This ran Monday as a letter to the editor of my local paper, The Valley News:
To the editor,
"Kids will eat healthy school food" declared an AP headline (November 27). Yes, unhealthy eating habits and the obesity epidemic can be remedied; as it turns out, our smart kids want to do the right thing — we just need to do right by them. It has therefore been profoundly disappointing to witness the Dresden School Boards' complete indifference with regards to the health of their students. For two years, a group of concerned parents working with school staff and students have tried to convince the board to consider a proposal to implement reasonable nutritional guidelines modeled on those already in place in school districts across the country, and supported both by good science and common sense. The guidelines would have replaced sugary sodas in the school's vending machines with healthier alternatives. But not only has the school board rejected the proposal, it has now outsourced the cafeteria to a for-profit entity, returned to selling deep fried junk food, and ours is apparently one of the few remaining schools to stock the shelves with soft drinks. Being in denial about nutrition shows an embarrassing lack of leadership, and our children really deserve better than this incompetent mismanagement of their health and wellbeing.
Sincerely,
That came on the heels of the letter I sent them back in July, which never ran.
