Monday, September 7, 2009
Restaurants It's Labor Day. What's your kid eating?
Posted by Cliff Bostock @cliffbostock on Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 6:24 PM
Happy Labor Day, something of an anachronism, considering how little influence organized labor has in our society today (although union membership has been increasing slightly, but mainly among government workers, in the last few years). Still, it's worth remembering that Social Security, the minimum wage and the 40-hour work week were all in large part the result of union organizing. And organized labor has been advocating national health care for decades.
Appropriately, Slow Food USA has organized "eat-ins" all over the US, including Atlanta, today in order to call attention to the forthcoming debate over the Child Nutrition Act, which is up for renewal. It may be too late for you to get to an eat-in, but it's not to late to get involved in other ways. Slow Food has created a "Time for Lunch Platform" that outlines changes that would significantly improve the Child Nutrition Act and school lunches.
Children remain the most oppressed members of our society. They have very few autonomous rights and the child welfare system generally fails to protect them. They eat what they're given to eat. Poor childhood nutrition plays a significant role in developing unhealthy lifetime eating habits. It's no coincidence that the obesity rate is skyrocketing in a country that puts vending machines full of crap in its school lunchrooms. Some years ago, the French -- alarmed by their children's consumption of fast food -- initiated mandatory classes in developing taste. (I'm not sure of the status of these classes today.) I don't think we'll see that occurring here.
The summer before my senior year in high school, I was a volunteer in Atlanta's first Head Start program. I was assigned to a public school downtown on English Avenue. Arguably the Great Society's most successful program, Head Start endeavored to help kids from poor families get ready for their first year of school. And part of that was a good breakfast and lunch.
I got to know the parents of many of these children and stayed in touch with several of the kids for more than a decade. I grew up in a world where the poor were considered irresponsible. I consider myself very lucky to have seen the fiction of that belief so early on. Most of the parents I met were hard-working, underpaid people, who struggled to put food on the table. Yes, a life of continual insufficiency exacted a toll on some of these families. and the children bore the brunt of their parents' despair and anger. But that was a minority.
It seems odd to me that we recognized our obligation to help meet the nutritional needs of poor children decades ago, but now find it acceptable to encourage horrific nutrition among all children. We can do much better.
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