nosh nook #181 - monday, november 23, 2009

cupcake complaints aired to weymouth school committee member (link)
11.23.09 - weymouth news - by ed baker

since launching the nosh nook back in march, i've written about a ton of cases where folks are in a tizzy about their kids' nutrition, especially at school. i've featured so many stories about crusading moms & initiatives & legislation that sometimes i feel like the "won't somebody please think of the children" angle is the only story being told in the world of food. i'm not saying that it's not important that kids eat healthy, but it's starting to get old. i can only come across so many "five hip, healthy, after school snacks for teens" articles before i snap & start taking hostages. are there really moms out there who still haven't figured out that carrot sticks are better than doritos? if there are, do we really need to force it down their throats through legislation & initiatives & news story after news story? don't we have better things to discuss?

i'm not the only one who feels this way. according to the weymouth news, there's been a bit of a hubbub in weymouth recently about a wellness policy approved by the school committee. the policy, which "establishes nutrition and physical fitness objectives for students in all grades," urges teachers to limit the amount of times that kids bring cupcakes to school for their birthdays. eventually, parents complained about the cupcake-hating policy to school committee member karen berry. she found that interesting because as the weymouth news notes, she "rarely receives calls from parents about how budget cuts will impact their child’s education, but she gets plenty of calls concerning a misunderstanding about policy on birthday cupcakes in the classroom." you hear that, weymouthians? where are your priorities?

the policy was put in place back at the beginning of 2007, which was fairly early in the recent healthy kid craziness, so parents should be used to it by now. as it is, cupcakes aren't even banned by the policy. all the policy does is "suggest that teachers limit the number of birthday parties they hold in their class each month and encourage healthy food consumption by students." although she was part of the committee that initially put the wellness policy in place, karen berry wishes that "people would be as attentive to the budget challenges rather than an eight-year-old who would be crying because he or she could not bring a cupcake to a birthday party at school." that's some shoddy english right there, but you get what she's trying to say. they put the policy in place. now it's time to move on to something more important. let's stop wasting so much time on cupcakes.