Bake sales, the calorie-laden standby cash-strapped classrooms, PTAs and booster clubs rely on, will be outlawed from public schools as of Aug. 1 as part of new no-nonsense nutrition standards, forcing fundraisers back to the blackboard to cook up alternative ways to raise money for kids.
At a minimum, the nosh clampdown targets so-called “competitive” foods — those sold or served during the school day in hallways, cafeterias, stores and vending machines outside the regular lunch program, including bake sales, holiday parties and treats dished out to reward academic achievement. But state officials are pushing schools to expand the ban 24/7 to include evening, weekend and community events such as banquets, door-to-door candy sales and football games.
The Departments of Public Health and Education contend clearing tables of even whole milk and white bread is necessary to combat an obesity epidemic affecting a third of the state’s 1.5 million students. But parents argue crudites won’t cut it when the bills come due on athletic equipment and band trips.
“If you want to make a quick $250, you hold a bake sale,” said Sandy Malec, vice president of the Horace Mann Elementary School PTO in Newtonville.
Maura Dawley of Scituate said the candy bars her 15-year-old son brought to school to help pay for a youth group trip to Guatemala “sold like wildfire.” She worries the ban “would seriously affect the bottom line of the PTOs.
“The goal is to raise money,” Dawley said. “You’re going to be able to sell pizza. You’re not going to get that selling apples and bananas. It’s silly.”
Food fundraisers have helped send the renowned Danvers High School Falcon Band to the Rose Bowl Parade in California and the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. Danvers Parents for Music Education sell fudge because “it still works,” said the group’s president, Matthew Desmond. “Even my wife will buy it.”
Middleboro School Committeeman Brian Giovanoni, whose board will discuss the mandatory meal makeover Thursday night, said, “My concern is we’re regulating what people can eat, and I have a problem with that. I respect the state for what they’re trying to do, but I think they’ve gone off the deep end. I don’t want someone telling me how to do my job as a parent. ... Is the commonwealth of Massachusetts saying our parents are bad parents?”
No, insists Dr. Lauren Smith, DPH’s medical director.
“We’re not trying to get into anyone’s lunch box,” Smith told the Herald. “We know that schools need those clubs and resources. We want them to be sure and have them, but to do them a different way. We have some incredibly innovative, talented folks in schools who are already doing some impressive things, who serve as incontrovertible evidence that, yes, you can do this, and be successful at it.”
State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, said the problem of overweight children has reached “crisis” proportions.
“If we didn’t have so many kids that were obese, we could have let things go,” Fargo said.
“But,” she added, “this is a major public health problem and these kids deserve a chance at a good, long healthy life.”
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I've been to several school carnivals that have cake walks and bake sales. There is nothing wrong with sweet goodies in moderation. Let kids be kids!
So: no Pink-Slime Sales, No Junk Processed Crap Sales and no Unidentifiable Meat Sales...
Fresh, home-baked goods should skirt that rule...
My old school took out the soda machines and snack line as the high schoolers were going for the snack line and soda machines instead of the lunch. I always brought enough change for a couple sodas (1 for school and 1 for home) plus some nachos and cheese or some type of other snack. No juice that isn't 100% with no sugars, no dyes and no additives. No pizza parties, holiday parties, classroom parties, birthday parties are allowed anymore. No cupcakes or junk food brought in from home. No sweets or soda in your lunches if your kids pack lunch and the teachers get free reign to go through the child's lunch and confiscate any forbidden foods. My brother is in 3rd grade and my sister is in 6th. My other sister graduated in 2007 and I graduated in 2006. They started doing this after I graduated. This is at Lakewood School District in Hebron, OH.
I don't think it's a big deal, even for individual schools, as long as it's not their only form of fundraising. I also think nutrition should be taught through the school PE programs. I successfully got our school to stop fundraising with cookie dough. We instead do a read-a-thon to help raise money for the school and celebrate literacy.
People can go to McDonalds when they want, eat fat and starch all day, bring garbage food from home, so who cares what they buy at school?
I see it as a matter of personal responsibility.. Are we going to let someone else dictate everything?
Quoting GotSomeKids:I don't think it's a big deal, even for
individual schools, as long as it's not their only form of fundraising.
I also think nutrition should be taught through the school PE
programs. I successfully got our school to stop fundraising with cookie
dough. We instead do a read-a-thon to help raise money for the school
and celebrate literacy.
Right, we have a lot of dine and donates at local restaurants. My son had a high school fundraiser with preordered jamba juice, and did really well. They've also had car wash fundraisers. they can still have great fundraisers even without cupcakes.
And selling candy or any food ready to eat has been banned in SC for years. The obesity rates have plummeted I'm sure but for some reason, we still have some of the highest rates in the country for obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, type II diabetes, and sleep apnea for juveniles in the entire country. If banning candy sales and bake sales didn't fix it all, then nothing can.
Before they start banning certain foods, maybe they should take a look at the lunches that they serve. Our schools' lunches are disguisting. There is very little nutrition there, even though they claim that they are healthy lunches.
Is Yoga a religion?
- rocketracer
on May. 7, 2012 at 3:32 PM