1. Well said. As usual, the politicians show their ignorance. Ignoring the very real fact that “crap food”is much cheaper than “healthy”food, and that they refused – more than once – to remove GST off fresh fruit and vegetables. They are many people out there who cannot afford decent food.
   They are many mums and dads out there working their butts off, trying to make ends meet, and provide for their kids the best they can, but, at the end of a long, hard day, who really feels like cooking up a decent meal? Not me, for one.
   So, convenience food takes over, with all of its additives and what-not.
   There is also the oft-over looked point that kids are not as active as they used to be. When we were kids, we played outside, making push-carts, building and flying kites, playing tag or bullrush with our mates. Nowadays, kids are much more likely to be inside, playing on their game consoles; only their fingers and thumbs getting any exercise. Before people start screaming that it’s all the parents fault”, do remember that mum and dad are out trying to make enough money to survive in a tough economic environment, leaving kids home unsupervised.
   Which brings us back to the politicians . . .

   • Yes, unfortunately, freerange childhoods are long gone. Neighbourhoods are just not like that any more.
     However, that school milk was absolutely disgusting in the days before refrigeration, and it sat out at the gate until the crates were brought in at playtime by the monitors.

2. Don’t forget Frank that ex National MP Katherine Rich appears to be creating food policy from afar for the National Party.

3. The sickly Nikki Kaye doesn’t have the elocution to telemarket. She does have that unusual look about her though, a mix of mange and meth dealer, which is perfectly suited to television infomercials (an uninteresting face the gullible are simultaneously repulsed by and identify with). No, in terms of true compassion and love and protection for our children, Jacinda and the Labour government is the only choice. Globally we see America using Venezuelan food aid as a political tool to beat starving people into even more submission, to turn the people against each other. Only the sickest, creepiest government imaginable would use the essentials of human life this way.

   • I hope Nikki Kaye reads Frank’s blogpost. It might give her something to think about.

4. A spot on analysis of a topic that is critical to the nations wellbeing.The National Govt scrapping of the healthy food rule must be one of the lousiest acts that National perpetrated in a litany of despiceable acts! Well done frank.

   • +1 Pete

     In the name of “free choice”, the Nats have permitted obesity in our children to increase. They could easily have kept the Healthy Food in Schools policy, it wouldn’t have cost us a cent. Instead, our kids are getting fatter on sugar and processed foods and the eventual cost to taxpayers will be astronomical when diabetes, heart disease and other other ailments hit us.

     This is the lousy outcome when ideology supercedes common sense.

   • One of the other lousiest policies, given Nationals cry wolf on a CGT, was the paper boy tax. So with measured comment I say fuck off Simon. Judging by the latest poll I think thousands of others are saying the same thing.

5. personal responsibility is for everyone else not the holy than thou ones (gnats)

6. Healthy food in schools…
   One of three meals a day for five days of the week.
   The one place where we can pry into lunch boxes and do a spot of ‘for your own good-ing’.

   And then they go home…

   Do ‘children living in poverty’ really sit at home with their fingers twitching over keyboards? Or do they go out and hang out? This is observable, surely?

   It’s always ‘Maori and Pasifika’ – yet they aren’t the only ones ‘living in poverty’ with working parents. They aren’t – and we know that.

   So what makes the purchase of soft drinks, processed foods, lollies etc a matter of status and pride in those communities? Other low income families also buy them. Why? They’re not thick, that’s for certain. Yet those items have some intrinsic value. Far more than fruit. Far more than sausages and potatoes and cabbage and other cheap tucker.

   Now – will it be crushed with the usual flock of pity stories and guilt tripping (colonialism and racist – you know the sort of thing)? Or will someone actually look at why families are buying those forms of cheap food and not others that are more healthful? And then develop ways to change the narrative – and make the new alternatives as attractive and affirmative as the old ones. First meet the ‘want’ – then meet the ‘need’.

   Bad teeth in little kids? No toothbrushes or even tooth twigs. Bottles being used a long time after weaning and they’re filled with fruit juice! because it’s been touted as ‘healthy’. Or good old Raro. Sippy bottles – the curse of juvenile teeth.

   Little fat kids? Sign of good health and good mothering. They’re ‘doing well’. Good eaters and not too picky. Who needs fuss at meal times? An ancient mothering story. If you don’t change that you can’t change the consequences.

   It just ain’t as simple as a wholesome, ‘proper’ meal a day, five days a week…

   • ” I t just ain’t as simple as a wholesome, ‘proper’ meal a day, five days a week…”

     Easy to say when you have a full tummy Andrea and know where/ when your next meal is coming from.

     Let them eat cake huh?

     Better at least a few healthy regular meals, 5 days a week, than nothing

7. So we have become an unfit nation? Perhaps because Nazional only built motorways and highways, instead of investing in public transport and bikeways? That kids need to be dropped to school because the footpath is too dangerous to walk upon, as everybody else is dropping their kids at school? Sport is OK, but we don’t need to encourage competition, as it can rear its ugly head in the Hoskings of this world if not gently massaged. And is there really a shortage of sporting infrastructure? Sure we could get rid of the irresponsible golf courses that serve zero purpose, but in my neighbourhood in the mid west there are more ball parks than people that could occupy them. With public transport a small amount of walking is always required, and this may be enough to encourage other physical endeavours. And if schools cannot be responsible (as the nazional party has previously claimed that parents should control sugar intake hahahahahaha), then the government should surely step in to guide the menu? And where is the damn sugar tax? Howabout a hefty golf course tax, to cover the cost of people with nothing to do and the carbon impact of tree less, house less swathes of golf course?

8. Nikki Kaye is the next leader of the National Party and she has been pitched as such for a long time although the left have had no idea. She’s always been seen to be in the running and you will see over the next month or so that it is her time.

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