U.S. school meals may be key to better child health

Not in a million years.

"Many American children are not eating enough fruit and vegetables and their diet lacks key nutrients, according to a report released on Wednesday that focuses on school food programs as a way to help prevent long-term health problems.

School kids in the United States are getting too many calories from solid fats found in foods such as pizza and hamburgers, and sugars from candy and soda, said the report by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academies.

'Most Americans, not just children, are not eating as balanced a diet as we want,' said Virginia Stallings, a professor at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and chair of the committee that conducted the review."

Yes, Virginia, there is an insanity clause and you are written into it.

This is simply more of the same stupidity that got us where we are and will keep us there.

Weight is all about Calories and the balance between intake and output.

Nothing more, nothing less.

You can cram all the "healthy" foods you want down a kid's piehole, but weight will not decrease unless, at the end of the day (or whatever your time frame is), fewer Calories were consumed than burned.

Which brings us to the real culprits - parents - those child-abusing adults who have no concept or desire to do what is right for their kids.

And the others who are complicit child abuse, like, I'll wager, Virginia is for not reporting these unfortunate children to the authorities - a duty mandated by law.

No school in the universe will have a single kid succeed at weight loss by feeding him or her "healthy" foods, if the kid, in total, eats too many Calories relative to those burned outside of school.

This is weight control failure 101 and we are watching the train wreck.