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Fast Food Makes You Stupid

Great recent post by Jill Richardson in La Vida Locavore entitled Fast Food Makes You Stupid (Yet We Serve It In Our Schools). Here's an excerpt:

[A recent study found that] children scored between 58 and 181 points in the reading tests, gaining an average score of 141.5. But after taking other factors into account, pupils who ate fast food between four and six times a week scored almost seven points below average. Children snacking once a day fell 16 points, while pupils indulging three times a day dropped by 19 points. Similar trends were noted in maths. In total, children scored between 47 and 151 points in the test, with average results of 115. But those pupils eating fast food dropped by between 6.5 and 18.5 points.

Um, if fast food makes us both stupid AND fat, why is it that we serve it in our schools? Here's what else the article says:

Why do they do this? Budgetary pressures. Schools get some of their lunch money from Uncle Sam in the form of the National School Lunch Program. While the federal money covers the cost of lunches for children from low income families, it doesn't pay for all of the labor and facilities costs. To do that, schools rely on selling food to kids. And to do THAT, they have to sell foods the kids will actually buy. Often, that means brand name fast food.

So schools, reacting to the need to increase lunch revenue, are intentionally serving McDonald's burgers to kids. Otherwise, the schools would have to educate the kids on what to eat (which is, presumably, too hard, and takes too long).

I haven't been so outraged since I read Fast Food Nation, and In Defense of Food, and saw King Corn, and The Future of Food, and... Read the entire article at La Vida Locavore.

This entry was posted to Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday.