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What is “lunch shaming?” It happens when a child can’t pay a school lunch bill.
In Alabama, a child short on funds was stamped on the arm with “I Need Lunch Money.” In some schools, children are forced to clean cafeteria tables in front of their peers to pay the debt. Other schools require cafeteria workers to take a child’s hot food and throw it in the trash if he doesn’t have the money to pay for it.
In what its supporters say is the first such legislation in the country, New Mexico has outlawed shaming children whose parents are behind on school lunch payments.
Source: The New York Times
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New Mexico Outlaws School ‘Lunch Shaming’
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift.
-- Shelley
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday April 09 2017, @07:25PM (14 children)
"Public schools should feed kids, too"
Let me rephrase that for you.
"The government should not only regulate what your kids learn, but also what they eat."
Why should we stop there?
(Score: 4, Informative) by looorg on Sunday April 09 2017, @07:43PM (11 children)
Your government already does that. You have a Food and Drug administration. They already issue guidelines and recommendations on what to eat and how much for all ages, including children.
In this exact case it would probably be in your best long term interest, if they are going to be in school all day they have to eat. Either you pay for it with taxes or you send bills to their parents. But to take it out on the children just seems beyond stupid. How come you give free meals to prisoners but not to pupils? If anything you should reverse that so you give free food to children and the people in prison could pay for their meal out of the $0.x dollars they make per hour. But on some level you feed them to pacify them so they won't riot. You should do the same with the children - feed them so they can learn.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Sunday April 09 2017, @08:48PM (10 children)
Yes, and they're doing a bang-up job [soylentnews.org].
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday April 09 2017, @08:57PM (9 children)
Clearly people don't follow the guidelines. Perhaps they need more education in School on proper nutrition, less PBJ-sandwiches and more veggies?
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:03PM (8 children)
What good are the guidelines when the same government that provides them allows you to buy Pepsi and potato chips w/ your EBT card?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:17PM (5 children)
then please curtail the lobbyests that keep demanding that this is allowed to happen.
nothing it not untouched by the taint of marketing and corporate forces. if there is a feed trough, the *pigs* will be there. but its not food, it's money.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:22PM (4 children)
Are you suggesting the government can't even follow their own advice? If what you've said is true, then why aren't Pepsi and potato chips part of the FDA's recommendations in the 1st place?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:31PM (3 children)
If what you've said is true, then why aren't Pepsi and potato chips part of the FDA's recommendations in the 1st place?
Stupid geek logic:
Everything in life is either 100% or 0%.
There is no in between.
And it never ever happens that something can be more than one thing at a time.
Oh yeah, systemic effects don't exist either. If its not explicit, it doesn't exist.
Stupid Food Justice Warriors!
(Score: 1, Redundant) by fliptop on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:52PM (2 children)
Stupid government logic:
Here's what you should be eating.
Here's some free money to buy food.
When we give you this free money we don't care whether you're following our recommendations.
That's it for me AC's, either post w/ your nic or piss off. Because I'm done feeding you.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @01:31AM (1 child)
That's it for me AC's, either post w/ your nic or piss off. Because I'm done feeding you.
Feeding us what?
Lines to make fun of you with?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @01:53AM
I think he may have flipped his top! Left to the tender mercies of the ACs! Can you imagine a worse fate? Almost as bad as being shamed for not having lunch money when you are just a child.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:28PM
What good are the guidelines when the same government that provides them allows you to buy Pepsi and potato chips w/ your EBT card?
It is a bullshit myth that SNAP recipients spend significantly more of their budget on soda and junk food than other families.
The difference is less than 5% [usda.gov] of their total spend (including cash combined with SNAP funds) and that does not account for the fact that non-SNAP households spend more in total on food, so a single $2 honeycrisp apple 'counts' as much as five 40-cent fuji apples, despite being 80% less actual food.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @06:23PM
There's nothing wrong with an EBT card buying Pepsi and chips for a kids birthday party. The problem is when people only eat Pepsi and chips. And, well, free choice and all...
(Score: 5, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday April 09 2017, @08:31PM (1 child)
"The government should not only regulate what your kids learn, but also what they eat."
Why should we stop there?
Why should we not stop there? Well, mostly because it so obviously failed in your case! Did you not learn civic virtue, morality, and common humanity when you were a child? If your parents, (if you had any), failed at this, yes schools should step in. And despite the First Lady of the United States efforts, most school lunch programs are not so much about controlling what kids eat as the are about enabling kids to eat at all.
And you obviously did not learn how American education is controlled! Schools are some of the most local government there is, controlled by local elected school boards, funded by property tax levees that the citizens impose upon themselves for the betterment of their own community. What kind of educational fail libertaritard are you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @09:21PM
yeah I was wondering -- where does this guy end up thinking the kids are being forced to eat government brainwash food?
christ, he can pack the lunch himself if he cares about what his kids eat, and then go whine that he refuses to participate in the scheme and hand selects the food for his children.
its what my mom used to do, she even bought groceries on a weekly basis! my school didn't even have lunches provided, this whole arguement is totally alien to me that everyone gets a lunch.
she made my lunch for school for 12 years -- and when i got home from kindergarten after school ended. i dont remember her complaining that poor city children got lunch for free while she HAD to make one for me.
there were kids that had prepackaged sandwiches because their rich parents couldn't be bothered, but that was few and far between.