The Purpose of a Snack Mandate

I’m fairly compliant by nature and although I might fuss a little over the inconvenience of having to follow particular rules, I’m all for law and order, and am grateful for those who help keep us accountable; at least most of the time. Upon occasion I run into situations where the rules just don’t make sense, and no matter how you flip it around in your head, the purpose seems lost. These are the enigmas that make up this series, Lost in Execution. We begin with The Purpose of a Snack Mandate.

Last week my little girl started back to preschool. It was an exciting day to see her heading into school after so many lazy days at home or with the sitter. She was ready for the challenge and a little community interaction. At the end of her first day, they were provided a snack, which is not uncommon. It was part of their routine last year and I had already requested sweets be limited. On this particular day the snack was Pop Tarts. Although I’m not an ogre, I am a dietitian and I prefer my little girl not eat a lot of extra junk that may interfere with her eating a good dinner at home. After politely explaining this to the teacher I asked if her snack could be sent home for her enjoy after dinner. The teacher replied that the snack was mandatory so she had to be offered a snack with the rest of the class. Now the idea of a mandatory snack isn’t really a problem with me, but when you start talking mandatory snacks, Pop Tarts aren’t the first thing that come to mind. In reality, the purpose of a snack mandate for preschoolers is to improve the nutritional status of children who may not have adequate foods available at home. With the exception of a select few children who are extremely deprived of food in general, a Pop Tart is unlikely to improve the nutritional status of any of them.

Of course Pop Tarts are not the only snack they’ll be serving, but based on my experience last year and the Pop Tart service on the first day, I feel I can safely conclude the majority of the snacks will include high sugar, high salt, refined flour and little protein. If a child is actually suffering from true hunger due to a lack of available food, they are most likely suffering from other nutritional deficiencies as well. So why do we reach into the bottom of the barrel and pull out the cheapest, lowest quality snack we can find to meet this need? The school breakfast is no better. The menu items are all high sugar with no real protein content unless the child drinks the milk and instead of serving real fruit, on most days juice is substituted. According to statistics, people of low socio-economic status have the highest rates of almost all chronic ailments, such as heart disease, diabetes and many types of cancer. Nutrition quality is felt to be a factor, yet those in a position to make a difference just slap a bandage on the problem and call it a day. No one truly knows the effect nutritional deficiencies have on these young minds or their long term development. Low income children deserve a better effort. In a school meal program, protein should be included with each meal, apart from the milk, which many children may not like or tolerate, and there should be more effort made to reduce the sugar content of these meals and snacks, and juices should be replaced with fruit. No one needs juice. It is a heavily processed fruit with many nutrients removed, and then fortified with vitamin C so we can call it healthy.

When we start talking about improving the nutritional status of children I believe we should not just be thinking of today, but of the future for these children. Along with nutritional deficiencies, childhood obesity continues to be a concern regardless of socio-economic status. Basic nutrition education should be incorporated as a part of the school meal program and it doesn’t take a full blown nutrition curriculum to teach healthy habits to young children. Taking advantage of the meal platform and encouraging young children to try healthy foods is easily educational with little preparation or effort, and the opportunities are there day after day, meal after meal. So if the mandate is to improve the nutritional status of children, but what we’re serving is of poor quality, and actually detrimental to the nutritional health of most all of the children, then the purpose of the mandate has been lost in execution.