Junk is no good baby
September 19th, 2006There are so many ways to slice the story that on one hand schools outsourced catering suppliers are still trying to wriggle out of providing decent meals for schoolchildren and that on the other that children and parents are doing their utmost do gorge themselves on ‘junk’ food – as the ‘Rotherham sausage’ (Hattersly) demonstrates.
But basically it boils down to this, when schools act in loco parentis it means that the staff should be endeavouring to provide the child with the best form of pedagogy they can – as they would their own children. In regard of school meals the care of duty dictates the default meal should be nutrtious and balanced – and those of you who cook know this includes oily and fatty foods . If this means not being able to waste effort on fingerprint databases and generally treating the pupils as if they were criminals then so much the better.
Quite frankly if the people peddling the stuff that is being served to children go bankrupt then we will have all gained something, a removal of one of the loops that take (possibly) bright young minds and turn them into docile mush.
Which brings us to the children who go out of their way to sustain their bad diet – I’m inclined to say let nature/evolution take its course, however that assumes that the NHS isn’t going to assist any obesity problems later on in life. If the parents have failed in their role of dissuading/educating away the instilled desire for these non-food products then the school should be providing classes to do that which the parents should have done (giving knowledge about the food chain, food production, how to cook/assemble meals).
And this is important because study after study is showing that a good diet assists children in becoming brighter and healthier, which means they can become more self-sufficient/less dependent on the State and hence occupy a more powerful position when it comes to questioning the decisions of politicians and bureaucrats.