“Thanks, Michelle Obama.” That’s the sarcastic message schoolkids are sending the first lady about the new, supposedly healthier school lunches she has been touting.
The federal government started rolling out the new lunch guidelines following passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. But the regulations have posed headaches for schools and stomachaches for many students. The rules place limits on calories, fat, sugar and sodium and mandated lunch price increases.
The response has not been encouraging. Students have been expressing their displeasure with the new menus through social media. They have sent messages via Twitter, for example, using hashtags such as ThanksMichelleObama and SchoolFoodProbs. A sampling of recent tweets includes posts such as “My stomach hurts,” “I feel like I’m gonna throw up. Half from anger and half from this food quality,” “How are three chicken strips suppose [sic] to fill up a 200 lb football player?” and, simply, “What is this?” Students have also posted pictures of curious- and pathetic-looking school lunches.
Even if we assume that the government is capable of determining what foods are healthiest and best for students of a wide variety of ages, genetics and personal preferences (a questionable assumption, at best), it is learning the hard way that you cannot force kids to eat the food placed in front of them. A January 2014 Government Accountability Office report revealed that student participation in the National School Lunch Program declined by 1.2 million students from school year 2010-11 to 2012-13. According to the GAO, “In our state survey, 48 states identified student acceptance as a challenge, and 33 states noted challenges with palatability — food that tasted good to students.”
The outcry from students and school administrators alike prompted House Republicans to insert a provision into the fiscal 2015 Agriculture Appropriations bill that would allow schools suffering losses in their food programs to apply for a waiver from the school lunch requirements.
That said, students’ early exposure to the government’s heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all solutions actually is a good thing. Perhaps this experience will instill in them a healthy skepticism of government mandates and solutions for society’s every real or perceived problem. Their resistance is encouraging. Today, school lunches; tomorrow, government health care. (Recall Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s argument in the Affordable Care Act case: If the government can force you to purchase health insurance, what is to stop it from forcing you to buy broccoli?)
And just as government edicts cannot force students to eat food that they don’t want, other government decrees cannot compel people to act as the central planners deem best — for our own good, of course. This spirit of freedom, individuality and, yes, defiance, is what makes America great. It may frustrate the self-anointed philosopher-kings in government offices, but it should be celebrated, not squashed by government dictates and force.
REPRINTED FROM THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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