In Defense of Bake Sales
From the New York Times:
The old-fashioned school bake sale, once as American as apple pie, is fast becoming obsolete in California, a result of strict new state nutrition standards for public schools … They require that snacks sold during the school day contain no more than 35 percent sugar by weight and derive no more than 35 percent of their calories from fat and no more than 10 percent of their calories from saturated fat.
Outrageous! Now, I’m all for healthy eating, and I would be delighted if parents were less wont to load their kids full of sugary snacks and soft drinks. But these people need to lighten up!
In Chula Vista, Calif., near San Diego, sales plummeted at Hilltop High School’s multicultural food fair, an annual fund-raising event for the foreign language and global studies departments that has traditionally featured bratwurst, breadsticks with marinara sauce, apple pie and root beer floats. “This year was really hard,” said Jade Wagner, a senior, referring to the half-bratwursts and nondairy diet root beers.
Half-bratwursts!? Save the children!
A multicultural food fair without the food is just a multicultural fair. And folks, that’s just boring.
What’s more, under these nanny-state brownshirts’ regime, the life-giving, healthful saturated fat in a bratwurst is banned, but a glass of apple juice and a bagel—no added sugar, right?—would be the ideal healthy meal, even if it’s basically the nutritional equivalent of eating pure table sugar. Makes sense!
And the NYT might have mentioned that similar programs have been shown to be useless. The Junkfood Science blog recently had a look at some recent studies which failed to show any benefit from school sugar bans:
… we heard little about the intensive two-year study published earlier this year that was to provide evidence for the effectiveness of the School Nutrition Policy Initiative in reducing childhood obesity. This comprehensive program included every initiative popularly believed to reduce obesity and all of the interventions were in accordance with the CDC’s “Guidelines to Promote Lifelong Healthy Eating and Physical Activity” that are being incorporated into school wellness policies across the country. The program was a total failure. Not only had the children’s “healthy eating” behaviors slightly dropped, but it had no effect on the incidence, prevalence or remission of obesity…
… Given the massive resources, and increasingly intrusive interventions for students and families as school and government officials attempt to monitor and control what young people eat in schools, parents and tax paying consumers might begin insisting on some evidence before continuing to support these programs.
And one last thing: how can you trust anyone who can’t spell “McDonald’s?”
