"Snack Shaming"?! Is this a thing now?

[Oling_Roachinen]

Sane, practical, policy maker: In order to make school not just place to learn facts and dates, but also help nurture young people into well rounded mentally and physically healthy individuals as much as possible, let's designated a time where children can eat fruits and vegetables. This will encourage them to eat healthier, and we can use it to teach them about the nutritional value of foods like this. For children who aren't provided fruits from their parents, we can supply apple and oranges. For anyone with issues with this, they can eat lunch like normal but hopefully this will ingrain in them the type of food to eat for snacks.

Western world: MY KID DOESN'T EAT FRUITS AND VEGETABLES THIS IS BULLYING

Also Western world: HOW COME A QUARTER OF OUR ADOLESCENTS ARE OBESE, AND WHY HAVEN'T I SEEN MY PENIS IN A DECADE?

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Sane, practical, policy maker: In order to make school not just place to learn facts and dates, but also help nurture young people into well rounded mentally and physically healthy individuals as much as possible, let's designated a time where children can eat fruits and vegetables. This will encourage them to eat healthier, and we can use it to teach them about the nutritional value of foods like this. For children who aren't provided fruits from their parents, we can supply apple and oranges. For anyone with issues with this, they can eat lunch like normal but hopefully this will ingrain in them the type of food to eat for snacks.

Western world: MY KID DOESN'T EAT FRUITS AND VEGETABLES THIS IS BULLYING

Also Western world: HOW COME A QUARTER OF OUR ADOLESCENTS ARE OBESE, AND WHY HAVEN'T I SEEN MY PENIS IN A DECADE?

Again, my point stands. They should have talked with the mom and explained why they're promoting healthy eating and see if they could work something out, instead of outing the kid and making him eat outside in the hallway. I don't know if you've ever been outed when you were a kid, but it makes you feel like crap. Add onto that the kid is autistic, and it's even worse for him. Kids are freaking ruthless when it comes to picking on other kids. This will just ensure the kid is teased going forward. Nice way for the teach to set a good example eh?

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

Again, my point stands. They should have talked with the mom and explained why they're promoting healthy eating and see if they could work something out

Of course they should of. But the parent has made it quite clear she won't be part of, what she calls, a "nutritional agenda." I would love if they showed a picture of the mother to see how well her going against this nutritional agenda has worked for her.

Originally Posted by habernac

Oling obviously has zero experience with autistic kids.

Asinine.

But if a child with special needs becomes a disturbance to the rest of the class, sometimes and unfortunately, they should be removed. You can't teach a class of 20+ children if one of them was yelling for the entirety of the lesson. Even if it's not his fault, sometimes the tough but right choice is to remove the disturbance.

If the child will not partake in this exercise of eating fruits and vegetables but for some reason still absolutely requires the need to eat a piece of banana bread at that time, putting him in the hallway while the rest of the class participate in the lesson is fine by me. There's still 20+ other children that will gain value from the lesson of eating fruit and vegetables.

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Of course they should of.

Your post is now invalid.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

Your post is now invalid.

How'd you like the Great Gatsby? Think F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing was invalid as well?

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Sane, practical, policy maker: In order to make school not just place to learn facts and dates, but also help nurture young people into well rounded mentally and physically healthy individuals as much as possible, let's designated a time where children can eat fruits and vegetables. This will encourage them to eat healthier, and we can use it to teach them about the nutritional value of foods like this. For children who aren't provided fruits from their parents, we can supply apple and oranges. For anyone with issues with this, they can eat lunch like normal but hopefully this will ingrain in them the type of food to eat for snacks.

Western world: MY KID DOESN'T EAT FRUITS AND VEGETABLES THIS IS BULLYING

Also Western world: HOW COME A QUARTER OF OUR ADOLESCENTS ARE OBESE, AND WHY HAVEN'T I SEEN MY PENIS IN A DECADE?

You do raise valid points. People becoming unhealthier and the percentage of the population that is overweight/obese is going up. We are seeing things like fat acceptance and health at every size movements pop up, which are nothing but a cancer in society.

But it has to be a measured approach and not something that is done in absolutes. This situation would have been better handled by dealing with the parent and not the child. A grade 1 child, let alone one with autism, isn't going to understand why their banana bread is being taken away. If snack time is for fruits and veggies, it needs to be communicated and enforced with the parents, who are making 100% of the choices for their kid at that age.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Russic

Her daughter helped out with her baby brother and received a pre-packaged rice crispy square as a reward in her lunch. When she couldn't open it, she took it to the teacher for help, and it was promptly confiscated. That's sending some crazy mixed signals to a kid who suddenly felt like she may have done something wrong.

Wait, ignoring the article for a sec.... Are you not allowed to pack a candy in their lunch these days?

Candy's have existed since ancient times but now in 2017 schools have to ban them because that's the only way the parents of 2017 can instill healthy eating habits into their kids?

How on earth did the human race survive by allowing their kids to have a treat in their lunch for all of these years.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll

But it has to be a measured approach and not something that is done in absolutes. This situation would have been better handled by dealing with the parent and not the child. A grade 1 child, let alone one with autism, isn't going to understand why their banana bread is being taken away. If snack time is for fruits and veggies, it needs to be communicated and enforced with the parents, who are making 100% of the choices for their kid at that age.

Again, I agree. Communication should have been better if it wasn't communicated to the mother what would happen before, but even though she's met and communicated with them now, she doesn't care.

“They told me they only allow fresh fruits and vegetables for snack time,” she said
...
Despite the dust-up with her school, the mom said she has no plans of changing her son’s diet to appease school administrators pushing what she sees as a nutritional agenda.
...
“I don’t want people telling me what to feed my child.”

So now, what? Remove the healthy snack policy? That would be a shame. You either have to enforce it, or just turn it into anything goes snack time. I prefer the former, I see a lot of positive in a healthy snack time. Hopefully this mother's complaint against the "nutritional agenda" isn't going to change policy, but of course the media attention will have the school looking into this and possibly cave..

[Wiggum_PI]

I bet this mom makes awesome banana bread, and the teacher is just confiscating it so he/she can pig out on it later.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Sane, practical, policy maker: In order to make school not just place to learn facts and dates, but also help nurture young people into well rounded mentally and physically healthy individuals as much as possible, let's designated a time where children can eat fruits and vegetables. This will encourage them to eat healthier, and we can use it to teach them about the nutritional value of foods like this. For children who aren't provided fruits from their parents, we can supply apple and oranges. For anyone with issues with this, they can eat lunch like normal but hopefully this will ingrain in them the type of food to eat for snacks.

Western world: MY KID DOESN'T EAT FRUITS AND VEGETABLES THIS IS BULLYING

Also Western world: HOW COME A QUARTER OF OUR ADOLESCENTS ARE OBESE, AND WHY HAVEN'T I SEEN MY PENIS IN A DECADE?

You might have a case if the teacher didn't kick the student out of classroom and take away his snack as opposed to just asking him to put it away.

[Raekwon]

He was told to eat his banana bread in the hallway, it wasn't taken away.

"I found out the teacher has taken his banana bread away (in the past) and replaced it with something else."

[CaptainCrunch]

According to the Calgary Board of Education’s nutrition policy, only “healthy food and beverage” options are sold or provided in the district’s schools, however it doesn’t apply to snacks or lunches packed for students by their parents.
While the board “encourages” parents to make “healthy choices” for snacks and lunches, the nutrition policy only applies to food provided by the schools.

Basically the teacher was going against the BOE policy. The mom was packing the snacks they weren't using school snacks, so it was literally none of the teachers business in terms of what the kid had in his snack bag.

And throwing a kid out of a classroom because of that just kind of feels like negative teaching methods.

[EldrickOnIce]

Ha. This 'snack shaming' happened to our little one. My biochemistry PhD wife stopped by the school and questioned the administration on their understanding of the biochemical process that takes place within our body in breaking down anything we ingest. She ended with a nice power point slide presentation showing some simple, positive results from the physical and chemical processing by the body of some so called unhealthy foods.

Snack time has not been a problem since.

[JohnnyB]

Quite often, parents need to be educated as much as their kids.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I'll grant that it isn't the healthiest thing out there, but it isn't really un-healthy either. A little high on sugar, and butter too much butter isn't great. However if the kid is being sent with a slice for a snack and it's something he will eat- it certainly doesn't warrant the kind of response the teacher gave.

Banana cake. It is banana cake. Flour, sugar, butter, banana, baking soda, egg.

The teacher gave the child an apple and sent the kid home with fruit. We need to look at rates of childhood diabetes, obesity and the like. The I can do with my child what I want type of approach really only works if you aren't harming your child and a child that isn't getting proper nutrition is being harmed.

I am intrigued as to how she knows the inner workings of the grade 1 class or if there is a certain degree of hyperbole being thrown into the mix.

[blankall]

There's no such thing as one healthy diet. Everyone has different nutrient needs. Most "healthy" foods are those that are devoid in calories. Not every person is overweight and some need extra calories. When I was a kid I was underweight and switching out my high calorie foods for low calorie foods would have been unhealthy for me.

While I do agree that people generally need to lose weight in North America, you can't treat everyone equally or tax them equally when it comes to high calorie foods.

I honestly don't see how this was the teacher's or the school's business. It sounds more like them making a quasi-governmental decision, which is well outside of their scope as educators.

[TheAlpineOracle]

Am I the only one floored that it's been pointed out multiple times in this thread that the child was autistic, and that just keeps getting ignored so a couple of people can stand on their soap box?

"Applauding" a teacher for doing that to an autistic child? Really? We aren't talking about a normal child here. You can't just go to an autistic child and say "You will eat these healthy snacks only or will not eat" because well often times they will simply not eat.

Some people who have no experience with autism should really take a read of the following article and see the extent of the issue with some of these children and food consumption. This is no place for a teacher to be involved.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...istic-son.html

[FireGilbert]

This has been happening in the nanny state known as Australian recently with teachers inspecting lunches and confiscating food/writing notes if something is deemed unhealthy. I'm all for teaching kids healthy eating but shaming parents who put an occasional treat in a lunch is going too far.

http://www.news.com.au/national/sout...58b060637e12d5

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by blankall

Not every person is overweight and some need extra calories. When I was a kid I was underweight and switching out my high calorie foods for low calorie foods would have been unhealthy for me.

But there is 0 evidence based on the article that they are switching out high calorie foods for low calories food at lunch or forcing him to eat anything he doesn't want to at lunch. Instead, they implemented a snack time in addition to lunch where a student can eat vegetables and fruits.

Am I the only one who didn't have snack time at my schools? I mean we're talking grade school, they can go 3 hours without a snack. What happens when he gets to junior high and can bring a water bottle to class? Does he get free pass to bring a soda if he doesn't drink water?

I think it's crazy that I'm the crazy person in this thread for thinking a healthy snack time is a good idea. "Here's 5 minutes in the day for you to eat fruit and vegetables and only fruit and vegetables." Seems reasonable enough to me. Getting children to eat their veggies is a fantastic idea. If they were taking away his banana bread and throwing it out at lunch, that's a different story to me, but we're talking about a snack time designed specifically to eat healthy. They've already compromised allowing him to eat it outside of class during this time. And let's not overlook that the mother is fighting against the "nutritional agenda." That seems to be the craziest part of this story that's getting overlooked. I really would love to see the size of her.

But a special snowflake mother (insult aimed entirely at the mother, of course not the child) is going to stop the CBE, or at least this school, from fulfilling their nutritional agenda, the most diabolical agenda since the gay one was released.


I truly believe that if gym was only implemented today, the same people would be willing to storm the school and hang the gym teachers. The idea that a child is forced to perform physical activity a sport that they may not like, for an entire block? And if they don't like it, or don't bring their gym clothes, they are forced to sit out? Oh wow, if eating a vegetable is terrible, imagine that idea coming out today.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

But there is 0 evidence based on the article that they are switching out high calorie foods for low calories food at lunch or forcing him to eat anything he doesn't want to at lunch. Instead, they implemented a snack time in addition to lunch where a student can eat vegetables and fruits.

Am I the only one who didn't have snack time at my schools? I mean we're talking grade school, they can go 3 hours without a snack. What happens when he gets to junior high and can bring a water bottle to class? Does he get free pass to bring a soda if he doesn't drink water?

I think it's crazy that I'm the crazy person in this thread for thinking a healthy snack time is a good idea. "Here's 5 minutes in the day for you to eat fruit and vegetables and only fruit and vegetables." Seems reasonable enough to me. Getting children to eat their veggies is a fantastic idea. If they were taking away his banana bread and throwing it out at lunch, that's a different story to me, but we're talking about a snack time designed specifically to eat healthy. They've already compromised allowing him to eat it outside of class during this time. And let's not overlook that the mother is fighting against the "nutritional agenda." That seems to be the craziest part of this story that's getting overlooked. I really would love to see the size of her.

But a special snowflake mother (insult aimed entirely at the mother, of course not the child) is going to stop the CBE from fulfilling their nutritional agenda, the most diabolical agenda since the gay one was released.


I truly believe that if gym was only implemented today, the same people would be willing to storm the school and hang the gym teachers. The idea that a child is forced to perform physical activity a sport that they may not like, for an entire block? And if they don't like it, or don't bring their gym clothes, they are forced to sit out? Oh wow, if eating a vegetable is terrible, imagine that idea coming out today.

I agree. Also, this is public education. The parent is not a customer and the purpose of the school is not to serve the individual family's needs, it is to serve the province's needs. If it has been determined that it's better for kids to have healthy snacks, which seems obvious, then the school should go ahead and do that in the interest of producing a healthier, more productive future citizen.