How did it come to be that we all lost common sense about food? I say “we,” because I too have fallen down the rabbit hole, confused about how I should eat to build muscle, lose fat, improve memory, stay healthy, etc. I am of the generation that has grown up with the Dairy Industry, Meat Industry, Pharmaceutical Industry, Diet Industry, Candy Industry, and every other “industry” marketing to us from cradle to grave. Our children have learned to sing advertising jingles for processed food before they even enter school.
Schools fail to reverse that programming or minimize the confusion. In fact, they compound it. The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is responsible for the policies behind the food that is allowed on school campuses. At its inception, the USDA had the dual responsibility of protecting the interests of citizens and farmers. But today there are fewer small family farms, as they have been gradually and almost completely taken over by factory farms (the Farming Industry).
USDA’s Competing Interests: Health of Citizens vs. Protection of Factory Farming
The Farming Industry is no longer about the land and the food grown on it. Most of the grain grown in the U.S. is not for human consumption, but for livestock. Our hard-earned tax dollars go to farm subsidies that are no longer justified. The backbone of our nation’s food supply used to be small family farms, which occasionally needed help to get through a rough season or bad weather year. Now our food is driven by corporate profit and farm subsidies are used to keep prices artificially low by paying factories to over-produce meat and dairy at all times. The Farming Industry is backed by large chemical companies who have changed the face of farming and make a profit through pesticides and genetically modified crops. And get this…the foods that promote health, fruits and vegetables, receive zero subsidies. To sum up: foods made cheap by our tax subsidies are being eaten en mass and causing disease (while providing great profit for factory farming), while foods that bolster our health are kept expensive and out of the hands of many who truly need it.
In the name of “keeping us healthy,” the USDA is tasked with creating Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The guidelines are reviewed every five years and have been criticized as not accurately representing scientific information about optimal nutrition, and as being overly influenced by dairy and agricultural industries. School curricula are developed based on these guidelines, with many still reflecting the views of guidelines that were thrown out ten years ago. The Dairy Industry (National Dairy Council) has had a strong hand through lobby and still retains their own “spot” on the current revision of the guidelines (2010), despite the fact that milk is simply another source of protein and has been tied to health and digestive issues in many people. There remain concerns with the present guidelines that will hopefully be dealt with during the next review in 2015.
2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans:
The mass advertising of unhealthy food and confusing health messages, industrialization of farming and creation of Frankenstein-like foods has all happened in my generation. Isn’t it interesting to note that in that same time period rates of ADHD, obesity, diabetes, cancers, heart disease, numerous autoimmune diseases, and metabolic syndrome have also skyrocketed? It’s not a coincidence. The fox has been not only allowed “in” the hen house. The fox lives in the hen house now.
A Foundation Constructed of Quick Sand
Studies have shown that how we eat in our childhood sets the foundation for our adult and lifetime health. Some diseases, previously only seen in adulthood, are becoming more prevalent in childhood (e.g. obesity and Type 2 diabetes). Other diseases can take decades to develop, but we are now seeing them in 20- and 30-year-olds instead of 50- and 60-year-olds (e.g. cancers, metabolic syndrome, hypertension and even heart disease). In fact, this is the first generation of children that are not expected to outlive their parents.
My youngest child, since birth, has had many digestive issues, was always bloated, puffy and gassy. Of the three children, he caught the most colds and stayed sicker longer. During middle school he came down with a cold or flu, like many children do. His fever quickly advanced to 103 degrees and I got him to a doctor (since it was a Friday preceding a 3-day weekend). Because most doctors dismiss a fever that has only been around for 24-36 hours, he was sent home with no treatment. On Sunday the fever and symptoms had not subsided and I was truly concerned. I took him to an urgent care center where they immediately ordered an x-ray. He was diagnosed with an aggressive case of pneumonia, “one of the worst they had ever seen in a child that walked themselves in to the clinic.” His immune system had been severely compromised.
At the age of 13, conscientious of his new acne-covered face and long-time bloated belly, my son asked if going gluten- and dairy-free might make a difference. Despite not accepting the milk offered at lunch, my son was still offered and still regularly consumed other forms of dairy. My response, “It certainly couldn’t make it worse.” Together we embarked on an elimination diet that confirmed his sensitivities to both gluten and dairy. He immediately lost weight and almost all digestive issues. He also strengthened his immune system, is now rarely affected by flus and/or colds suffered by his peers and his seasonal allergies have improved greatly. Occasionally sugar intake fuels more acne. But alas, as a teen, he is not completely free from the culture in which he lives. Sugar, sugar everywhere!
Struggling to Protect Your Child’s Health at School
All of my children attended public schools and I had to fight to try to protect their health and nutrition. Each of my children showed dairy sensitivities from their first exposure. Not a true anaphylactic allergy, but a sensitivity nonetheless, increasing mucous production, ear infections, etc. Doctors said they would grow out of it. Clearly, they did not. The National Dairy Council underwrites portions of the school breakfast and school lunch programs in public schools. Did you know that students are not offered anything to drink at lunch besides milk unless they have a documented allergy? The Dairy Council also creates and offers, free of charge, “health” curriculum to schools.
It was the quest and difficulties of my youngest son attempting to maintain his newfound healthy lifestyle while attending public schools that became the inspiration of a book that we are writing together. We hope that information in the book will touch a core for you, save you from going through what we have had to go through, encourage you to educate your own children about nutrition, and provide a blue print for how to help change the current system so that more kids can thrive.
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