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Junk food: bad for students, good for school district budget
Banning soda and snack food from the Philadelphia School District in 2006 was meant to make students healthier, but it has also had an unintended effect: the loss of $2 million to $3 million in revenue to the district each year.
School officials revealed this yesterday at a hearing called by City Council's Education Committee to probe the safety and nutrition of the district's lunch program following February's federal recall of beef products to schools.
About 10 members of the public testified on topics including poor-quality lunches, the lack of organic foods, the underused free-breakfast program and scheduling problems that result in a small number of schools serving lunch as early as 9 a.m.
"The school district has lost a tremendous amount of revenue as a result of . . . healthy snacks because kids don't like that as much as the stuff that is not healthy," said Fred Farlino, the district's interim chief operating officer.
"We don't mind losing the $2 million, frankly, because it is not unlike the discussion we are having here today about regular food versus organic," he said. "That's the right way to go, we just have to figure out how to get there given the cost."
He added that school officials plan to include those who complained in improving the $78 million food program.
Jonathan Stein, general counsel for Community Legal Services, Inc., testified that the district needs to do more to boost the number of students who receive free breakfast each school day. He estimated that 43,000 students receive breakfast each school day, though studies show it helps students do better in school.
"This means that approximately 100,000 students are low-income and eligible, and not receiving a free breakfast," he said.
Farlino said many students skip the federally funded breakfast program because they come to school too late or they fill up on corner-store snacks on the way to school.
"Our goal is to serve as many breakfasts as we do lunches. That would really be the appropriate thing to do," said Farlino, adding that he will recommend to the district's incoming chief executive officer, Arlene Ackerman, that the breakfast program be made mandatory for all students.
Responding to a statement from a teacher who said his nutrition students found that the cafeteria cheese contained an ingredient classified by the FDA as toxic, Farlino said: "I believe our food . . . is safe, and we adhere to or exceed all standards that the government provides." *
08:41 AM, 05/07/2008
Anyone who lets their kid eat junk food and drink soda should be ashamed of themselves. You are willingly allowing your child to poison themselves. We have only been eating processed foods as a culture since WWII. The effects that processed foods have on our bodies and the environment are terrible. Fruit is natures candy...and guess what? It's cheap!
What's next...the school district providing three meals a day? Breakfast should NOT be provided. Why can't the parents make breakfast for their children? It's not that expensive to buy a large box of cereal and a gallon milk. You would think parents would sacrifice things to feed their children.
Wolfgang...totally agree. All of what you said, in addition to the degenerative diseases that are coming with it (hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, high cholesterol, increased possibility of strokes, etc.) all happening under an increasingly broken healthcare system is providing all of what's needed for a perfect storm moment.
Junk food shouldn't bear the full responsibility for obesity and the diseases that go along with it. Children and adults are lazy, and are not physically active, nor do they exercise enough to offset what they eat.
Stop being self-righteous. Rare are the kids that truly understand why and how to eat healthy. Blaming them or their parents does nothing for the obesity/diabetics epidemic.
It's the parent's responsibility to see that their children are eating healthy, nutritional food. I guess all of those big, bag fast food places are to blame for the obesity problem, also. Too many people don't want to take responsibility for their own stupid actions and lack of willpower. No one is being forced to eat at McDonald's, etc.
The Phila school district kids have it way too good. Instead of starving like the rest of the world, they are obese ! Sometimes, they have food fights in the cafeteria like Lincoln High. These are the Einsteins who cant make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich with an apple in the bag.
If the School District of Philadelphia wants to help promote healthier children in this city they need to ensure that items provided are not expired. Twice my son has come home complaining that he drank milk that wasn't good. If you want to promote healthy children promote fresh foods
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