SUMMERTIME: IT’S ENOUGH TO MAKE SOME KIDS LOSE THEIR LUNCH
BY MELISSA BOTEACH & SOPHIE MILAM
COMPTON BULLETIN
Most children jump for joy when the final bell rings on the last day of school. For them, summer means freedom. It means camp, vacation and popsicles. But summer also means hunger and stagnation for too many American children. Schools begin letting out over the next week, and many children are facing a summer of skipping meals or consuming the cheap but empty calories that contribute to the nation’s child obesity epidemic.
More than 31 million children benefit from the national school lunch program, with 62 percent receiving free or reduced-price meals. But only one in six of these kids will receive a similarly subsidized summer meal during the summer months. READ MORE
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Categories: Compton
Compton Bulletin, hunger, Redistricted! children, subsidized lunch
As a guy who joined Weight-Watchers, I can relate to this story. Certainly, getting enough food is NOT one of my, (nor I’d imagine) most American’s preoccupations.
Teachers have told me that the great-majority of the food offered students (in subsidized food programs) finds it’s way into the dumpster uneaten.
When I was young, I ate the same junk-food as contemporary children do. I stayed as skinny as a rail and I was not at all an athlete. I DON’T think TV nor computer viewing is a factor.
Rather, nowadays it is so scary outside (I’m certain you’ve heard about disembodied heads rolling around the parks of Long Beach like Soccer-balls) and parents are loathe to let their kids ride bikes to school, play in the street, etc.
Ironically, the bad-kids most likely to harm your children are in great-shape! As they thug their way in the neighborhoods and parks unfettered!
Joe Mack
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/rush-limbaugh-thinks-hungry-children-should
If you really want to get mad, go read that.
Many city parks offer a free lunch program for children during the summer – i.e. Long Beach and Signal Hill for example. There are options and they are publicized in newspapers and on banners for those in need.