All kids should not be on a diet.

You do not need to restrict calories. If you want healthy just give them good snacks. This is a real problem for athletes. Not only this, there are children in inner city schools that don't even get enough to eat. I have talked to two teachers that worry about the kids they taught because the children were not getting food at home. According to them sometimes school is the only place to get food. All people and children are different you should not make a sweeping decision on who can eat what. Vilsack said the Obama Administration is working with school districts to create snack programs and encouraging parents to pack extra food for their active students to munch on before football practice or band rehearsal. Alot of these families do not have the money to pack extra food. You say Romney is out of touch?

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/hun ... GQuW41lTg3

According to Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the solution to the growing grumbling over re-vamped school lunch menus boils down to a good old fashioned snack.

School lunch trays are a bit lighter this year after Congress-approved calorie limits on school lunches went into effect in August. The new regulations, which were championed by First Lady Michelle Obama as part of her "Let's Move" campaign to fight childhood obesity, have inspired protests and even a video parody from students who claim the reduced lunches are making them go hungry.

I am trying to understand this childhood obesity thing. If you look at the food from the 60's and 70's it is very fattening. Maybe kids are just eating more junk food and their parents aren't doing very well keeping them on a healthy diet.

Unintended consequences of the low cal school meals? Kids will just buy more junk food before school or after.

Welcome to the new "One size fits all States of America".

Its funny that a bureaucrat from the Federal USDA has to "recommend" something like packing a snack to take to school. LOL We can't possibly make even the tiniest decisions for daily life without an official recommendation from Uncle Sam to tell us what to do. LOL Where is our snack subsidy or snack tax credit?

I have seen my nephews eat who play sports. Amazing how many calories they can pack on, 4000 daily? And they are underweight.

No one was allowed to have snacks when I was in school. Neither were my kids. My son is diabetic and he had to go to the nurse's office (back when they had nurses in the schools) to eat his snacks. Talk about making him feel like some kind of outcast! Luckily, there were two other kids there with diabetes, one in 6th grade, so the older one had periodic meetings with the little ones.

If people followed a diabetic diet, they would be healthy.

It's not so much the calories, but the types of food and the amount of exercise one gets. We WANTED to be outside playing after being cooped up at school all day.

Exercise I think is the key. But I also think there is something to the HFCS. So many kids not allowed outside on their own, or choosing to play video games for hours.

You don't ever restrict calories on kids unless they are truly overweight. All people are different. Kids have wonderful metabolisms. Just give them healthy snacks, as much as they want and make sure they play at least an hour a day. You don't restrict FOOD!

LOL wrote: Welcome to the new "One size fits all States of America".

Its funny that a bureaucrat from the Federal USDA has to "recommend" something like packing a snack to take to school. LOL We can't possibly make even the tiniest decisions for daily life without an official recommendation from Uncle Sam to tell us what to do. LOL Where is our snack subsidy or snack tax credit?

Shouldn't that be the new "One Size Fits NONE States of America"? Just sayin . . . . .

LOL wrote: Welcome to the new "One size fits all States of America".

Its funny that a bureaucrat from the Federal USDA has to "recommend" something like packing a snack to take to school. LOL We can't possibly make even the tiniest decisions for daily life without an official recommendation from Uncle Sam to tell us what to do. LOL Where is our snack subsidy or snack tax credit?

This is not about a recommendation. I have no issue with that. it is a mandate.

CinnamonGirl wrote: You don't ever restrict calories on kids unless they are truly overweight. All people are different. Kids have wonderful metabolisms. Just give them healthy snacks, as much as they want and make sure they play at least an hour a day. You don't restrict FOOD!

Yep, one of the side effects of restricting calories is that the body slows down metabolism.