Ponderings

Compromise is killing our children.

Compromise in the school cafeteria has become seriously dangerous according to my thirteen year old. A good eater who actually likes fresh vegetables, he has always had difficulty eating school lunch. With two working parents, though, he has had his share of school food. He regales us with the details of fried tacos and the inevitable 4th hour queasy stomach.

The National School Lunch Program is the unseen player (and funding source) in the school cafeteria. Launched in the shadow of WWII, it began with laudable goals. Assuming the program to be a product of post-war largesse, I was stunned to discover the roots of the program coming from the Pentagon. It turns out that nearly 20% of the draftees were rejected for physical limitation, half estimated to be a product of malnutrition. Major General Lewis Hershey was a key congressional witness in the effort to create the National School Lunch Program. In exchange for what has become a mountain of paperwork, local school districts receive modest funds to provide daily lunches for the children.

Admittedly social liberals like myself believe in school lunches. Believing in the value of an ounce of prevention, we point out that money invested in health, education, and feeding is money that won’t later be spent on disability and prisons. Though it is my trust in the witness of Jesus that moves my compassion, the imperative to care for the vulnerable is not Christocentric and indeed is found across religious and ethical traditions. Sharing this commitment, I applaud the city schools that have adopted not only lunch and breakfast meal programs, but are now expanding to offer after school programming and supper. In theory, the most vulnerable of children will now be presented with full nutritional meals three times a day. In theory, this is a huge step forward in the alleviation of childhood hunger in this country. But the theory isn’t the reality. On the road to implementation, the theory needs to be funded and this is where the compromise begins.

We should have known we were in trouble when then President Reagan declared ketchup to be a vegetable in 1981. To be fair, he wasn’t suggesting that ketchup is a vegetable, only that it could be counted as a vegetable when filling out the USDA paperwork. The advent of processed food options has added fuel to the smoldering fire. In my childhood we were faced with mashed potatoes sprinkled with mystery meat, now my children are presented with chicken nuggets and french fries. Their palates are happier than mine, but their arteries are clogging.

With the task of feeding two children for $5, creative ingenuity only goes so far. The staff costs alone to prepare and deliver the food easily add up to the allotted amount. Although some districts are engaging creative relationships with area farmers, efforts that deserve high praise, the reality is that the dollars available for food make it extremely difficult to provide lunches (and breakfasts and dinners) that are healthy. So we send our children to health class to learn about nutrition and obesity, then to the lunch room to demonstrate the alternative. Given that actions speak louder than words, junk food eaten trumps nutritional chart memorized.

My mother says that compromise means everyone loses. Clearly this is the case with school lunches. Unless, of course, the draft is reinstated. A lifetime of under-funded and over-processed school lunches will inevitably render many of our children ineligible for the draft. As a pacifist with a teenage son, maybe that’s a compromise I can accept.