TAP extended-family member Dana Goldstein was on BloggingHeads to answer the question of whether schools can really combat the childhood obesity problem. I'm with Dana, who argues that Michelle Obama's initiative doesn't go far enough and that schools could become a good resource for providing the kind of child care and food service lower-income communities need to solve many different, interrelated problems.
But I also think that even if schools don't have the power to solve the childhood obesity epidemic single-handedly -- which, of course, they don't -- they can certainly stop making it worse. Whatever cultural influences and economic concerns bear on food decisions families make, school lunches rely too much on how convenient they are to cook and how fast children can eat them.
-- Monica Potts
