OUR SCHOOLS

So as many of you know, I am a full-time working mom. I have two little girls ages 5 and 2 and for most of my mom-years I have been dealing with daycare and not the public school system. When my 5 year old entered kindergarten for the first time this fall, I was excited. I was thrilled to have her in an educational environment where her brain would be challenged more so than a daycare ever could. I remember kindergarten. I loved it. I remember Mrs. Horvat, my teacher, she rocked. I soaked up everything that I was taught.

So it is natural for me to have the same expectations for my daughter even though I know we are two separate people. Starting kindergarten for my daughter was a very stressful time. She is a timid and anxiety ridden child, unsure about anything “new” in her life. Routine is her best friend, as it is for most kids.

When she entered school, met her teacher and began her first year, she did well. She did way better than Vans and I had expected. She was learning, making friends and becoming more independent. I had assumed our challenge would be her making friends, speaking up when she wanted or needed something and just overall acclimating to being with 25 other new kids she has never met. Never in my wildest dreams would I envision the struggles I’d face with food.

As I have said before, my daughter is a picky eater who loves sugar. I struggle at home to get her to make the right choices when it comes to consuming healthier food. Apparently I was naive to think that my daughter’s school would be on my side by encouraging these healthy choices.

You may remember this battle that I had with the PTA President back in October. Well trouble strikes again, this time in form of asking parents to submit General Mill’s Box Tops.

A few weeks ago, my daughter came home on a Friday with her homework folder and in the folder was a flyer from the school reminding parents to collect and submit Box Tops. I read the flyer, was immediately annoyed and tweeted this photo:

I understand the point of box tops (from the school’s side): each Box Top collected is equal to 10 cents, you bring in 10 box tops and you’ll have a dollar, a dollar from each kid … you get the point. Money! It always comes back to money. While I admit you can collect Box Tops on items like Ziploc baggies (although we try and use reusable in our house), most of the Box Tops come from General Mills sugar laden chemical filled cereals.

While it may appear that the school is “winning” by earning money, the real winner is General Mills. Not only do they get parents to buy their products thinking that they are going to be supporting their child’s school, the company essentially develops life long customers because the sugar in their product is addicting.

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I could go on and on about the Box Tops. My problem however was rewarding kids who clearly ate sugar to “win” with more sugar! Why does the prize have to be a donut party? Why couldn’t they provide the winning classes with jump ropes? You can find a jump rope for a dollar at most dollar-stores … why not promote exercise instead of more sugar?

In my obvious displeasure I tweeted the above photo to a lot of the people I look up to nutritionally on Twitter. One of whom is Registered Dietician Andy Bellatti. Andy not only retweeted my photo, but he also commented on it. He also contacted me privately asking if he could use my photo (a slightly altered one) as well as my name and issue with the school, in his next article. He has been wanting to write an article about Box Tops for some time for the website www.civileats.com.

I said sure, no problem. I didn’t want the school mentioned by name but he could use my name, my photo and my town (we have many elementary schools here). I was prepared for Civil Eats, I was not prepared for The Huffington Post. Last week sometime I was surfing twitter (I surf more than I tweet) and I came across a post by Andy linking to his article in the Huffington Post – you can see that article here. You can see it on Civil Eats here.

Wow. I know I only have a small mention in a sentence or two but since that initial tweet my following on Twitter has significantly increased. The way in which he wrote his article was also great. He did his research. He looked at the numbers. He got other well known experts to comment.

I just wanted to raise awareness in my daughter’s school. Whether anything will change because of this article, is unsure but it will open some eyes. It has definitely started a fire within me to try and create some change in my daughter’s school. I am battling her eating habits at home, I don’t need the school fighting against my efforts when they should be on my side. They should be on the side of the children and their health, not General Mills.

Happy Trails!

~Trailmomma