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[madoka]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_school_lunches_threat

School lunches have been called many things, but a group of retired military officers is giving them a new label: national security threat.

That's not a reference to the mystery meat served up in the cafeteria line either. The retired officers are saying that school lunches have helped make the nation's young people so fat that fewer of them can meet the military's physical fitness standards, and recruitment is in jeopardy.

A new report being released Tuesday says more than 9 million young adults, or 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too overweight to join the military. Now, the officers are advocating for passage of a wide-ranging nutrition bill that aims to make the nation's school lunches healthier.

The officers' group, Mission: Readiness, was appearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The military group acknowledges that other things keep young adults out of the armed services, such as a criminal record or the lack of a high school diploma. But weight problems that have worsened over the past 15 years are now the leading medical reason that recruits are rejected.

Although all branches of the military now meet or exceed recruitment goals, retired Navy Rear Adm. James Barnett Jr., a member of the officers group, says the obesity trend could affect that.

"When over a quarter of young adults are too fat to fight, we need to take notice," Barnett said. He noted that national security in the year 2030 is "absolutely dependent" on reversing child obesity rates.

Recruitment isn't the only problem posed by obesity. According to the report, the government spends tens of millions of dollars every year to train replacements for service members discharged because of weight problems.

This isn't the first time the military has gotten involved in the debate over school lunches. During World War II, military leaders had the opposite problem, reporting that many recruits were rejected because of stunted growth and inadequate nutrition. After the war, military leaders pushed Congress to establish the national school lunch program so children would grow up healthier.

The program was established in 1946, "as a measure of national security," according to the original bill language.

Today, the group is urging Congress to eliminate junk food and high-calorie beverages from schools, put more money into the school lunch program and develop new strategies that help children develop healthier habits.

The school lunch bill, currently awaiting a Senate vote, would establish healthier options for all foods in schools, including vending machine items. The legislation would spend $4.5 billion more over 10 years for nutrition programs.

The Army is already doing its part to catch the problem earlier, working with high schoolers and interested recruits to lose weight before they are eligible for service, says U.S. Army Recruiting Command's Mark Howell. He added that he had to lose 10 pounds himself before he joined the military.

"This is the future of our Army we are looking at when we talk about these 17- to 24-year-olds," Howell said. "The sad thing is a lot of them want to join but can't."

[VanIslander]

The conservative push to drop P.E. class in favour of the three 'R's results in a generation of Americans as physically fit as Korean youth. The lack of physical fitness among my students is astounding until I recall visiting back home where sports and muscular development is reserved for the weightlifting gym rats.

[pangaea]

Whether it is a national security issue or not, school lunches in America are atrocious. It's all cheap food dumped out of a can or fried meat nuggets that are frozen and reheated. French fries are considered a vegetable in many districts. Though I do have to confess I still have a fondness for school pizza school lunches definitely need to be improved. And there is no reason for soda machines to be inside a school.

[.38 Special]

Oddly, I agree with the military on this. Generally, when they say that their own people are a threat to the government (as obviously something separate from the people), I'm highly suspicious. But they're right about this.

We've allowed ourselves to become soft. In the event of grave military consequences (invasion, war with a powerful nation, cataclysm), the citizens called to duty would be physically inadequate.

(I would've joined the military out of high school if I wasn't in such bad shape... at that time stick-scrawny and a heavy smoker.)

While many people might consider dietary sabotage of a future draft a good thing, from a strategic stand-point it does cripple our ability to rapidly mobilize a massive () military force.

Besides, it's a quaint and patriotic-sounding excuse to get better grub in the K-12. Why not?

[Sergio Stefanuto]

It's tempting to blame the genuinely harrowing nature of school lunches on government ownership of the means of production in education. Inevitably, funds that could otherwise be spent on decent meals for children are spent on some other public work - probably a totally superfluous one, too, such as the inflated salaries for the ghastly and parasitic bureaucratical class. This prioritization between public work A and public work B must of necessity occur in a political system that has taken on far more responsibilities than is desirable, and some of these works' quality must also of necessity make most reasonable people hold their heads in despair. But having seen average to good quality school lunches in other countries, it's explanation probably lies in the appalling decline in cultural and moral standards in the US. This garbage isn't doled out by all governments because there are some cultures in the world that wouldn't tolerate it.

[chellovek]

[pkang0202]

I think Americans have been desensitized to obesity.

[Loza]

Go Jamie Oliver! Help the American kids get good school lunches! He's in the most obese town in America trying to change the way they eat and battling school lunch ladies!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7eaHytpJWQ&feature=related

http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution

Nice lines:
" How's ya pizza for breakfast?"
"Fries count as a veggie!"
" I thought there was only miserable bastards like that in England!"

[Hyeon Een]

When I was in elementary school we had no choices. You sat in a group at a table (with a teacher) and you were given three or four vegetables and some meat. You sat there until you ate it all. Packed lunches weren't allowed. I think there might have been one freak in the school with some imaginary food allergy who was allowed a packed lunch, but everyone else HAD to eat the school dinner. You were not allowed to leave the table and go to play time (recess) until you'd eaten all your food.

This forced everyone in the school, including kids who's parents couldn't or wouldn't cook proper meals at home, to eat healthily at least once a day.

By the time children left the school at 11 they were well used to eating healthy food.

I think if you can enforce healthy eating at a young age, when students go onto secondary education you can allow them some options and they'll sometimes make the healthy choice. There shouldn't be any nonsense such as french fries counting as a vegetable though.

Better control of the eating part of the process would help immensely. Watching the Jamie Oliver show it was quite sad to see trays and trays of food being thrown away. In my elementary school that never happened haha.

[HalfJapanese]

The title of this article, like many articles from the mainstream media, uses titles that are misleading and greatly abstracted from what the information is really about. This is done by design, because they know how we think and socially function, so they take advantage of that to create ridiculous article headings to catch our attention.

It is not just the school lunches. We have these huge corporations that control and supply most of the foods in the supermarket that contains tons of unhealthy options to choose from. Sometimes, what seems to be healthy really isn't. These corporations have also gotten into the school system to provide the same kinds of unhealthy foods that are sold at the supermarket. In addition, you see a bunch of these foods being marketed to children through the television, which turns them into agents that influence there parents to buy these products.

On top of that, instead of these corporations being responsible to lookout for the customers (because that wouldn't be profitable), they have allowed for other businesses to emerge that is targeted at those who are overweight and insecure about their appearance. These businesses sell services that makes the consumer dependent on their products, rather than help them learn how to be independent and in control of their weight and appearance.

So to sum things up, this leads to a huge demographic of the population who are overweight, unappealing, have low self esteem, are not confident, etc and the root cause for a lot of this is due to the unhealthy eating habits that the corporate society has taught them while providing the means to do so.

This article doesn't even discuss these facts/truths, but instead blames it on the schools and saids how the government will be their saviors. Typical problem, reaction, solution scheme, that further makes us dependent on the government, and increases their control over us.

While it seems like a good that the government is going to help, their is always a hidden agenda.

[Welsh Canadian]

What annoys me about Ottawa or Pubic Transport in general is the fat people taking up more than one seat. They should stand more to lose some pounds.

[Jeju Rocks]

The army should shoot all fat people.

[effyouseekay]

[The Happy Warrior]

It seems now even the military-industrial complex has turned their fire on school lunches. This should prove interesting.