[Spivak]

It's always a treat when the exact problem I'm describing shows up in the replies. Yes feed them sugar. Children have a significantly heightened sweet tooth until adolescence where it slowly declines and they develop more complex tastes and a tolerance for "adult" flavors. When I bake for kids I have to make it cloyingly sweet to an adult palate and it gets snarfed down. And it's also why Funfetti cake doesn't hit like it did as a kid because your tastes have changed. Trying to impose adult standards on kids is native at best and futile in aggregate—you can only serve it, you can't make them eat it and they won't.

You understand how moronic it sounds to prepare and serve food that kids won't eat in the hopes that they eat less, right? Plus free lunch programs are to deal with malnourishment and to make sure kids get at least one full meal a day.

My elementary school, which was a private school and so wasn't beholden to any government meddling, followed this formula and it worked out great. Every meal was carbs, protein, and sugar, and everything was sweet. It wasn't an apple, it was fruit cocktail in syrup, the pizza had sweetened bread and sauce, vegetables were sweat peas, carrots, and corn. Every student was put on a rotation to clean trays so I got to see first hand what the waste situation was. And it wasn't zero but you didn't see a tray full of food minus pizza coming back.

[pqtyw]

> serve food that kids won't eat in the hopes that they eat less, right?

Not hope as such. Ideally they eat it eventually. If they are not allowed to eat unhealthy foods they won't have much of an option. Even the most obstinate ones will change their mind after spending a couple of days being hungry.

> followed this formula and it worked out great

And they didn't end up being overweight?

[Spivak]

This really does keep getting worse, first you were just wasting money for your ideals now you're suggesting we purposely let kids go hungry until they behave in the way you want. We're beyond they just don't happen to like what's being served but you're trying territory and into they're going to eat it and like it or they don't get lunch. Please don't ever run for your local school board.

And no we didn't all turn out overweight, it's been a minute but I think in my grade there were three "fat kids," two girls and one boy. I really don't understand why you take being overweight as the natural consequence of this. Kids crave sweets because it's calories and they're growing. In my early teens the size of my meals were on the order of two Chipotle burritos or the entire taco twelve pack and I was a perfectly normal weight. I mean I was a girl in high school so I didn't exactly think that back then but I was fine. It wasn't until I was post college and had depression that I put any kind of significant weight.