Blaming Michelle

From Yahoo:

"Teens Blame Michelle Obama for Their 'Nasty' Tater Tot-Free Lunches"

Caitlin Tagner, a high school sophomore from North Carolina, is very clear about who she blames for her school's "nasty" lunches: "I blame Michelle Obama." It's great that schools are trying to make lunches better, they're not doing a very good job of it. "Starving kids at school isn't exactly a way to (get) kids' obesity down," Tagner added. "I feel like it's just been taken too far." On Monday, the Associated Press reported that some school nutrition directors want the Department of Agriculture of loosen up the new-ish lunch requirements so students will stop throwing away their food. Anthony Gallimore, a high school senior from Georgia, was more willing to acknowledge others might be at fault. "It's gotta be a combination of Michelle and the servers at the school. No one person could take all the blame," he DM'd The Wire. "Though, the servers are probably just doing what they're told." 

At Gallimore's school, most people "put up with" the lunch, but several have started bringing their own. "Health-wise, I'd say it's an illusion of benefit. The food even LOOKED more presentable before," he wrote. "And if nobody chooses to eat the gross food, then it can't possibly be helping anyone. It's just being thrown out anyway."  Tagner and Gallimore are two of millions of students across the country adjusting to the new (as of the 2012-2013 school year) lunch standards mandated by the Healthy and Hunger-Free Kids Act, a law Michelle Obama championed. Some kids like the lunches, but the ones who don't have school cafeterias are concerned. 

New meals are required to offer a whole grain, protein, fat free or low-fat milk, fruits and vegetables. Student can turn down two of the five options, but they have to take either a fruit or a vegetable. So for instance this school lunch is not in compliance: ...because there are no fruits or vegetables. Brady Justice, the Oklahoma sophomore who ordered that lunch, acknowledged that his school has a salad bar ever day, "which is nice, but I don't like salad :/," he said over DM. Justice said that while the food is a little bit healthier, "I am in athletics and every day I am hungry by the end of school." Schools and students are now worried about the sodium limits that are set to take effect by 2017, according to the AP, and want to drop the requirement that every kid take a fruit or a vegetable

 

Every student The Wire interviewed saw and/or tasted the decline in their lunch options over the last few years. Justice replied, "In the past we always had an option for chicken nuggets or something else that was generally tasty, but this year we get a little sandwich or pizza made with wheat bread." (The pizza is not good.) Sarah Vongphachanh, a junior from Alabama, said the changes started with reduced calorie snacks. "There was a noticeable shift," Gallimore said. "The milk brands changed and the bread changed from white to a much smaller portion of wheat bread." Tagner gave up. "I started bringing my lunch now," she wrote. "The milk is usually warm also." 

 

^ It is fair to blame Michelle Obama as well as everyone else who created or endorsed this program. American children eat too much junk food, but you can't simply force them to eat healthy, tasteless food in its place. You need to be creative. If you choose to change their food you have to give them other kinds of food that they will eat and enjoy. Otherwise the program and its goals fail from the beginning. ^

http://news.yahoo.com/teens-blame-michelle-obama-nasty-tater-tot-free-130850939.html