I recently received an email from Jane Hersey, Director of The Feingold Association regarding my post “How a Child’s Diet Affects Behavior“. The Feingold Association is a non-profit organization that is “dedicated to helping children and adults apply proven dietary techniques for better behavior, learning and health, and to generating public awareness of the potential role of foods and synthetic additives in behavior, learning and health problems.” They offer a dietary management program for both children and adults. Much of what they discuss is related to the food additives found in processed foods, and The Feingold Program centers around eliminating these additives from your family’s diet.
Jane brought an excellent issue to my attention…the nutritional quality of school lunches. The website School-Lunch.org brings some frightening information in their introduction regarding the foods that school cafeterias are serving our kids under the guise of a “nutritious lunch”. Ingredients such as artificial flavoring, artificial coloring, high fructose corn syrup, cheese substitutes, hydrolized soy protein (among other msg aliases), and polydimethylsiloxane (also used to make silly putty!) are found in many school lunches. …and we wonder why our children are not performing at an optimal level in school. Instead of fueling our bodies and ensuring good health, these various additives and synthetic ingredients found in processed food are actually known to cause disease and alter behavior.
In fact, some schools have found that just by changing the foods offered at lunch has reduced their rates of discipline problems, drop outs, violence and resulted in calmer, more focused students. It’s also important to note that these changes in food offerings did not increase the school’s budget! The same can be said on an individual level. Many of the processed snack foods and prepared meals that are offered in a grocery store are more expensive than a carefully planned menu that includes fresh fruits, vegetables and home made meals. For example processed oatmeal costs up to $5 per pound whereas the plain and natural alternative is 50 cents per pound!
This just goes to show that it is possible to offer your children healthy, nutritious foods economically and even take the extra step by going organic on a budget! And even if you do have to spend a little bit more time, effort or money in order to provide your family healthy, nutritious foods…isn’t it worth it?
Great post- I am a big believer in the behavioral consequences of junk food!
I’ve just been reading about this!
I have to say, I’m encouraged by the efforts in some communities to ban the sale of soda and “vitamin” water during school hours. You can get more information on that from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (www.cspinet.org). Also, thanks to the leadership of Alic Waters in Berkeley, CA, more and more schools are buying locally grown and even organic food. It’s no where near enough, but it’s a start.
I am a food service professional in an elementary school and I take offense to your article on how school lunches are unhealthy. It is amazing the difference a child makes in the classroom after eating a school lunch and or breakfast. The majority of students only have the school lunches to depend on because there are some sorry parents out there who depend on the school system to take care of their kids and they take no responsibility themselves. School lunches are healthy and offer many choices for the students to make.School meals have come a long way since I was in school and every effort is being made to make sure that our children are “healthy children ready to learn.”
Teresa,
I appreciate your comments and feedback. I do agree that it is important for children to fuel their bodies and by no means am I encouraging them to skip meals. I do however think that improvements can always be made in the quality of food offered by the majority of schools. And, I think the reason for the improvements that have been made since you were in school are due to heightened awareness among the education and parenting community which is often brought about by discussion such as this. Thank you for you for your input. I appreciate your hard work and commitment to our children!