Dr. Douglass--Junk Food?

Milk maligned, Cheetos cheered

As you know, I've been a vocal supporter of some school districts' efforts to remove junk foods from schools. Of course, many of the ways some of these school systems are going about this goal is all wrong...

Especially when their goal is clearly wealth instead of health.

Case in point: A couple of weeks ago, Illinois Governor Rod Blagoyevich called upon his state's legislature to enact a new ban on junk food in the Prairie State's public elementary and middle schools - under the auspices of raising the bar for kids' health. A worthy goal, right? Not so fast...

According to the Chicago Tribune and other sources, the proposal calls for the school board's definition of "junk food" to be revised. And under the new guidelines, cartons of whole white milk would be disallowed - but one-ounce bags of baked Cheetos, potato chips and other snack foods would be hunky-dory! This ridiculous transformation would be managed by re-writing the guidelines that the state school board uses to classify the relative healthfulness of foods. (Yes, I know the pasteurized, homogenized milk is a bilk but that's another story.)

By all outward appearances, the Governor of Illinois thinks that essential animal fats and vitamins from whole milk are more dangerous to kids' health than the chemicals, colorings, vegetable oils, trans-fats and soy by-products most of the vending machine fare he wants to allow are loaded with. Such snacks are banned by the school's current definition of "junk food," so enacting this new ban would take more or less rewriting the rules...

At first glance, you might simply thank the powers above that you don't have a pre-adolescent kid in Illinois public schools. You'd also conclude that Governor Blagoyevich is simply a well meaning, yet misguided buffoon in public office (an all-too-common phenomenon). But if you dig a little further into the story, you'd discover that it's all just a snow-job - the REAL AIM of this proposal is clearly to open the door to greater vending machine revenues in the state's high schools.

Under the Gov's new plan - which does not include high schools - more of the chips and crackers currently identified as junk foods will be exonerated from that classification and will be saleable in revenue-generating vending machines. THAT's why high schools are exempted, you see. Kids in grades 9-12 actually have jobs or substantial allowances that provide them with money to spend on vending machine food while in school...