It's unlikely to impress Jamie Oliver.Whatever ‘it’ is, I love it already…
Far from discouraging pupils from a junk food diet, a council is making it even easier to indulge – by spending £100,000 on a footpath from their school gate to McDonald’s.
Every lunchtime 200 pupils shun school meals to walk along the grass verge of a busy road to the burger bar.
A footpath, already being nicknamed the ‘McPath’, is being built to make the half-mile walk safer – and the school’s head and governors are supporting itHeh!
Naturally, vested interests clash like bighorn rams in the Rockies:
Yesterday, at the start of National Childhood Obesity Week, British Dietetic Association spokesman Melissa Little said the children would ‘benefit far more’ from staying in school to eat balanced meals.A statement which cuts no ice with the H&S brigade:
…council spokesman Barbara Parish said road safety was ‘far more important than risking more pupils eating fast food’.
She said: ‘They are taking risks walking along that road and they will carry on doing it. For me, the safety of the children is more important than the possibility that more children are going to use the route.
‘We are not encouraging them to go to McDonald’s, as they are going anyway.Wow! That has to be the first time ever…
Maybe one or two more might go because of this, but the good of the majority has got to come first. ’
The children in Bridgend were unsurprisingly in favour of the footpath. One said: ‘It’s really dangerous, they should at least put some railings there. Let’s face it, school dinners are rubbish.’ A parent added: ‘As long as they eat healthily at home it’s fine.’A welcome return to sanity? We’ll see…
There’s still the matter of the taxpayer's £100,000 for the footpath, of course. Perhaps leaving them to dodge traffic would have been the best thing all round? Survival of the fittest, and all that...
18 comments:
As tubby kids in high visibility jackets are easier to see, perhaps the school uniform should be fluorescent yellow tops, and the school badge featuring Ronald McDonald.
But joking aside, this will cause extreme angst among the righteous. Dear God, people making up their own mind what they want to eat... Where will this vile behaviour end?
In another Universe, hamburgers, chips, and beans would have appeared on the school dinner menu, if only to keep the kiddies from risking the traffic. But the Health Nazis are so powerful now that the sensible solution is unthinkable for the school. Better a few get ploughed down on the road than the many are tempted by an evil sausage sandwich.
At leasdt they're getting some exercise from the walk!
I have to say that I was behind the initial concept of "Proper school meals".
Alas idiot parents shoving McShiteburgers through the school fence for their little darlings because "Well the kids dote loike it" before they've even tried it was well, words fucking fail me.
I think selecting Jamie Oliver to figurehead the scheme was at best a little short sighted, as his well known twattery shone through by instead of keeping things basic meat and 2 veg, he had to start being a clever cunt by using ingredients like like fucking asparagus and radicchio then wonders why the kids wont touch it.
" McShiteburgers "
LOL except they aren't 'shite'. Infact McPaedo Clown's discards tons of meat daily that could be still legally sold as fresh in supermarkets.
Say what you like about MickeyD's but their meat quality is actually high...higher than, say, the average parental Spag Bol for sure.
Its a shame that they source it from British farmers ...so you get to pay for it twice.
If you want 'shite burgers' then you need to go to BurgerFling who have managed the genial marketing trick of successfully flogging badly cooked carbonised food...there is no such thing as 'flame grilled' the correct term is BURNT!
They get to walk at least a mile a day to get their lunch. That's good exercise! I used to eat three cooked meals a day including school dinner (often chips plus something) and I was thin as a lathe in those days (plenty of walking home and scool sports). As the parent said, they get a balanced diet at home. Sanity? Most certainly.
Surely the answer is to ban the kids from leaving the school premises at lunchtime. Keep them incarcerated inside while the dinner ladies hold them down and force Jamie-Oliver approved slurry down their gullets.
I have long wondered why I can't buy a meal I'd want in the town centre and who it is that eats from the vile takeaways I pass on the way home that should be shut down by health and safety gnomes. I guess what's happened is down to our meanness in not giving over enough money for all kids to eat at school free and at decent table. I'd bring the army in and let them cost it and provide a decent menu.
Am I the only person wondering when it became the norm for schools to allow children to leave the premisis during the school day?
Are these the same schools that put up bloody great fences to stop potential intruders getting into schools because they're all terrified the kids to come to harm? Why bother when the kids are just allowed to roam unsupervised at lunchtime instead?
When I was a kid in the 1960s we had a special school bus service to take kids home at lunchtime. I remember being very upset when it was withdrawn. Corralling kids on the premises is a modern invention.
I don't know about this. When I was at secondary school in the '70's, we weren't allowed off school premises during school hours. When did that stop?
Does anyone else think that £100K to lay a footpath is the real scandal?
Monty
The lisping mockney Oliver has more ears than brain cells ..
If he's not guaranteed to put kids off school dinners .. I don't know what is ..
I'm puzzled, too, about allowing kids to wander round the streets at lunch time. I went to school in the 1960s and 70s and we weren't allowed to leave the premises...not sure which is best, to be honest. I suppose it benefits local business.
"..perhaps the school uniform should be fluorescent yellow tops, and the school badge featuring Ronald McDonald."
:D
"At leasdt they're getting some exercise from the walk!"
And with schools banning sports days for being too competitive, and parents driving the little darlings everywhere, it's probably the only exercise they do get!
"I have to say that I was behind the initial concept of "Proper school meals". "
Unfortunately, the state wants to do that as cheaply and quickly as possible, so outsources it to the lowest bidder.
Hence inedible slop with no seasoning, since salt's a deadly poison now...
"Say what you like about MickeyD's but their meat quality is actually high..."
Agreed. You wouldn't want to eat nothing else for a month, but there's nothing wrong with the occasional burger.
Wimpy chips are nicer though.
"I'd bring the army in and let them cost it and provide a decent menu."
I suspect that'd still be more than they'd be willing to pay...
"Are these the same schools that put up bloody great fences to stop potential intruders getting into schools because they're all terrified the kids to come to harm? Why bother when the kids are just allowed to roam unsupervised at lunchtime instead?"
Good point, but I suspect they are only worried about access during their working hours.
Off the premises? Not my responsibility, innit?
"Does anyone else think that £100K to lay a footpath is the real scandal? "
Oh, anything the council provides is double, triple, quadruple the price in the real world. Those diversity co-ordinators won't pay for themselves, after all...
"..not sure which is best, to be honest. I suppose it benefits local business."
Good point.
Well, she is just covering her arse. If a kid gets run over by a car now, it involves her (Parish). But if one of the kids dies of heart disease when he is 60, it's someone else's problem by then.
As a youngster, I shunned the ghastly school meals entirely, bunked over the fence, nipped down the town and bought a delicious pie from the back of the local pub. The pub had to have an eye on quality to sell their products. The school dinner ladies really didn't.
And yes, in middle age I am still alive and apprently unharmed and wonder of wonders, not even obese.
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