Rolling back school lunch changes that Michelle Obama advocated so kids can eat more pizza and fries, and doing it on her birthday, is so on-brand for the MAGA hats in charge. Fuck them.
That said, by a simple twist of fate, I happen to know quite a bit about what schools purchase to feed children. While I agree that the programs Mrs. Obama advocated were a step in the right direction, schools can’t fix families, and the eating habits established in families accompany kids to school. School dietary departments are caught between the rock of what kids will eat, and the hard place of their genuine interest in feeding kids a healthy meal.
Luckily, the invisible hand of the free market stepped into the breach, as it so often does. Chicken nuggets were re-formulated to have whole grain breading, and new lines of whole grain frozen pizzas and other bread items became popular. Whole grain granola bars and other cereal bars, which are nutritionally a baby step from a candy bar, also were pretty widely purchased.
It struck me as the quintessentially American response to the realities of nutrition – pick a few slightly more healthy choices, market the shit out of those slightly more healthy products, and damn the calories. Type II diabetes at 20, here we come.
While you can’t force good food down kids’ throats, the focus on providing more fruits and vegetables probably put more good choices in front of kids, so the smarter ones who are going to buck their upbringing at least could pick out a healthy meal at school. Since those slightly rebellious kids were probably more likely to become Democrats, the program obviously had to be curtailed. Since Michelle Obama is a black woman, even more obviously, the program had to be curtailed on her birthday. QED in a red hat.
