“The nation’s largest beverage distributors have agreed to halt nearly all sales of sodas to public schools — a step that will remove the sugary, caloric drinks from vending machines and cafeterias around the country.”

Huh? They have soda machines in schools? This blows me away! When I was in junior high school and high school, there were cafeterias. In junior high school they separated those who bought lunch from those who brought their own lunch. I never bought lunch but did see other who did, and all they had available was milk. It was in those little half-pint containers and cost a nickle each. They didn’t have coffee flavored or chocolate flavored milk. There were no vending machines. The school lunches were pretty disgusting if you ask me! I remember lots of fat and carbs and salty foods and my mother would not allow me to buy lunch at school.

When I got to high school, we could sit with those who bought lunch, but there were no vending machines. Again, you could buy milk and that was it. They didn’t sell bottled water, either.

I read about these kids who buy soft drinks and candy bars during class breaks, or during lunch. They showed a television special with the kids buying french fries and cookies for lunch. Fries? What the hell do they feed these kids these days??!! They had nothing like that, it was full lunch or nothing, period. They didn’t sell bags of chips out of a machine or anywhere else, either.

Lunches were spaghetti with cubes of cheese and lots of bread (a carb lovers delight!), meatloaf and potatoes and salty gravy, bologna sandwiches with butter (ick!), frozen pizza, etc. Today you read school lunch menus and they have special veggies, special fruits, all veggie meals, etc.

What’s funny is I don’t think those sugary sodas AT SCHOOL are causing obesity at all. It’s the stuff they eat outside of school, and the fact most kids are on the computer 5 hours a day or playing video games. In my day we went outside after school and were active. We walked to school, a mile-and-a-half each way, every day. And no, we didn’t walk 5 miles through the snow with no boots after milking the cows at 5 am!!