Vending Machines in Schools: The Top 5 Dangers on Campus

Vending Machines in Schools: The Top 5 Dangers on Campus
Vending machines are unsustainable. They encourage food consumption in the absence of hunger. They encourage consumption of high calorie, low nutrient foods. Thus, they contribute to the growing problem of overweight/obesity and malnutrition. They are overpriced, and therefore a poor consumer choice. They use unnecessary packaging, and are therefore bad for the environment. Any way you look at it, vending machines are a poor choice for schools--including colleges and universities. Let's create better alternatives.

Isn't it Quaint? More Nostalgia for Home Economics

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/23/132230490/elegantly-old-school-nostalgia-books-on-the-rise
Isn't it sweet and old fashioned? In this book review on NPR's morning edition, I heard more nostalgia for what we are left to assume is the long dead field of Home Economics. And, of course, Martha Stewart was mentioned yet another time as the modern instantiation of Home Ec. What is most disconcerting to me is that our field has not become irrelevant, but invisible. If Home Economics is seen as old fashioned, Family and Consumer Sciences is not seen at all. As schools continue to make budget cuts, FCS programs remain vulnerable. No one can support programs that they apparently do not know about. Family and Consumer Scientists: let's stop rebranding and start advocating. Strongly.

A thoughtless practice with short-term benefits and long-term pitfalls!

http://www.superkidsnutrition.com/nutrition_answers/pr_candy-as-reward.php

For those of you who believe, as I do, that there are much better ways to reward children for good behavior, please share the more positive incentives you've used. Remember: rewards can be either intrinsic or extrinsic.

Sugar-sweetened drink’s diabetes link ‘clear and consistent’: Meta-analysis

This is a major problem I see with school lunches and preschools: sugar sweetened beverages (including flavored milk--at least make it less available) and foods containing hydrogenated oils should not be served to children. Just because they don't keel over in front of us doesn't mean we're not doing them harm.

Sugar-sweetened drink’s diabetes link ‘clear and consistent’: Meta-analysis: "Regular consumption of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a clear and consistently greater risk of metabolic syndrome and type-2 diabetes, according to a meta-analysis of 11 published studies."

Promoting the profession

"Home Economics has made a large place for itself in our public school system, the people's college. School boards need no longer be bribed with hot biscuits and well broiled steaks served by the children to show how "practical" Home Economics is." -1911 Isabel Bevier