Showing posts with label fight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fight. Show all posts

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Students fight back over healthy lunches

Two baked fish nuggets, a cup of vegetables, half a cup of mashed potatoes, one whole grain roll and 8 ounces of fat free milk. That's the fuel that American high school students are federally mandated to receive in their school lunches this year as healthier food regulations take effect.

But for a grumbling crowd of students, those 750 to 850 calories aren't cutting it.

"We hear them complaining around 1:30 or 2:00 that they are already hungry," said Linda O'Connor, a high school English teacher at Wallace County High School in Sharon Springs, Kansas. "It's all the students, literally all the students... you can set your watch to it."

O'Connor teamed up with her hungry students and fellow teacher Brenda Kirkham to create a ballad to the growling stomachs that are now pestering her classroom. The YouTube song and dance video "We Are Hungry," set to the tune of Fun's "We Are Young," now has more than 108,000 hits.

"Give me some seconds, I, I need to get some food today," 16-year-old Wallace County High School football player Callahan Grund sings in the video. "My friends are at the corner store getting junk so they don't waste away."

Across the state at St. Mark's Charter School in Colwich, Kansas, middle school students are protesting the new regulations, which limit their calories to between 600 and 700 per meal, by bringing their lunches from home.

St. Mark's Principal Craig Idacavage said more than half of his 330-student school are opting for sack lunches because "they feel they are not able to get full" on the school offerings.

"I think they have a valid point and you can only hope that people will listen to them," Idacavage said.

The new school lunch regulations, which first lady Michelle Obama championed and a Democrat-led Congress passed in 2010, set a maximum calorie limit for high school lunches at between 750 and 850 calories. Under the old rules, cafeterias served a minimum of 825 calories per lunch.

Elementary students' lunches pack between 550 and 650 calories as opposed to the 633 calories allotted under the old rules.

For Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, that "scant diet" is a "rude awakening" for schoolchildren across the country. King and Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas, introduced the "No Kids Hungry Act" this month to repeal the new lunch menu standards and prohibit the calorie limits.

"Kids are of varying sizes, activity levels and metabolism rates," King wrote in a Des Moines Register op-ed. "How can we expect each child to flourish and grow on subsistence diets? This all because some are overweight."

But while students complain of growling stomachs, the new nutritional requirements should actually be making them feel fuller, said Kristi King, a registered pediatric dietician at Texas Children's Hospital and a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

The new rules double the amount of fruit and vegetables that are served and mandate that half of all bread products are whole grain. All three of those food types are chock full of fiber, which takes longer to digest, King said.

"It should be making kids fuller if they are actually consuming the whole product," King said. "If children are not picking the entire meal available to them they are obviously going to be hungry."

In Jackson, Miss., the state with the highest obesity rate, school cafeterias have been easing kids into the healthy food regulations.

Mary Hill, the executive director of food services at Jackson Public School District said her school district has been phasing in more fruit and vegetable options over the past few years to prepare for the regulations and while the new rules are an "adjustment" for the students, she said she has not heard any complaints.

"To me, if you hear that grumbling it's that typical grumbling with children," Hill said. "You know children will be children."


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Thursday, 31 May 2012

City looks to ban large, sugary drinks in obesity fight

AP  Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK -- If Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way, New York City could have the toughest anti-soda laws in the country. Big, sugary drinks would be illegal.

The proposed first-in-the-nation ban would impose a 16-ounce limit on the size of sweetened drinks sold at restaurants, movie theaters, sports venues and street carts. It would apply to bottled drinks as well as fountain sodas.

The ban, which could take effect as soon as March, would not apply to diet sodas, fruit juices, dairy-based drinks or alcoholic beverages. Nor would it include drinks sold in grocery or convenience stores. Food establishments that don't downsize would face fines of $200.

Bloomberg said Wednesday that he "thinks it's what the public wants the mayor to do."

A spokesman for the New York City Beverage Association, Stefan Friedman, criticized the proposal as "zealous." He said officials should seek solutions that are actually going to curb obesity.

"There they go again," the Association said in a statement. "The New York City Health Department's unhealthy obsession with attacking soft drinks is again pushing them over the top. The city is not going to address the obesity issue by attacking soda, because soda is not driving the obesity rates."

The proposal requires the approval of the city's Board of Health, which is considered likely because its members are all appointed by Bloomberg.

Under the three-term mayor, the city has campaigned aggressively against obesity, including outlawing trans-fats in restaurant food and forcing chain restaurants to post calorie counts on menus.

The Bloomberg administration has tried other ways to make soda consumption less appealing. The mayor supported a state tax on sodas, but the measure died in Albany, and he tried to restrict the use of food stamps to buy sodas, an idea federal regulars rejected.

City Hall's latest proposal does not require outside approval, although public hearings will be held.

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new york city, obesity, michael bloomberg, new york news

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Friday, 23 December 2011

Academy: Labor fight shouldn't derail Oscar trophy

AP  Eyewitness NewsLOS ANGELES -- A labor dispute at a Chicago manufacturing company could mean there are no new Oscar trophies at next year's Academy Awards. But the academy says it has enough trophies for the show to go on.

Workers and management at R.S. Owens & Company are fighting over a proposed wage freeze and benefit cuts. Chicago television station WMAQ reported that union leaders say they want to avoid a work stoppage.

R.S. Owens makes the 13 1/2-inch golden statuettes handed out at the Oscars. It also produces awards for the Emmys and MTV Music Awards.

A spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences told The Associated Press that the academy has a "closet full of Oscars" ready to go.

The Oscar show is scheduled for Feb. 26.

(Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) Get more Entertainment »


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Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Caught on tape: Aging football players get in fight

See it on TV? Check here.  Web produced by Jennifer Matarese, Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK (WABC) -- A couple of aging football players proved that you're never too old to hold a grudge.

The Canadian Football League was honoring former stars Joe Kapp and Angelo Mosca.

The men, both 73 years old, appeared to tease each other when they first saw each other, but then one man started swinging his cane.

That's when punches were thrown and chaos ensued.

The grudge was over a hard hit during a game 48 years ago.

(Copyright ©2011 WABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
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