Beware homemade cupcakes

Beware homemade cupcakes

school may ban party foods

By Frank Bradley

Sentinel writer

Who can resist a nice fluffy cupcake, well iced with colorful sprinkles? Most adults can’t as our waistlines give evidence to. Then think how hard it is for five, six, seven-year old child to forego that treat, especially if it is homemade like my mama used to make them. You know, flour, lots of sugar and butter–so they melt in your mouth.

Hold on Houston, we’ve got a problem. Not just with homemade cupcakes. With any homemade food made and brought to school as treats for kids. The problem is that there are a lot of kids these days who have all sorts of allergies. They are not just allergic to peanuts, or pollen or cow’s milk, but all sorts of other foods and food ingredients. That was the message school nurse Jo Anna Atkisson presented to the school board on Monday.

“We have seen an increased number of kids with special health issues,” she said. “We also have kids with diabetes, who require insulin and we have to know how many calories they are consuming. We can’t just guess at it. That’s too dangerous. The problem is not with the food we serve in the cafeteria, nor with packaged and/or store bought foods that specifically lists all ingredients and nutrition. It is really with foods that are brought into the classrooms for parties and celebrations. We don’t know what is in these foods, and it just might be something that triggers an allergy or cause a reaction in one of our children.”

Atkisson went on to say how difficult it is for a child to resist a treat when other children are eating it, even if they know it can harm them. And she said the danger is compounded when the nurses or a teacher doesn’t know what went into the treat.

She asked the board to develop a policy regarding the issue, and furnished them with a draft of such a policy.

Chairman Jason Rhinehardt said the board would study the recommended change to the school’s health policy to see what needs to be done.

Atkisson, who also serves on the School Health Advisory Council, thanked the board for increasing the number of defibrillators.

“We started off with one in each gym but found the response time was not what we wanted,” she said. “Then we got one in each school office and in the field house.” She said that teachers had been trained in how to use them and that the county EMS has been informed as to where they are located.

She said the school has worked out an agreement with the county health department to provide a lab wavier for the school nurses because they are doing only peripheral lab work. Not anything like what they do at the health department, she said.

Regarding the school’s wellness policy, Atkisson said the elementary school is unhappy that the students there do not get physical education training every school day instead of just three times a week. She said it is a concern to the students and teachers, but that the school does not have enough facilities to accommodate PE more often for the children.

“The gyms are already overcrowded,” she said. “We can only cram so many kids in at a time. Hopefully, that will change when we get more facilities. For now, we need to make a change to the policy manual reflecting their reduced physical activity.