and for goodness sake buy one of those timers for their gameboy/xbox/pc whatever. America's youth has turned into a bunch of couch potatoes while the AARP wastes my $$$$.

I agree with anothermom......The school or even the gov't should not be telling us what to feed our kids...plain and simple.....go find the fat people and preach to them...leave us with common sense alone!

another mom - see your schools food policy - ours does NOT ban cookies cupcakes brownies and all that. They do ban sodas, candies and 70% fat laden foods, like sausages.
Pastries are generally high in sugar, not fat, so the foods parents bring to parties will not be affected one iota, at our school. If your administrators made the government policy even stricter than it reads, then that is something you should address with your BOE, becuase I think it is they that set the policy, and parents can give their input at the public board meetings. At least, in most districts they can.

another mom - "I find it offensive that administration is trying to tell us what is healthy for our kids."

They arent, the government is. And if you dont think there is an epidemic of obesity in the USA, your state dept of education, section nutrition, can give you the data upon which the whole schhool foods initiative was based.

There are facts to support the obesity theory, even if its not apparent at your school or in your community. Its there, the obesity epidemic, and its a huge problem, pun intended.

And why does government have to step in at all? Its not becuase of the foods the school admin feeds the kids during the day make them fat, it falls back to parenting and what we all feed our kids the rest of the time, and the habits we instill in them.
Seems maybe the government is trying to knock sense/education into the parents that dont feed their family right, by intervening where they CAN, the reimbursed school food program.
Even if school foods will not impact greatly a kids weight, the policies raise awareness and nutrition education, that is a good thing for all kids, parents and society.

To me "occassional" means not everyday. We have 3 or 4 parties at school and always have some fruit or cheese and crackers or something besides cookies and cupcakes. Of course there is always a birthday too, but what is the big deal? Most parents bring small cupcakes or cookies or muffins. Some don't bring anything. I find it offensive that administration is trying to tell us what is healthy for our kids. Most parents are not stupid and know that an apple is better for the kid than a piece of candy, but honestly I don't think the baked goods and sweets are necessarily causing the obesity problems. First of all, most of the kids in our school are not overweight so I'm not sure where all of these obese kids are hiding, but I'm not seeing them. Secondly, maybe the schools should focus on extra recess and making recess fun instead of taking away birthday treats. Some of the kids sit around at recess because they aren't "allowed" to play soccer with the "cool" kids. Also with the amount of homework and responsibility put on the kids at such an early age, there is little time to get outside after school and play. When we were kids there was no homework, we would get home at 3:00 and play outside until dinner.

[ 06-06-2006, 07:52 AM: Message edited by: anothermom ]

How do you define OCCASSIONAL sweet in a policy?

Its probably becuase every school administrator has a different interpretation of 'occassional',is why the government has to put measures in place, type all or none, in their new food policy.

There is not alot of common sense around these days and everyone has different opinions of the word occcassional.

Thats my opinion anyway.