Lunchbox Voyeur?

This editorial in the Waterbury, Connecticut Republican-American newspaper strikes a chord with me. Since I cannot find a direct link to it I'll reproduce it in full here.

Lunchbox voyeurism

Sunday, April 3, 2005

Copyright © 2005 Republican-American

A generation ago, schools in the United States and other developed countries mostly confined themselves to the 3Rs, and they managed to graduate many millions of solid citizens capable of contributing to society.

But thanks to liberal political activism rooted in the counter-culture of the 1960s, schools have diversified into social-service centers, much to the detriment of the education they are supposed to provide. The thinking continues to be that since schools hold so many children at once, they are best suited for dispensing psychological counseling, distributing birth control and offering an array of other services. And if children learn anything useful along the way, so much the better. Concurrent with this evolution, of course, were changes in curriculums to make government schools left-wing indoctrination centers.

Consequently, schools incrementally but relentlessly have seized many duties that once were the exclusive domain of parents. Among them is child nutrition.

A few decades ago, while teachers were preaching the benefits of the food pyramid, schools were phasing out balanced meals in favor of child-friendly menus. Beef in gravy gave way to tacos, baked chicken to chicken nuggets.

But with the recent hysteria over childhood obesity -- more a figment of the feckless Body Mass Index than a full-blown epidemic -- the pendulum has swung back toward nutrition in a big way. And characteristically, government schools are going to extremes.

In Australia, preschool teachers enforce no-junk-food policies by inspecting lunches that parents prepare for their children and confiscating lollipops, chocolates, potato chips, most processed foods, fruit juice and any other foods they deem unhealthy. When an inspection turns up contraband cuisine, teachers call the parents to warn them about the deadly dangers of junk food. Parents naturally fall into line because they believe, all evidence to the contrary, that schools know best when it comes to raising children.

Australian teachers say lunchbox inspections are the only way to keep children from eating junk food. But what about all those hours children spend on nights and weekends and during summers under the supervision of their parents?

Well, Canada for one is addressing that with laws that let authorities charge parents with child abuse (assault with a deadly Twinkie?) if they don't provide their kids with meals that meet government nutritional guidelines.

Unless parents object, no-junk-food policies and nutritional child-abuse laws are destined to make their way into this country, probably via bureaucratic or judicial fiat.

When will this madness end? When adults realize parenthood is not a spectator sport, their children are their responsibility, and the more government schools diversify, the less they do well enough to earn a passing grade.

Maybe we should just compel parents to eat the lunches they pack for their children. /sarcasm off/

To find the above editorial online, go here and search for editorials from April 3rd.