Last fall, Los Angeles took a hard line on school nutrition. In an attempt to mold better eating habits in kids, the Los Angeles Unified School District eliminated flavored milk, chicken nuggets and other longtime childhood favorites. But instead of making kids healthier, the changes sent students fleeing from school cafeterias. There have been reports of a thriving trade in black-market junk food, of pizzas delivered to side doors and of family-sized bags of chips being brought from home. Garbage cans are filling up with the more nutritious food, even if kids aren't.
The lesson? We cannot simply bully kids into eating healthful foods and take their lunch money.
As the federal government prepares to launch a similar, though less sweeping, effort to cleanse lunchrooms of troublesome foods, it's important to analyze what works — and what doesn't — in trying to get kids to eat more nutritious food.
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