School lunch program should be eliminated.

Holistic health "guru" Richard Haynes served some interesting food for thought to parents, schools officials, and business leaders a few weeks ago when he presented a four-hour workshop at the Common Good Marketplace in Enterprise.

Haynes, an instructor of a form of eastern mind and body medicine known as Ayurveda, suggested that members of western civilization would live healthier, happier, and longer lives if they would avail themselves of the "secrets" of this ancient practice.

One of these secrets revolves around the noontime meal, a tradition that has all but abandoned by our culture since the dawn of the post World War II industrial revolution that period in history in which society moved away from its agrarian roots and started working 8-5 jobs in the factories.

With this shift in culture the traditional noontime meal or "dinner" as it was referred to at the turn of the century gave way to the box "lunch." Instead of coming in from the fields to share the noontime meal with his family around the dinner table, Dad packed his lunch and took it with him to work.

On the surface this may seem like a trivial and relatively harmless change of lifestyle. But Haynes makes a convincing argument that this seemingly subtle change gave rise to all kinds of ills that now seem to baffle and frustrate educators, social workers, health care providers, and policy makers at all levels. These ills include eating disorders, sleeping disorders, heart disease, depression, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, spiritual and moral decay, and disintegration of the family... to name a few.

It is inevitable, according to Haynes, that families who feast together for a couple of hours during the middle of the day are physically, mentally and spiritually healthier than those who are so busy scurrying about that they seldom have time for more than a Big Mac and a Coke between meetings physically better because the middle of the day is when the body naturally craves food, and spiritually and emotionally better through the fellowship of one's family.

Citizens in many European countries would scoff at our concept of lunch and of life. The French, for example, take a couple of hours for lunch to savor their world renown cuisine. The Germans have no school lunch program; their youngsters go home at noontime to eat dinner with their families. Then again, schools in many European countries do not provide athletics programs, either. They send kids home after school.

Of course it would be heresy in this country to suggest that we do away with the National School Lunch Program and take TWO HOURS OFF in the middle of the day to go home and be with our families. We are too busy living to work to enjoy life and take responsibility for ourselves and our families.

Collectively, we are compelled to dump our kids on someone else so we can work longer to accomplish less and die earlier in the process.

At Enterprise, school officials recently sent out a letter asking parents to not drop their children off at school in the freezing cold at 7 a.m. (school starts at 8:10). That's how much some of us love our kids dump 'em, and let someone else clean up the mess. During sporting events, youngsters are always running around the school (or the streets) without chaperones because some of us are "too busy" to give a care let alone provide adult supervision.

At Joseph, school superintendent Cheryl Crawley talks about seventh graders who are in such a rush to get things done that they have developed ulcers!

Enterprise school superintendent Roger McGath says he, for one, could swallow a two-hour lunch period in which students were sent home for lunch with their families.

"We'd probably have a nice leisurely meal, and reduce some stress," he said.

The problem is most of us "can't" or won't take two hours off in the middle of the day to spend with our families, even though we know intuitively it would be good for us and good for society.

Nevertheless, we complain what a terrible job the schools are doing of educating our children ... while we fondle our nickels and dimes, bellyache about the high cost of education, and whine about crime, sex, drugs, and moral decay. "Isn't that terrible! Somebody should do something about that!" we proclaim.

Given the number of us who are exceedingly astute and all-knowing on issues related to education, taxation and the like, it is amazing how many of us hide in the weeds when it gets down to brass tacks and comes time to actually do some work. Where, for example, was everybody last Friday when it was time to file for a spot on the school board? Where were we when it was time to volunteer for a Parents Club committee assignment. No doubt we were "too busy" or "had better things to do" were "burned out" or "don't have any kids in school" and, besides, it wasn't our responsibility.

Under these circumstances anyone who stood up at a school board meeting and suggested that the hot lunch program be eliminated and that churches, families, civic organizations, and neighborhood groups fill in the gap, would likely be branded as hopelessly naive or foolish. After all, we are far to busy making a living to take care of ourselves, our families, and our community like that. - RS