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Counting Calories in the Cafeteria
When it comes to the bottom line, selling junk food is good for school cafeterias. Fries and chips not only have a high profit margin, but they also sell by the thousands. So how do you encourage healthy eating habits without giving up your best sources of revenue? North Carolina’s Wake County Public School System thinks it has an answer: give kids information, and leave it up to them to make good choices.
As part of a new pilot program, seven schools in the district are posting calorie counts next to lunch menus and vending machines so that students have the opportunity to make informed choices.
Information is always good. But, seriously, how many kids are going to pick salad over French fries or a slice of Pizza Hut pizza (both of which will remain on the menu)?
Calorie counts are making their way into fast-food restaurants and school cafeterias for the same reason: they keep profits high and public image positive. Health advocacy groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest applauded Yum! Brands for announcing in October that it would post calorie counts on menus in Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC and Long John Silver’s. The company got a lot of good publicity for being health-conscious without having to scrap any of its unhealthy menu offerings.
Cafeterias are taking the same approach. Many school meal programs depend on junk food sales to stay in the black. Removing the fries all together would slash revenues. But if they can keep the unhealthy choices and put the responsibility on the consumer, they can say they’re doing their part to encourage healthy habits.
But the kids who come through the lunch line are students, not real-world consumers. And schools are educational institutions, not businesses. Punting the responsibility for healthy eating to a middle-schooler is a cop out. It lets schools “address obesity” without making any meaningful changes and without truly instilling healthy eating habits in students. What’s more, the focus on calorie counts eclipses the importance of eating a nutritious, balanced meal — a topic I’ve already addressed in an earlier post.
Cafeteria directors and school officials argue that students have to learn how to make good choices because they’ll face those choices in the real world. Taking out the fries and candy bars would be sacrificing a learning opportunity. Ok, so should we sell cigarettes in high schools so that 18-year-olds can learn to exercise self-control and not buy them?
I doubt foodservice directors and school administrators would make that argument if junk food didn’t drive cafeteria sales. The sad reality is that school meal programs operate just like restaurants. And what’s good for students isn’t always what’s good for the bottom line.
May 30th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I’m with you: counting calories doesn’t necessarily mean healthy. In fact, just about every study ever done shows that reducing calories simply results in hunger. It’s more important to address the kinds of foods the kids are eating. And right now they’re being served a menu grossly overloaded with cheap carbohydrates, the kind that are not only dense with calories, but are not satiating. They just make the kids hungrier. In the after-school classes I teach, the kids learn to appreciate healthy proteins and fats as well as vegetables they may not have tried before. I find that in a group setting, where the kids are actively helping to prepare the food, they learn to distinguish between good foods and foods to avoid.