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American cheese and Oreo cookies are banned from packed lunches at the Children’s Success Academy in Tucson. The school has a strict policy forbidding any processed foods, refined sugar or even white flour.
Each day, boys are girls at the public charter school are required to allow teachers to inspect their lunch boxes. Any forbidden foods are confiscated and students are given a “healthy alternative.”
“I will get them peanut butter and honey on whole wheat,” teacher Leticia Moreno told the Arizona Daily Star. However, the peanut butter can’t have any sugar.
The school doesn’t have a cafeteria so every student must bring their own lunch and according to the newspaper, the rules are creating a hardship for cash-strapped parents.
“It is challenging mainly because in grocery stores it’s so hard to find anything without sugar,” parent Breanna Chacon told the newspaper.
The list of banned foods is substantial – American cheese, canned fruit, flavored yogurt, white bread, peanut butter made with sugar – even Oreo cookies.
And there are no exceptions to the rule, said Nanci Aiken, the school’s director. “You don’t need a cake,” she said. “They can have nuts, or fruit.”
“I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West a lot of times, but it makes such a big difference,” she said. “When you eat sugar, especially by itself like a candy bar, you get a rush and crash. An apple will give not give you instant gratification or a rush, but it lasts longer.”
There are critics to the school’s methods “There are all kinds of emotional and behavioral problems that can happen if you tell a child to never, ever eat a cookie,” said registered dietitian Nancy Rogers. “They may do just the opposite once they are at a rebellious stage.”
But, said Aiken, “We are what we eat.”
I wonder if Nutter Butters are on the list? They are made with peanut butter. And I love Nutter Butters.
Todd Starnes is a reporter and anchor for FOX News Radio.
I think the school is the doing the right thing for the kids. I am sure parents were told of this policy before registering kids, since this is not a regular public school, it is not where the kids must go, but the parent's choices to send them there. Charter schools are doing the right thing in terms of education system and what kids eat does influence how they behave. Not allowing this things during lunch at school does not equate to prohibiting the kids from having it at all. Parents are free to do as they please while the kids are home and they can deal with the consequences (short and long term). Those things (like sugary foods) should be a special occasion treat, not an everyday ocurrance. Let's applaud the school for making the children's best interest a priority instead of buckling down to preassure and the vast advertising that the food manufactorers can do.
Behavioral problems because they couldn't eat cookies? This shows the "all about me" attitude of American's today. What can we do to self gratify? Come on, if those parents send their kids to the school, I'm sure they are made aware of the rule before they enroll. Get over it and send your kids what the rules say they can have. Maybe if all schools followed this plan there wouldn't be so many kids with ADHD all the time??