

Oh, and besides the public health problems associated with eating the all junk food diet, the issue I see coming down the road is that Sam is going to want to have all that stuff in his lunch when he realizes that other kids have it. He’s not stupid, he knows it tastes great. So will I succumb and get him his own selection of lunch box junk food? Should I accept that there comes a time when I don’t have control over it so I should just give him healthy options with a few snacks and let him scam his way to extra goodies through his own cunning and intelligence? I suspect that’s what I’m going to do. I need to get over it and not micromanage; my job is simply to teach him the nutrition basics and let him do with it what he will.